Unspooling nostalgia from all things retro

The name of Films Division (FD) will conjure up memories among a particular generation of Indians. Memories of seeing boring newsreels before every film, which mainly highlighted government achievements and ministerial tours. The newsreels provided an opportunity to the viewer to pop out to the cinema foyer for a quick smoke or a cup of tea — who wanted yet another tedious explanation of which minister went in a helicopter to witness the floods in some part of India or the other?

Occasionally the FD produced an interesting documentary — hardcore buffs will recall short films by directors like Shyam Benegal, Sukhdev and Pramod Pati, but to the general audiences, these names or their films really meant nothing.
The FD faded into oblivion over the years and the newsreel died a natural death. The filmmakers moved on to more lucrative assignments. But now, suddenly, the FD is back in the news — its old films are in great demand and its recently launched documentary club, called FD Zone where short films are shown, is a big hit. DVDs of its older films are flying off the shelves and some of them are showing up on YouTube.
Something similar is happening with the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). This was one sarkari company, which, in its heyday, funded classic films like Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, Ghare Bhaire, Aakrosh, Ardh Satya and Garm Hava, among others — the list is endless. Not all films were great and nor did each one make huge money. But a large number of them can be counted among the best India has produced.
Again, the NFDC had fallen into a bit of a stupor. Now, after stirring itself awake, it is getting involved with the industry, promoting Indian cinema abroad and best of all, marketing its impressive library after getting the films digitally restored.
More than the sudden burst of activity in government organisations, it is the enthusiasm shown by younger crowds that is worth noting. Both the FD and the NFDC were rendered redundant by a combination of government policies, lack of interest among their consumers and the changing creative economy. The NFDC played a big role in developing the parallel cinema movement in the 1970s and 80s, but the decades after saw a big shift in audience tastes. As for the FD, in the day and age of satellite television, news channels and multiplexes, who would be interested in documentaries and newsreels that were little more than propaganda? Doordarshan, that much-maligned state broadcaster, too, has suffered a similar fate — it has a wide reach but it is the private channels that have captured most of the Sec A and Sec B demographic.
Yet, there is now a growing recognition that not only did those organisations serve a useful purpose; they produced some great documentaries, films and television programmes. Take DD for example — it produced Tamas, a long-running saga about Partition. Would any risk-averse private channel ever fund such a story? Or consider Nukkad, Saeed Mirza’s path-breaking weekly show, about the denizens of a lower middle-class neighbourhood and full of sharp social commentary and insights. In this era of conservative saas-bahu sagas, Saeed would not even get an appointment with the creative team of a big channel with his Nukkad idea.
Similarly, though Indie films are all the rage today, would a film like Ardh Satya, with its anti-establishment tone, find favour with producers? That kind of rebelliousness has vanished in the current climate of conformism. The Indie filmmaker of today is happy with glossy takes on urban, elitist angst, rather than the raw anger on the ground.
DD regrettably has been a bit slower in capitalising on the treasures that it holds but the re-release of high-quality films from the NFDC and the FD stables has been heartily welcomed by older consumers who were around when those movies and shorts were first released. What better way to relive the past?
Yet, why would younger viewers want to see them? They must have heard enough times from their parents about the good old days, which sound anything but good — what could possibly be fun about black and white documentaries or films in which the story moves along slowly and nobody goes abroad? And many NDFC films did not even have songs!
Part of this rising interest could be explained by hipster nostalgia for all things retro. These trendy types are constantly scrounging around for materials from the past and turning them into “projects” or “interventions” — discovering the quaint past is oh-so-cool. These are fads that come and go and there is a good chance that a couple of years from now, they would have moved on to other things.
The increasing interest in popularity of the old suggests another, deeper cause. The old classics of the NFDC and the black and white documentaries of the FD have exposed the limitations of the commercial model, which is all about profit and very rarely about any social purpose or indeed about art. The prevailing wisdom today is that the state should not be part of any activity barring providing us with good roads and running the Army. Netas and babus are seen as venal, corrupt and inefficient; what would they know about the arts? Leave it to the private sector, which has the best talent and knows what is good for the public, whether in health management or in making television shows — so goes the current mantra.
But when you see Garm Hava and realise that it was backed by public money (and made on a small budget), you realise that the government superstructure is capable of sensible artistic decisions. And it is from the same babudom a new group of bureaucrats full of new ideas has emerged. The NFDC today is not all about old films — it is projecting current Indian cinema far better than mainstream Bollywood producers and has interesting projects in the pipeline. This does not imply that everything from the government is good or alternatively the private sector produces poor films; but both can and must co-exist. But let us not be so quick in dismissing what the government bodies did. And for a small glimpse of what the babu-led NFDC produced in its time, do pick up a small selection of NFDC’s DVDs and see what you have missed.