Jewels lost

What's common between Tapan Sinha's 'Ankush', 'Tonsil', 'Kalamaati', Satyajit Ray's 'Kanchenjungha', Rajen Tarafdar's 'Palanka', Mrinal Sen's 'Raat Bhor' and Sudhir Mukherjee's 'Dada Thakur'? Despite all our love and respect for Bengali classics, either the prints of these movies are lost or their original negatives have got so severely damaged that they are beyond restoration.
If this isn't shameful enough, there's more. A number of VCDs or DVDs of cult Bengali movies that are available in the market don't always have the full prints of the movies. The result is half-baked films that frustratingly have two or three reels missing or movies with poor audio quality that make it very difficult to decipher the dialogues. For yet others, it's about showing and seeing a movie from prints stitched together from various versions that sadly don't always have all the ingredients of the original film.
Says Sanjay Mukhopadhyay, professor of film studies, Jadavpur University, "Prints of Mrinal Sen's 'Raat Bhor', 'Punascho', 'Pratinidhi' are missing. Barin Saha's 'Tero Nodir Pare' is seriously damaged and even the National Film Archives in Pune can't show this movie. It's difficult to trace the prints of Rajen Tarafdar's 'Palanka'. What's worse is that no prints of any Bengali movie from 1898 to 1931 is available for public viewing or studies in cinema. Mrinal Sen had chanced upon a print of Kalipada Das' 1931 movie 'Jamai Babu' while shooting for 'Akaler Sandhane'. Even the prints that are available of Ghatak and Ray don't always have the original title cards. This is true for Ghatak's 'Ajantrik' and 'Bari Theke Paliye'."
Says Sounak Chacraverti, whose organization is trying to archive Bengali cinema, "I had bought a VCD of Tapan Sinha's 1975 film 'Raja' and was shocked to find that the VCD version had been reduced to just an hour-long film. When this film, starring Debraj Roy, Mahua Roy Chowdhury, Debika Mukherjee, Anil Chatterjee and Bhishma Guhathakurta, was released, it had stirred a huge controversy because of its use of expletives. However, today, even if one gets hold of a VCD, it will not have the entire movie. Even the print condition of Sinha's 'Arohi', which won the President's silver medal, a certificate of merit at the London Film Festival and a silver medal at the Locarno Film Festival, is very sad. It's difficult to locate the original producers."
Producer Pritam Jalan confesses that the print of 'Hasuli Baker Upakatha' is in a sorry state. "My father Shyamlal Jalan had produced Tapan Sinha's 1962 film 'Hasuli Baker Upakatha'. The film, starring Kali Banerjee, Dilip Roy and Robi Ghosh, which was feted at the San Francisco Festival, can't be screened today because the print was not taken to the lab on time and hence, got spoilt. My father also produced 'Dada Thakur' that won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film. Unfortunately, I can't show 'Dada Thakur' today because two of the reels are completely damaged," Jalan says.
But why is it that care wasn't taken to preserve such valuable prints? Is it just a laidback attitude, financial problem or simply an inability to understand the historical importance of restoration and preservation of such movies? "Back in the '60s, Bengal was technologically not that advanced. We had to store the black and white negatives either in the lab or at the national archives. The films which bagged the National Awards were stored in the archives. The rest were not taken by them and had to be preserved in the local labs of the respective cities. Now, these labs didn't have proper air-conditioning facilities or the required storage space. If the negatives are not touched for years, the acid seeps out, resulting in a foul smell. The loss is more for those who have not converted the negatives into the digital format. Personally speaking, I regret the loss of the two negatives of 'Dada Thakur' and 'Hasuli Baker Upakatha'. It's a tough task rejuvenating these damaged negatives since one has to work on them frame by frame. That's an extremely difficult and expensive process," Jalan explains.
