The 20 Best Post-Liberation (1972-2000) Films from Bangladesh

 

Asad and Subarna in the film Ghuddi (1980)

Bangladesh started producing film regularly since mid-1950s when it was part of Pakistan. Due to the colonial military rule by the central West Pakistan, there was rise of Bengali nationalism and people of East Pakistan started revolting. The East did not get the power even though their political party Bangladesh Awami League got absolute majority in 1970 Pakistan election. The people of East got increasingly agitated and there was a military crackdown in the midnight of March 25, 1971 and the war started. Through the resistance of freedom fighters and the diplomatic and military support from India, Bangladesh got liberated on December 16, 1971 from Pakistan.

This article selects 20 best films in post-liberation (1972-2000) Bangladesh. The country had a vibrant mainstream film industry in 1970s and 1980s. Since 1990s, the industry started declining due to many internal and external factors. Meanwhile, since the mid-1980s, there was a slow but steady growth of independent cinema which started representing the national cinema of Bangladesh by documenting politics, culture and society, both in fiction and documentary genres and by participating in international festivals. Until mid-1990s, independent films were artisanal in look – short in length and technically ordinary; gradually they started to be more mature – full length in duration and comprehensive in film techniques. 

A Brief and Handy History of Bangladesh Cinema

This book is a snapshot of the first hundred and twenty years or so of cinema in Bangladesh. The shot is a panoramic one. It would require further studies on the part of an inquisitive mind interested in the details of this snapshot. The relevance of this work lies in the enquiry that it may arouse and the process of intellectual and methodical pursuit that it may stimulate about the subject.

Table of Content 

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: Mainstream Cinema

Chapter 1: Independent Cinema

Epilogue

Available at

Available at Batighar and Pathak Samabesh, Dhaka

Online order in Bangladesh: https://www.boobook.co/shop/cinema-of-bangladesh-a-brief-history/?fbclid=IwAR3TDRUZjodiw4HaBdU49dMRVJAB6SS23d9reY6Eem_U5NfHSLO3FTHEMbY

For international readers: https://www.amazon.com/CINEMA-BANGLADESH-BRIEF-HISTORY-Fahmidul/dp/9849472006/ref=sr_1_5?dchild=1&keywords=Fahmidul+Haq&qid=1600456843&sr=8-5

The book is published by Nokta, Dhaka July, 2020

Price: BDT 485, $14.5

20 Great Bangladeshi Films of the 21st Century

After the advent of new technologies such as satellite TV, CD/DVD in 1990s and Internet streaming in 2000s, Bangladesh’s mainstream industry, which was once vibrant, started declining. Meanwhile, since the  mid-1980s, there was a slow but steady growth of independent cinema which started representing the national cinema of Bangladesh by documenting politics, culture and society, both in fiction and documentary genres and by participating in international festivals. Primarily these films were artisanal in look – short in length and technically ordinary; gradually they started to be more mature – full length in duration and comprehensive in film techniques. Since 2000 and onward, Bangladeshi cinema is trying to find its own voice internationally, which is often overshadowed by Indian Bengali Cinema that reached its peak by the contributions of Satyajir Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and others. In the new millennium, Bangladeshi cinema has elevated from the ‘artisanal’ to the ‘global’ stage. Also, there was an evolution in the themes of Bangladeshi Cinema – from rural to urban and from traditional-cultural archetypes to post-modern and post-globalized complex realities.

Bamboo Stories: Poetic and Humane

Berlin based director Shaheen Dill-Riaz's latest documentary 'Bamboo Stories' (বাঁশ বৈভব) is an ethnography of the people of North-Eastern Bangladesh who are segregated in the long-practiced divisions of labor -- loggers, rafters, retailers, wholesalers and lease holders, all are the part of the chain -- collecting bamboos from the forests in the hills and selling it in the market.

I liked the observational nature of the documentary and the approach of telling a humane story. I was amazed to see the creative use of the drone shots and was stunned by the background score which enhanced the depth of the story. The last sequence was excellent -- the way bamboos were brought down from the hill to the plane by using the strong current of the stream coming down from the hill.

Extraction: A White Man’s Rescue Mission in a Filthy South Asian City

At last Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh became the subject matter of a Hollywood action movie. After visiting a lot of African countries and Iraq or Afghanistan, the American culture industry found the existence of a small country (big in population size) in South Asia to explore a crime thriller. Though most of the actions of the movie occurred in Dhaka, apart from some plate shots, entire shooting took place in India and Thailand.

When the story of a Hollywood action/thriller movie crosses the border, it portrays a country as the villain’s habitat and a white man as the savior (he would be nearly a superman) of the victim. Under this formula, Dhaka is treated as the habitat of the villain, the drug lord Asif who kidnapped and held Ovi, the son of the drug lord from Mumbai, India for ransom. Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth), a black-market mercenary was hired (from Australia) to ‘extract’ the boy from the drug racket in Dhaka. He all alone, remotely backed by his team, rescued the boy and being severely injured, he fell down in the river from the bridge in the outskirt of the city, which was locked down by the law enforcing agencies with the order of the drug lord Asif.