Author: Shampa Banerjee
Publisher: Seagull Books
Year: 1986
Language: English
Pages: 121
ISBN/UPC (if available): 0856471097
Description
This book is a Filmscript of a film by Ketan Mehta which tells a folk tale that combines palace intrigue, silvan romance, caste oppression and the revolt of the lower castes against the higher.
The origins of the Bhavai can be traced to the fourteenth century when Asait Thakore was said to have composed three hundred and sixty short plays as an offering to the Mother Goddess, Amba. In a hilariously disturbing style that draws on Brecht, the Asterix comics, and the Bhavai, this film is set in a part of India often the scene of bloody caste wars.
In making this film, Ketan Mehta ' was searching for a kind of form which was not completely geared towards providing catharsis, one that left scope for putting forth ideas and triggering off more ideas, and placing questions before the spectators, instead of satisfying them with a given 'destiny' that provided no sense of discovery to them.