Mostofa Sarwar
Farooki’s The Ant Story explores the
issue of contemporary Bangladeshi sexuality from a psychoanalytical
perspective. Briefly the narrative is driven by the search to recover a sex
tape made by an actress (a celebrity). The attempt to recover the tape allows
Farooki to comment on other aspects of contemporary Dhaka City making the film
a powerful critique of Bangladesh in the age of consumption
We
look at this complex film through the lens of Gerard Genette (1980) and his
concept of narrative discourse, emphasising three aspect of narrative, histoire (plot), recite (the voice) and narration (the techniques).
Histoire
An intimate
videotape featuring a film actress and her boyfriend in a compromising
situation accidentally falls into the hands of an ordinary Bangladeshi youth,
Mithu, who is struggling to come to terms with life in the big city. He has
insufficient funds to meet his every day needs let alone his desires – for
consumer goods that are representative of the move of Bangladesh into the
global economy. Consequently Mithu sees possession of the tape in toe ways; as
an opportunity to acquire things and as an investment that may bring power. The
actress Rima contacted Mithu to retrieve
the sex tape but Mithu, realizing the commercial value of the tape in his
possession, becomes a play master and he starts blackmailing Rima.
Before acquiring
the tape Mithu was jobless but later obtains a job in a MLM (Multi Level
Marketing) company (what’s the significance of this?). Upon Rima’s request, he
returns the mobile phone he found to Rima but keeps a copy of the sex tape.
Possession of this tape affects a change in Mithu; he sees himself as empowered
and able to move up in the consumer society he aspires to. He uses the to make Rima a client of his company, which
brings him credit in the eyes of his employers. However, Mithu decides to take
his putative control of Rima beyond using her for financial advantage; he
decides to enter a world of psychosexual role-playing. First Mithu takes Rima
to his ex-girlfriend’s house to make her jealous of his new girlfriend; a
glamorous celebrity thereby signifying his social rise. He also visits Rima’s
film set, which was shooting at Cox’s Bazar, much to her annoyance. The
role-playing concludes with an extreme act (in the Bangladeshi context), where
he compels Rima to play the role of his wife for one hour and he invites her
into his bed in an attempt to possess Rima as though she were like any other
commodity. Rima responds to the blackmailing by Mithu, complying with his
requests but refuses to go to the bed at the end judging that Mithu will not
ruin her life. Rima’s boyfriend also tries to get the copy of the sex tape from
Mithu, but these efforts failed. Rima then changes her approach to the problem
and arranges for gangsters to kidnap Mithu. The sudden arrival of the police at
the scene of the kidnapping allow Mithu to escape but his office then comes
under the scrutiny from the government and is shut down for illegal activities,
which leads to his clients, alarmed by the turn of events, started visiting
Mithu’s house to demand the return of their investments.
From the moment
the authorities are involved, Mithu’s life is filled with troubles and to
survive he becomes a fugitive. Rima cannot find Mithu, and she begins to fear
that the release of the sex tape on-line will destroy her career, which drives
her into depression. But Mithu’s life becomes even more miserable. He has no
job and no prospects, the creditors are relentless in the pursuit of their
money and he comes to fear death, which leads to a mental breakdown. His only
solution is to rush to his house and ask his parents for their protection
saying that he would be a good boy like before and he would start going to
school. In short he reverts to. In the last scene he is presented in school
uniform, staring at nothing. His sister is skeptical about Mithu’s mental
degeneration and asks whether his mental status was true or false. Mithu
remains silent and continues to stare at nothing.
Recit
The skill of
Farooki in making film lies in the fact that he deals with a contentious issue,
sex among the young alienated members of a changing society but never depicts
anything sexual explicitly. He negotiates the grey area of sexual activity
astutely, on the one hand conforming to local norms by not showing explicit
images but on the other hand challenges local conventions with frankness found
in few local film. The sex tape remains as the central motif of the storyline.
Thus the audience is engaged with a libidinal item but without ever seeing
anything explicit. The director’s
approach to the topic is essentially psychoanalytic showing how an object, the
sex tape, can bring change to the lives of people caught up in its tail, either
directly or incidentally, by playing of the subject’s fears about sex in a
repressed culture. This leads Farooki to adopt a rather gloomy view of life and
apart from a few comic lines of dialogue between Mithu and his ex-girlfriend’s
husband, the director does not leave any comfort space for the audience. No
human relationship is a good shape; cunningness, ugliness and tension occupy
the storyline. Love and innocence have all taken place in the past – Mithu
loses his humaneness, Rima’s fame is fragile dependent on a video tape, Rima’s
boyfriend loses his credibility (he was responsible for loosing the phone in
the first place), Mithu’s lost his love quite earlier, she is married to
another guy. In short Farooki takes a bleak view of humanity, suggesting that
in globalized city like contemporary Dhaka humanness is a victim of a predatory
consumer culture; it objects and not people that are important.
In terms of
money, fame and class, Rima has status in the city but the presence of the tape
puts her in an awkward situation; in the thrall of someone inferior and
insignificant in terms of class. Mithu actually lives outside of the city and
needs to cross the river to reach his house. These two persons, from two
different classes and backgrounds encounter one another in a context created by
modern technology, which is the most obvious sign of Dhaka having entered the
globalized economy. However, the main
focus of the director is not the class of the protagonists, rather his interest
lays in psychology of the characters, especially of Mithu. As a result the
film can be divided into two distinct
halves. In the first half of the film the narrative trajectory of the film
tends towards a docudrama, presenting the facts and commenting on contemporary
life through the images and the status of the main characters, but in the
second half he investigates the psychological world of Mithu. This is portrayed
surrealistically through dreams such as the beach scene where we see Mithu’s
imagined intimacy with Rima. A lot of masks are placed on the beach, as if
these are representing the time and people around. Some ants attack Mithu’s
face that is lying on the beach. Mithu rushes to the water to save his face.
