I had been looking forward to seeing a film by Mrinal Sen for some time. As one of the "big three" film makers of the Indian art-cinema world (Ray and Ghatak being the others of course), Sen was the only director whose films I had not seen. "Genesis", while not one of Sen's better known works, is nonetheless an extremely powerful film. The film concerns two men, a weaver and a farmer, who live an isolated existence in an abandoned village in the middle of the dessert. Their peaceful life is interrupted by the arrival of a mysterious woman, who at first brings them joy and companionship. Soon however the two friends fight over her affections and become enemies.
However, if a description of the plot makes the film sound like yet another sexist movie about a "femme fatale" ruining two good men, don't be fooled. The woman in this tale clearly tries to stop the two men from fighting, but it is their own ingrained macho instincts that keep them from truly benefiting from this woman's presence. The addition of a third male character, a merchant, helps reinforce this view. The merchant clearly resents the presence of the woman as she sees her as a threat to his control over the two men. He feels that they will no longer be dependent on him if she is around so he turns them against each other. In the end he takes over their land and industrializes it.
The final scene is particularly striking because it is the only time we explicitly see modern machinery. Up until then we seemed to be in some strange "lost" time. We had some clues to modernization (the occasional sound of airplanes, one shot of some telephone wires), but because they were both associated with they sky, they passed over the heads of the characters but never made contact with them. They were like a warning of things to come. With the final shot of a bulldozer pushing its way towards us, we are able to see that if only the men had listened to the woman, and not followed their baser instincts, they might not have lost their land. It is ironic that while modernization is usually associated with progress, it is because these men do not reevaluate what is important in their lives that they lose their way of life.
However, if a description of the plot makes the film sound like yet another sexist movie about a "femme fatale" ruining two good men, don't be fooled. The woman in this tale clearly tries to stop the two men from fighting, but it is their own ingrained macho instincts that keep them from truly benefiting from this woman's presence. The addition of a third male character, a merchant, helps reinforce this view. The merchant clearly resents the presence of the woman as she sees her as a threat to his control over the two men. He feels that they will no longer be dependent on him if she is around so he turns them against each other. In the end he takes over their land and industrializes it.
The final scene is particularly striking because it is the only time we explicitly see modern machinery. Up until then we seemed to be in some strange "lost" time. We had some clues to modernization (the occasional sound of airplanes, one shot of some telephone wires), but because they were both associated with they sky, they passed over the heads of the characters but never made contact with them. They were like a warning of things to come. With the final shot of a bulldozer pushing its way towards us, we are able to see that if only the men had listened to the woman, and not followed their baser instincts, they might not have lost their land. It is ironic that while modernization is usually associated with progress, it is because these men do not reevaluate what is important in their lives that they lose their way of life.