His camera moves almost seductively. There is the precision of geometry and the abandon of poetry. Light and shadow become characters and meanings emerge from different shadows. The camera, handled by director Gurvinder Singh is constantly moving, but there is no fatigue, only endless possibilities.
His latest film ‘Earthling’ is based on the works of architect Didi Contractor (Delia Narayan), a self-taught architect who specialized in buildings that fit, rather than clash, with the landscape and are made of local natural materials: mainly mud, bamboo and stone, with small amounts of wood. They also include the frequent use of stairs as a design element. These buildings are located in the area around Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh) and include more than 15 houses and three institutions.
The house shown at the beginning of the film was being built when the director was living in Bir, Himachal Pradesh. And he remembers seeing Didi.
“He had come to visit the site and this was the last house he built. And at that time, who could have imagined that I would be asked to work on a project like this? I was familiar with the local architecture, ethos and people and it made it easier. I felt like I belonged in the space and I could perform it. In a way, I was both an insider and an outsider – there was a huge emotional reason for doing the project,” Singh says of the documentary that took nearly two years to complete.
Produced by The Eco Logical Foundation, Singh, a National Award recipient whose films ‘Anhe Ghore Da Daan’ and ‘Chauthi Koot’ premiered at the Venice and Cannes Film Festivals respectively, and others like ‘Khanaur’ and ‘Adh Chanani Raat’ have been screened at various international festivals, he recalls that he did not use any artificial light in the creation of ‘Earthling’.
“But don’t most documentary photographers work without light? Movement was essential to work with the architecture as well, if the camera doesn’t move then it doesn’t make sense… And it was important to go through the buildings and not just look at fragments of them. So the project was adamant. To have good movements and we needed equipment, so we invested in them. These are very lightweight pieces of equipment specifically designed for DSLRs.
Adding that he had no qualms about the many iterations needed to try different things and anything that evoked feelings – whether in the form of textures, how light entered the building or the texture between bamboo, stone and mud, he says: many contrasts were invented which resulted in abstractions and made the visuals ‘look’ like verse and the buildings managed to speak’.
Singh claims that this project was not too different from working with people, just more layered, with the relationship between different elements easily decipherable.
“Shooting people is also like shooting architecture, and space is omnipresent. It is also a (space) character and it is already there. Whereas fiction is predetermined by the script, and you discover things as you go along, in a documentary the narrative is created in parallel. It was a challenge to process that and create the right rhythm – what should be highlighted and what should not be highlighted – the people who inhabit these buildings, their stories and their experiences living and working in the buildings. How to divide time between talking about things. And there were long shots of Didi, but they created life. It was interesting to see the contrasts between the two shots and the dialogue between them.”
Believing in the political and social aspect of cinema, which “reveals you as a person”, the director, who has worked in various genres, says that they all satisfy a different need and interest.
“My other documentary ‘Trolley Times’ about the farmers’ protest is a passionate response to what was happening at the time. It also arose out of the need to document an important event of our time – the largest protest in human history. I would like to make many different types of films and work with different kinds of groups, intimate and large. There are different needs and these will lead to different interactions with people and situations and with life.’
We’re talking about ‘Trolley Times’, a four-hour project. “It should be out this year. As for other things going on, it all depends on the funding,” says the director, who wanted to be an architect as a youth but rejected the idea as pursuing it would mean talking about science.
KT Ravindran, former Head of Urban Planning at the Capital School of Planning and Architecture, says ‘Earthling’ will be shown to students in architecture colleges and believes it’s time Didi’s methods are adopted on a larger scale.
“We all feel the effects of climate change. Didi proved that it is possible to build without leaving a huge carbon footprint.”
(Sukant Deepak can be contacted at [email protected])
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