Top-rated
1969
Director Louis Malle, who also narrates, continues his epic documentary by discussing how he and his crew are gradually losing track of time and living as Indians do. Things noted are done so with little regard to when they were filmed, but here in Part 4 his approach is more linear. First he shows a swarm of undisturbed bats in Trivandrum that shows the Indians' respect for life. Second is a derailed train on a roadside in Kerala, then a tea plantation in the nearby mountains. Next is footage from Periyar, both showing a 'fake' wildlife sanctuary and slave elephants working in Indian industries, and a tame tiger from the Mysore Zoo. Then there's footage from the port of Cochin, still an unexploited paradise. A singer is shown telling a story from Indian mythology, and fishermen are shown struggling to catch fish in Kerala and then send them by air to Europe. He then shows footage of peasants making string from coconut bark, then discusses how Kerala has the highest literacy rate in India, and thus also is the most politically aware spot. He then interviews representatives from the Left and Right Communist parties, as well as the Muslim, non-Communist Minister of Education, and notes how they struggle to set aside their ideological differences to do what's best for Kerala. The episode ends with villagers in a festival paying homage to an elephant, with girls waiting with presents for a Communist minister who arrives late.
Top-rated
1969
Malle starts the episode by interviewing Thomas Howard, a US Peace Corps agricultural specialist who's one of 700 volunteers there, then he shows footage from Haryana, a village in Northwest India with a huge Muslim influence. Various activities are shown, and Malle explains the four main caste categories--Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors), Vaisyas (peasants, merchants) and Sudras (which serve the others)--as well as the Untouchables (outcasts), Harijan (backward classes) and the quarantined (those who lack any caste). He states that in India, the relationship between people is important and not the individual. Dhobi, the lowest rank of the Untouchables, are shown doing everyone's laundry. He adds that while many think caste is an Aryan innovation from about 3,000 years ago, it may have originated in even earlier Indian civilizations. He shows a funeral procession, with 'mourners' celebrating to the tune of 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow'. With the metaphors of a blind camel endlessly forced to travel a circle to mix cement, and two teams of players playing a mixture of Red Rover and Greco-Roman wrestling, devolving into a huge free-for-all, Malle makes the claim that if India is going to prosper, it won't take fertilizer or irrigation but the changing of minds, which he feels won't take place anytime soon, both because the lowest classes don't want education of agricultural reform even if it's legislated, and those in charge of education are the Brahmans, who constitute the highest caste level. He completes the episode by showing a façade of democracy, as a village leader (sarpanch), accused of embezzlement, goes free because of his ties to the government, which consists of his caste.
Top-rated
1969
In this episode, director/narrator Malle concentrates on small pockets of people he has discovered with unique ways of life but that are endangered due to external pressures. First, he shows footage of the Bondo tribe, which eats and sacrifices cattle, refuses education, vaccination, and the paying of taxes. They are being forced deep into the forests because the government is taking their land for reforesting. The women make brooms, and selling them at the market is their only contact with the outside world and only source of income. The women marry younger husbands, and they can't marry partners from their own village. Divorce is common, and settled with the gifting of goats; there is no writing; no last names; babies are named according to the day they're born (i.e., Monday, Tuesday). In another village, a communist activist is shown, trying to organize the peasants: His attempts are difficult due to distance, illiteracy and language. Money lenders, the government and landowners thwart their every move. A rare church is shown, in Kerala, which has the greatest Christian population. Most of the rare conversions are at the opposite ends of the caste hierarchy: Brahmans and Untouchables. A young Syriac priest is interviewed; he states they date back from when the Apostle St. Thomas came to Cranganore in 52 AD, that they support the Congress Party and are vehemently anti-Communist. Jews are shown at a Cochin synagogue; they have dwindled from about 300 to 100; since they never intermarry, sterility is a problem, and many emigrate to Israel. Simon Coder, a community leader and shopkeeper, says India is the only place that Jews have never been persecuted. An ashram, or religious community, in Pondicherry, a former French trading post, is examined. Sri Aurobindo, the founder, died in 1950 and his tomb is the religion's focal point. The ashram's now led by an old Frenchwoman simply called 'the Mother'. She refuses to be filmed but allowed Malle to record her stating her and the ashram's philosophy. Ambu, the ashram's hatha ('persistence') yoga master, states the physical benefits of yoga and gives a demonstration of his asanas (daily exercises). It's one of the eight parts that he practices, with others including breath control, self-restraint and meditation. Their highly-regarded school is shown, as well as the start of their pet project, 'Auroville', the 'city for the man of the future'. The episode is concluded with the Toda tribe from the Nilgiri mountains. There is no school; they learn from nature. Marriage is determined from birth; since there are more men than women, it's common for a girl to be married to several brothers from the same family. There is free love, and since there's no way to tell who fathered a child, the eldest brother is considered the legal father. They are pastoral people who have no wars, weapons, laws, leaders or hierarchy; all men take turns being the priest, and there is a council of elders to settle rare disagreements. But again, this group of 800 is endangered by the government taking their land; thus, their days are also numbered.
Top-rated
1969
Director/narrator Malle concludes his epic documentary by examining the capital city, Bombay, built by the English for colonial needs. He notes the sidewalk vendors are mainly Muslim southern Indians, dating to Mongolian emperors before the English, and that Muslim influence has greatly impacted culture, cuisine, clothing, language and agriculture. The Haji Ali mosque is shown, and Malle states that when the English left in 1947, Muslims separated from India to form Pakistan, basically swapping places with Hindus and Sikhs there. He then shows a petrochemical plant in Thane and Bombay's famed red-light district, composed mainly of Telugu peasants from Andhra Pradesh. A stock exchange is shown and Pashabhai Patel, an industrialist and Swatantra delegate, discusses their fight for free enterprise as the only solution to India's problems. Malle adds that the total lack of social laws protecting against exploitation and corruption is a huge problem. A wedding of two members of the Parsi, pioneers of Indian capitalism, is shown. They came from Persia to escape Muslim persecution and became rich by founding India's first steelworks. Anyone who marries a non-Parsi is ostracized, and when they die, they are not cremated but placed on 'towers of silence' to be eaten by vultures. Yoga is as foreign to them as if they were from France. Malle then shows a recruit being taught how to direct traffic; this profession considers themselves the 'last of the true English', even more 'English' than the British. Vinayak Purohit, a left-wing intellectual, is interviewed. His philosophy is extreme nationalism and is especially anti-Pakistan. Malle shows a textile mill with Swiss machinery and states that the workers have no unions, and that they have consciousness of religion and caste but not of class. He shows a jeep factory and states that demand far outweighs supply, and that people have to be on a waiting list for 7-10 years. An unsuccessful May Day parade by the communists is shown, and is contrasted with an earlier, successful one by the ruling Congress Party. While the communists are divided between reform and revolution, and their philosophy is antithetical with Indian thought, the Congress Party has suffered a power struggle since Nehru's death, with his daughter, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, struggling to continue his democratic/socialist platform of planned economy and private property. A demonstration by Shiv Sena, an extreme right-wing party with racist, xenophobic slogans, is shown; its leader, Bal Thackery, is interviewed. Rajani Desai, an optimistic economist, is interviewed. She states that India needs raw materials and technology, and that foreign businesses don't directly influence Indian politics but pressure their own governments to do that. She states that because there exists a small elite and large stratification in the administration, people feel they have to act in their own interests and thus corruption occurs. Malle then ends his four-month video diary returning to the more typical Indian life of the villages, with an annual temple festival in Vrajeshwari. Though he loves India because its social and religious structures help it resist the changes of industrialization affecting the rest of the world, he sees its days of doing so are numbered.