While preservation is definitely a difficult process, what's sad, says Ramlal Nandi, managing director of New Theatres and managing director of Chayabani Pictures, is that today there are few who are even interested in it. "Buying prints and reselling them to channels has now become a business venture. Few want to actually pay heed to the importance of preservation. Prints are sourced, bought and the rights are given for a few years to a particular channel only to be sold again after a few years. I have 15 titles of Uttam Kumar, including 'Grihadaha', 'Kamallata', 'Harano Sur', 'Haat Baralei Bandhu', 'Rajdrohi', 'Bondhu', 'Nayika Sambad', 'Stree', 'Jatugriha', 'Alo Amar Alo', 'Mayamrigo', 'Bou Thakuranir Haat' and 'Bhranti Bilash'. I have my own laboratory where I preserve prints and negatives. For that, I need an AC vault, individual checkers who change the black and white 'leaders'. Just to preserve 70 to 75 movies every year, I have to spend around Rs 22 lakh."
Restoration costs, of course, are even higher. "It would take anywhere between Rs 30 lakh and Rs 35 lakh to restore a Bengali movie today. In contrast, a regional channel would pay Rs 3 lakh to Rs 4 lakh to buy the rights of a Bengali movie for a period of five years. If there is no international market and no government aid, how will an individual producer be able to restore a movie? Some of the old production houses have downed their shutters or are on the verge of closing down. For them, it's difficult to make ends meet. How does one expect them to be spending a fortune in preservation work? Is it possible to think of preservation of movies like 'Har Mana Har', 'Bipasha', 'Shilpi' and 'Mombati' when the banners that produced them are not in a good shape? Those who have kept cassettes of old movies have not ensured that fungus have affected the beta tapes."
That acute need of increasing awareness levels for preservation and restoration is a must. It's also time for the government to come forward to support the restoration of movies. The loss is monumental and even if one doesn't understand its implication now, there will come a time when film scholars will not stop short of blaming today's Bengal for not restoring and preserving a slice of history.
Focus on preservation to save the rest
While Kolkata doesn't have any provisions for restoring films, attention is being paid to the preservation of movies. Vaults at the Chalachchitra Satabarsha Bhavan are in place to take care of movies of Bengal's celebrated maestros. Though as of now as many as 10,000 reels of films can be stored and preserved in these vaults, talks are on to increase the storage space too.
Says Debananda Sengupta, executive officer, Chalachchitra Satabarsha Bhavan: "The government had set up an archive in 2007. No other state government has a film archive like this. The archive houses four film vaults. Two vaults are dedicated for preserving black and white movies. The technical requirements for black and white film preservation are relative humidity of 30% and temperature between 20oC and 22oC. For movies that are in colour, the relative humidity has to be 30% and the temperature has to be between 4oC and 6oC. While we have space to store 10,000 reels of film, 6,000 reels are already being preserved. That includes reels of features films, documentaries, short films and news reels too."
Among the movies that are stored in these vaults are classics of Ray, Ghatak and even Uttam Kumar. "We have Uttam Kumar's films like 'Chiriakhana', 'Antony Firingi' and 'Abhoyer Biye', among others. Among the Mrinal Sen movies, we have 'Khandahar', 'Ekdin Protidin' and 'Kolkata 71'. All of Ghatak's movies and documentaries are preserved in our vaults. A producer of Tapan Sinha's films also had approached us to preserve his 'Safed Hathi' and 'Harmonium'. We are working on this," Sengupta adds.
Preserving movies is also an expensive affair. "Our monthly electricity bills runs into Rs 3 lakh. We have a film checker who has to check and clean every film once in six months. That's done by rotation. The checker has to be paid Rs 20 for looking after one reel," Sengupta says.
However, there is need for improving awareness among directors and producers to preserve their movies. Says filmmaker Haranath Chakraborty, "The unfortunate part is the lack of awareness among producers and the will to use the facilities that the government has offered for preservation of movies. We have formed a committee and have been discussing how to renovate the building adjacent to this property so that we can turn this into a film hub. Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Satabdi Roy, Ranjit Mallick, Dipankar De, Debananda Sengupta and I came together with various ideas. We are looking at increasing the space for film archival purposes. That apart, we want to build a preview theatre where directors can preview their movies made in various formats as well."
This 200-seater auditorium will be a new addition for Kolkata's culturescape. Earlier Lighthouse miniature and Roxy used to have these kind of preview theatres. But they have shut down. This new auditorium will revive this culture and will have Dolby Digital facilities too. "We want to use this auditorium for academic purposes. Work has already begun and we are looking at completion within a year," Sengupta signs off.