‘You have to be distant and yet be close’: Sarvnik Kaur on ‘Against the Tide’

Though Against The Tide has as dramatic a story arc as any fiction film, it first snares the viewer with image and sound. The first shot is of a baby being massaged lovingly by his grandmother. We see the baby’s father, Rakesh, head into the sea, to the accompaniment of a Koli work song that goes “Fear not, fear not, fear not.” Later, Rakesh talks to his friend Ganesh, another fisherman, who says that if the catch is good, they should go to Scotland. We see Ganesh in his car, metal blaring, and then in the glorious chaos of a pre-dawn Mumbai fish market.

Against The Tide is Sarvnik Kaur’s second feature documentary after the National Award-winning Soz: A Ballad Of Maladies (2016), co-directed with Tushar Madhav, about music and personal expression in militarised Kashmir. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won the World Cinema Documentary Special Jury Award: Vérité. This film, some six years in the making, follows Rakesh and Ganesh as they negotiate a competitive, shrinking market. Rakesh is a traditional Koli fisherman, who goes out alone with his boat. Ganesh has a bigger boat with a crew; he fishes in the deep sea, which Rakesh is opposed to. Kaur captures their banter and lively debates and their lives with their families, creating an intimate portrait of a friendship caught between progress and tradition, identity and ambition. Edited excerpts from a Zoom interview with Kaur:

This was your first feature film after ‘Soz’. What drew you to the Koli community?

On Soz, I was filming in Kashmir as a mainlander. After the shoot was done, I realised I had no business being there. Someone in Kashmir had told me, why don’t you pick up a camera and make a film on your backyard? That stung but it made a lot of sense.

I have lived next to a Koli village for all my time in Bombay. While I was in Kashmir, there was a news story that caught my attention, about the displacement of Kolis from their villages for the sake of a coastal road. That’s really what drew me to it, the fact that it was right in my backyard, an opportunity to tell a story in which I could immerse my life and the viewer eventually.

I started working with a Koli fisherwomen’s collective at that time, around May-June 2017. There was a woman at the collective called Bhanu Vasudev Koli who invited me home for lunch one day, where I met Rakesh, her son. He took me fishing in a small boat. We caught the fish, ate it. He said something wonderful—“Koli aadmi kabhi bhooka nahi marega. Mujhe sirf paani mein jaana hai and main apne family ka pet bhar sakta hoon (a Koli will never go hungry. I only need to go into the water to feed my family).”

He says something like that in the film too.

That was his favourite (thing to say). Traditional fishermen have bamboos embedded in the seabed, upon which they tie their nets and catch fish. If Sagarmala (a Union government port development project) were to happen, they would be displaced and lose their place in the sea too. This brought all the Kolis together, from all of Bombay and Gujarat. It was at this protest that I met Ganesh for the first time. Ganesh wasn’t talking the language of protest, he was talking scientifically—nautical miles, pollution, plastic. He said Kolis are the last bastion of Bombay, that without them the city would drown, because they are standing between the mangroves and the city.

It was about a month later that I went to meet Rakesh. And there was Ganesh, sitting and drinking with him. Over the next year or so, the three of us would meet and drink whisky, and these two would debate, argue, fight, get up and swear not to talk to each other, and then get back together. Their arguments were reflective of not just the difference in their fishing but also their approach to life. It was almost like I was looking at two different sides of a coin. And still there was this common love for the sea, for fishing, for identity. I knew this was going to be the backbone of my film. A series of conversations between two men who belonged to two different spectrums but found themselves tied together.

We knew there was a crisis on the sea. The first time I went with Rakesh, he got tons of plastic and very little fish. I knew we would find jellyfish infestation, chemical pollution. But I wanted to connect my story to the fact that everything that happens on the sea also happens in their personal lives.

This film has taken a long time in shaping. It could only happen because the three of us had a bond.

There are moments in the film when the men must be vulnerable, like when they fight with each other or argue with their wives. How did you tackle the power dynamic between yourself as film-maker and them?

I was never asking them to be my subjects. I was seeking collaboration. I was filming, I was making short edits, which I would show them. We would discuss these. They would sometimes guide me. At no point did I want to make them look like anything they didn’t feel is true. And only once I had their blessing could I continue. So every step of the way was a litmus test.

The camera became a way of catharsis, of saying things that would go unheard otherwise. That’s the craft, and that’s the trust-building exercise. How do you stay there with your camera when the moment is so fragile? You have to make your presence as small as possible, you don’t even want to breathe in case it disturbs the moment. You have to be distant and yet be close.

A lot of the imagery in the film is so arresting. Tell us about your collaboration with cinematographer Ashok Meena.

Many DoPs (directors of photography) came and went, no one could give me the language I was looking for. Then one day I saw (Kamal Swaroop’s) Pushkar Puran (2017) and I asked, who is this magician? Ashok does this because he loves doing it. That’s why the Vérité award was special because it says so much about collaboration. He engages with the moment not just with his mind but with his heart. He’s so aware of what’s happening around.

