Sikkim (film)

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Movie
Original title Sikkim
Country of production India , Sikkim
original language English
Publishing year 1971
length 55 minutes
Rod
Director Satyajit Ray
script Satyajit Ray
production Palden Thondup Namgyal ( Chogyal of Sikkim )
music Satyajit Ray
camera Soumendu Roy
cut Dulal Dutta
occupation

Sikkim is a 1971 documentary directed by Satyajit Ray .

content

The film introduces Sikkim based on its geographical location between China , India , Nepal and Bhutan . In addition to the peaks of the Himalayas , especially the Kanchenjangha , the Tista river with its tributaries Rangit , Rangpo , Lachen and Lachung shapes the landscape. In the plant world with its forests and famous rhododendron trees , crops such as cardamom , oranges , wheat , barley , potatoes , corn and rice are also grown. As an example, the film shows the life of the rural population, around 90% of the total population of 200,000 people, in the Sikkim valleys and the life of the Lepchas , Nepalese, Tibetans and Bhutias in the cities of Namchi and Gangtok . The religion of the country is of the Mahayana - Buddhism influenced and many monasteries, the ruins of the ancient capital Rabdantse and the new monastery in Rumtek .

The royal palace of Sikkim is located on a hill in Gangtok. The current ruler and his family are presented with extensive images of public activities. Photographs inside the palace give an impression of their lifestyle.

The end of the Tibetan year is celebrated with a big festival. The preparations for this and the festival itself, the climax of which is a mask dance on the palace grounds, take up the last third of the film. The festival ends with the symbolic burning of a shrine made of straw to remedy the evils of the past year.

background

It is the only documentary by Ray that does not have a personality from Indian art as its theme. The rare recordings in the small kingdom in the Himalayas were commissioned by the then Chogyal ( Dharma King ) Palden Thondup Namgyal and his wife, the American Hope Cooke . Ray's cousin, who was friends with the couple, lured Ray with the promise of a well-paid vacation in the mountains and artistic freedom. In addition to his preferred poetic shots of the landscape and the population, Ray was forced to provide part of the film with embellished statistical information and in particular to emphasize the Sikkimese population compared to the majority of the Nepalese population. Some criticized scenes had to be removed after he showed the first cut to Chogyal and his wife. From 1975, after the Indian annexation of Sikkim, the showing of the film in India was banned because the government feared an idealization of the feudal state.

The film was thought to be lost for a long time . There were rumors that Hope Cooke had deposited a copy in a US university. In the British Film Institute is a version found in 2002 in the National Film Theater first arrived in London as part of a complete retrospective of films Satyajit Ray for public performance. In 2003 Richard Attenborough, President of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, presented a copy of the film to the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences .

The Indian government only lifted the performance ban in 2010, after only one public performance at the 16th Kolkata Film Festival 2010, the intended daily screenings were stopped by a sub-judicial decision on temporary legal protection at the instigation of the Art & Culture Trust of Sikkim. The official world premiere of the restored version took place on April 6, 2011 in Gangtok .

literature

  • Andrew Robinson: Satyajit Ray - The Inner Eye , revised edition 2004, pp. 275-276

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ BBC News : Ban on Satyajit Ray film lifted , September 17, 2010.
  2. ↑ Fest loses sole fizz ... in The Telegraph India of November 12, 2010
  3. ↑ Ray's Sikkim 'premiere' on April 6 in The Telegraph India on April 4, 2011