In The Indian Temple Of Cinema, I Apologise

Left to right: Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen

I would like to deeply apologise to my review of Jailer yesterday where I had written about the European cinematic movement, about Andre Bazin, about the George Melies, The Lumieres.

Iam sorry because like all Indians I had unfortunately, because of our own inferiority complex, because of our own confirmacy bias, not read and learned about our own past history.

Iam sorry for being so fascinated by the European Youth Movement i.e. French New Wave while absolutely being ignorant about Mrinal Sen's legendary 1968 Manifesto Of New Cinema which called for a radical and more experimental showcase of human lives which was followed by two of the most "Avante Garde" trilogy of those times both in terms of form and content: The Calcutta Trilogy of Satyajit Ray and The Calcutta Trilogy Of Mrinal Sen.

Iam sorry that like Nilan in Pattas, i remained ignorant about our own history and saw foreign films as the dawn of the new age when we had already showed what was the new age years back eventhough, because of conditions, both social and economic, we couldn't share it with many others, conditions, the French New Wave had great access to.

Im sorry for denouncing my own cinematic history as being wilfully commercial and escapist even when they, with the knowledge and idea they had, tried to be inventive as much as they could like the climax fight in Chandrodhayam.

Im sorry that even when we have such great access to our past, we instead try to emulate the past of a filmmaker.

Im sorry that we have fictionalised mainstream when instead we should have fictionalised life as it is, here, there and everywhere.