The ant is a symbol here, which also a nickname of Rima’s boyfriend Ayon, the
name is given by Rima that suggests Ayon is a greedy ant that wants to taste
Rima’s sweet body. This greed was evident within Mithu as well but for him it
becomes the source of his ruin. The ants attack Mithu more than once in his
dream that turn into nightmares.
The fugitive
Mithu sleeps in a relative’s clothe shop where he appropriates a mannequin from
the shop as a surrogate for Rima and sleeps with it, his arms wrapped around
the model. This fetishistic act symbolizes his sexual desire for Rima. In
another sequence, Mithu meets Rima for the first time, and Mithu imagines the
first encounter with Rima in three different ways. These imagined encounters,
or dreams, allows the director to show us Mithu’s state of mind, which is in
turmoil. Rima’s imagination is also
given substance. Her depression, or mental disorder, is the ultimate consequences
of her actions, exacerbated by her interactions with, Mithu, on the other hand
seems to face two options leading to an open-ended closing – he has either gone
mad, or to avoid the problems he has created through his desire for success and
Rimi (they are virtually the same) he has taken to pretending madness as a
weapon of defence.
Despite political turmoil, structural constraints, and global
volatility, the Bangladeshi economy
maintains macroeconomic stability and is moving forward. GDP growth of
the country for 2015 is nearly 7.0 and the percentage of young in the workforce
is quite high. Moreover, Bangladesh is the only country in South Asia that has
an economy that has achieved above 2% annual growth in the last two decades.
Bangladesh remains in top three countries manufacturing ready-made garments
(RMG) for the global market and the money flow generated from the remittance of
the Bangladeshi labour force in the global market has created a robust national
reserve. Historically the country has a strong base in agricultural production
and is now self-sufficient in food production. Mithu wants to engage himself in
this economic euphoria but until the mobile phone into his possession he is
destined to remain forever on the fringe. Mithu’s desire for class transformation
leads him to take a job in a multi level marketing (MLM) company, which is
essentially a pyramid selling company that promises untold riches for very
little effort. However, under the pressure of post-globalized consumer culture,
people want to earn money anyway possible, even if it is not legal or ethical.
Thus the combination of the commentary on technology the mobile phone), human
desire, and economic cupidity presents a penetrating analysis of contemporary
Bangladesh. In passing, it should be noted that in 2013 pyramid selling was
outlawed in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has
one of the highest rates of mobile telephony usage in the region. Within a very
short period of time mobile phones have penetrated every level of society. In
many respects the phone is a boon because of its flexibility to people like
rickshaw drivers and housemaids as well as international business but it has
also acquired the reputation for sensational misuse. The celebrity sex tape has
become a phenomenon with intimate video clips of the celebrities being released
online. In many cases, the boyfriend often does it after the break-up of
relationship. Thus Bangladesh enters the world of revenge porn. In many
respects the incident narrated in The Ant
Story is similar to an actual case where a sex tape of the actress and
model Sadia Jahan Prova became available on internet, released by her
ex-boyfriend Rajib and the subject of much
talk in Bangladesh in 2010.
The film also
portrays the contemporary landscapes of Dhaka city. Rather than show the exotic
and antique it focuses visually on the newly made flyovers, the Buriganga
river, buses and cars in the street presenting a composite a picture of the
city. In this way, the film suggests that Mithu’s search for masculinity and
the contemporary city feed of one another.
Narration
In this film
Farooki adopts some novel and interesting narrative strategies to tell his
story. The sequence where Mithu coerces Rimi into pretending to be his wife is
a case in point. Rima is situated in a darkened room, and the light coming from
outside of the frame falls on to Rima’s face, her face emphasizing her hatred
and helplessness. Meanwhile Mithu is enters the room with a mechanical doll
suggesting it is their imagined daughter. The doll is put on a table, Mithu
calls Rima to come to bed – in the background a part of the bed is seen and in
the foreground the doll continues nodding its head. This scene signifies that
what scene the camera focuses on the torso of a sculpture, which signifies the
agony, and pain of Rima.
The relationship
with the shop owner in whose shop the fugitive Mithu passes his nights is not
clear in the film. In the first encounter, the owner rebukes Mithu but his
words as well as the reason for them is not clear. In other scenes, the
characters are taken to an open place at the outskirt of the city, but again
the reason for this action is not clear. In addition the film curiously paced
with the first part of the film largely occupied by the video clip issue, and
at one stage, the audience might feel how limited was the plot. These might be some
limitations of the film but in many
senses this is a well-made film. The selection of the actors, cinematography,
background music, use of sound – everything is done and performed in a
consistent manner. The director’s minimalist style can be noticed easily. The
first two films made by Mostofa Sarwar
Farooki (Bachelor and Made in Bangladesh) are dialogue driven
but in The Ant Story, we find the
small characters talk less and sometimes do not talk at all. Farooki allows the
images to tell the story, suggesting a mature approach to the craft of
filmmaking. We see also Mithu’s sister several times, but she only talks in the
last scene. Mithu’s father was seen in many scenes, but he never talks
suggesting to us, at least, something about the emasculation of males and the
older values of society that have come under assault in contemporary
Bangladesh. Something Farooki captures with skill and insight in The Ant Story.
Co-authored with Brian Shoesmith.
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