Our unit was always three people: me, the camera and sound. I didn’t want anything bigger because then it becomes intrusive. Our cameras were always tiny, we were always working with DSLRs. It was often not possible for me to watch the frame constantly. I had to trust my DoP. And my DoP had to trust me to know what I was doing. Because we were filming for 10 hours a day, because we wanted the everyday-ness in the film. That’s something Ashok understood, that we are aiming for the mundane, that beauty in detail.

Though it isn’t a musical film like ‘Soz’, you do use music to establish setting and character, from the work songs the fishermen sing to ‘Mi Dolkara Daryacha Raja’ playing on the radio.

When you are working with artists, everyone wants to add value to the film. It’s difficult to keep people understated. I did not want “story interventions”. I would say (to composer Igor Vasilev Novogradska), don’t bring me pictures, I want colours. He would bring these complex melodies inspired by Koli spaces and I would say, this needs to change. It took us four-five months of deletion. I wanted anything that would tell me how beautiful this ordinary, this everyday is.

Was securing funding a struggle?

I have done everything from selling off my gold to crowdfunding to eventually finding the support. I think the support came through once I had more clarity on where the story was going, which is very important for funders to know. It has been a very production-heavy, cost-intensive film because we needed two boats, we needed to go into the deep sea. But I never let money be the reason why we would stop. I have done whatever was needed at the moment.

You have to think on your feet. If you are willing, you will find a way to do it. The commitment you have to your film, the clarity with which you approach it, the relationship you have to the process will eventually be reflected in the money you are able to raise.

This piece was published in Mint Lounge.

Algorithms: Review

In the wrong hands, a documentary about blind chess players could have been unbearable. It isn’t tough to imagine how an overly righteous treatment of the subject would look—weepy strings on the soundtrack, parents with hard-luck stories, slo-mo shots of players raising their hands in triumph. Luckily, Algorithms isn’t concerned with being “inspiring” or “heartwarming” or Satyamev Jayate-like. It sticks close to its subjects, respecting their skill, refusing to sentimentalize them.

The film, made in 2012 but getting a theatrical release in India now, follows three junior players: 12-year-old Sai Krishna from Chennai, 16-year-old Anant from Bhubaneswar and 15-year-old Darpan from Vadodara. We follow their progress over three years as they compete in tournaments within and outside India. We see their personalities take shape: Darpan, charmingly garrulous; Sai Krishna, serious, confidently cool during matches and emotional afterwards; Anant, trying to balance chess, his studies and his diminished economic circumstances. Tying it all together is Charudatta Jadhav, a champion blind chess player who has dedicated his life to developing the game in India.

Algorithms eschews voice-over narration, which helps it avoid portentousness and gives viewers a chance to ease their way into the film. There’s no great effort made to explain how chess for the visually impaired works—one eventually finds out that the black pieces have an identifying peg on them. There’s a great scene early on in which Anant asks a sighted player he has just lost to, about the “end game position”; when his opponent says he can’t remember it, Anant says that he does and starts rearranging the board. Later in the film, Sai Krishna rattles off a game from memory. All chess players have a picture of the board in their mind, but this scene shows how this is literally true for blind players.

The film thrusts the viewer into the midst of games, amongst clutched foreheads and impatient taps, like any good sports film ought to. It has been shot—very fetchingly, by the director, Ian McDonald—in black and white. Symbolically, this makes sense: a minor sensory deprivation (colour) standing in for a major one—sight. It’s also fair—if a little too on the nose—for a film about chess to mimic the visual pattern of a chessboard. Though he’s made a number of smaller documentaries before, this is McDonald’s first feature-length film, and he displays a sure hand, ratcheting up the pace during matches ('Guitar' Prasanna’s score is a huge help in this) before calming things down and checking in with his charges and their very supportive families.

Algorithms could easily just have been a film about Jadhav, who went blind in his teens but nevertheless became a champion player, and then stopped competing so that he could coach others. There’s a real poignancy to the scene where he shows two children his pieces from his playing days, or when he urges Sai Krishna to develop his game and not become “stagnant” like he did. Jadhav’s dream, stated early on and reiterated throughout, is to mentor a blind Indian grandmaster. One hopes that this spare, thoughtful film will rally some support around those working towards this very worthy goal.

This review appeared in Mint.

Difficult Tunes: Amy, Montage of Heck & What Happened, Miss Simone?

Towards the end of Asif Kapadia’s documentary on Amy Winehouse, we see the late singer in the studio with Tony Bennett. We know that Bennett is one of Winehouse’s idols, and she’s visibly nervous as they begin recording "Body And Soul". Bennett sings a verse, then Winehouse comes in and does what she did better than any of her compatriots: Make an old standard new and surprising. But she looks miserable, and asks Bennett if they can start over. “I was terrible. I just don’t want to waste your time,” she mutters. He reassures her, telling her they’ll keep at it until they get one that works. “You’re not in any hurry, are you?” he asks.

The sad thing is that Winehouse really was, if not in a hurry, then at least out of time. Whether she knew that she would be stepping off the roller-coaster her life had become is difficult to say. What we do know is that the 23 March 2011 recording was her last studio session. She died on 23 July that year, just 27 years old, of accidental alcohol poisoning.

Amy traces her sudden rise to stardom after her single "Rehab" and her drawn-out and extremely well-documented fall. It’s the first great documentary of the TMZ era, where all your missteps are recorded and all your demons are public if you’re a celebrity. London-based Kapadia creates a life out of small fragments, gathering all the audio and video matter relating to Winehouse that he could lay his hands on and piecing them together to form a mosaic of opinions, recollections and judgements. He also spoke to over 100 people connected to Winehouse. However, instead of showing us the interviews, Kapadia uses them as narration, layering them over footage of Winehouse, often as a comment on whatever is unfolding.

Amy’s patchwork nature may strike several viewers as haphazard, lacking in the kind of structure one expects from films that are telling a life story. Yet there is great skill involved in piecing together material this way. By the time Winehouse enters her drugs and rehabilitation phase, the film has already foreshadowed this. At the same time, there’s a refusal to underline things and foist a point of view on the viewer that makes this a lot more challenging (and moving) than your average rockumentary.

Amy emerged as an unlikely critical darling when it premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Amazingly, this wasn’t the first documentary about a troubled musician to premiere at a major festival this year. Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck played at the Sundance Film Festival in the US in January. Director Brett Morgen was approached by Courtney Love, Cobain’s widow, to make a film on her husband. What makes it unique is that he was given access to a storage facility full of recordings, journals and drawings belonging to Cobain—material that no one, not even the family, had seen before.

Morgen creates an astonishingly intimate portrait of a man about whom one might have assumed there was nothing left to be said. It’s not that we see a new Cobain through this film—those who’ve read Charles R. Cross’ biography Heavier Than Heaven will recognize the sardonic, petulant and, yes, brilliant man on screen here. What’s surprising is the perspective we’re offered. Montage Of Heck is Cobain on Cobain.

Morgen’s foregrounding of the long-buried material he found means that this film is the closest we’ve come—probably the closest we’ll ever come—to an autobiography of the man. In the absence of a voice of god narrator, Cobain becomes a kind of narrator himself, with Morgen arranging his recordings, interviews, scribbles and artwork (the film’s title refers to an audio montage that Cobain made) to tell his story. In the parts where visual evidence is missing, the story is continued either with animation sequences or Cobain’s macabre drawings transformed into motion graphics.

Montage Of Heck stumbles when Morgen peppers his narrative with that rock-doc staple—talking heads. We hear from Love, Cobain’s mother and father, his bandmate Krist Novoselic (though Dave Grohl is absent) and his old girlfriend. The Cobains had never spoken about their son on film before, so one can understand Morgen’s reasons for including their views. Still, it feels like a mistake, a nod to convention that’s both unnecessary and out of sync with the rest of the material.

There was another documentary about a brittle, brilliant pop star at the Sundance Film Festival. This was What Happened, Miss Simone?, which takes its title from a tribute by poet Maya Angelou. Though its subject matter is just as incendiary as the other two films, director Liz Garbus’ treatment of Nina Simone’s life is done in a manner more akin to a PBS, or Public Broadcasting Service, biography—professional but not revelatory. A film like Amy or Montage Of Heck would have taken the assertion by Simone’s daughter, early in the film, that her mother was “Nina Simone 24x7, and that’s where it became a problem” and run with it. Instead, the film only connects this to the singer’s bipolar disorder in the closing moments of the film.

What Happened, Miss Simone? has no problem relying on talking heads to push its story. This works on some occasions—the reminiscences by Simone’s daughter are especially poignant—but there’s also the perplexing decision to give a lot of screen time to her abusive former husband, Andrew Stroud, who disparages her shift towards political activism. There are a couple of unnecessary recreations of scenes from the young Simone’s life. Also, there’s not nearly enough time given to explaining what made her music—a melange of jazz, soul, gospel, folk and classical—so unique.

There’s a lot to recommend this film, though. By devoting a large chunk of its running time to Simone’s politics, the film finds a breadth of perspective that the Cobain and Winehouse ones, both claustrophobically focused on their subjects, miss out on. And the clips of her performing are electrifying. The opening, with her performing at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival, shows the viewer what a hair-raising, unpredictable performer she could be (“Sit down!” she barks at an audience member). We see her performing "Mississippi Goddam" at a charged civil rights gathering. Even her TV appearances are thrilling, transporting—which is saying something when one of them involves being introduced by Playboy founder Hugh Hefner.

Taken together, these three films are great additions to the warts-and-all music documentaries tradition, which includes such warped classics as Let It Be, Madonna: Truth Or Dare, Some Kind Of Monster and I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. It also marks a great year for the musical film in general. Love & Mercy, a film about The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson, opened to strong reviews, as did Mia Hansen-Løve’s Eden, about the birth of the French House scene. Miles Ahead, Don Cheadle’s film on Miles Davis, will close the New York Film Festival in October. And there’s the tantalizing prospect of a documentary on masked techno duo Daft Punk. Happy viewing, then, and happy listening.

This piece appeared in Mint Lounge.