Agami ( The Time Ahead,1984),the First “Short Film” of Bangladesh: Toward a New Cinematic Aesthetic of Imaging Time and Nation

Abstract

Morshedul Islam’s Agami (The Time Ahead, 1984), focusing on the theme of the Liberation War of Bangladesh, is Bangladesh’s first “short film” or independent film, made outside the domain of commercial film production. The film pioneers in investing the memory of the Liberation War with allegorical potential in order to interpret the socio-political condition of Bangladesh under the military dictatorship of Lieutenant General Hussain Muhammad Ershad. His regime lasted for eight years, from 1982 to 1990. Linear progression of time is interrupted in this film by a constant collapsing of the past, present, and future into each other through the treatment of storytelling, flashbacks, and flashforward. This disruption of time’s flow, I will argue, is employed to serve a nationalistic purpose, offering an insight into the psychic condition of contemporary Bangladesh and its socio-political crisis under the military dictatorship of General Ershad. In analyzing the film, my main concern is to understand how a film like Agami, with its oppositional socialist commitments and with the aspiration of creating an alternative mode of cinematic language, constructs the ideas of gender, nation, and memory during a period of pronounced political turmoil. I will also explore its new cinematic aesthetics as a “short film” or independent film of Bangladesh.

Keywords

‘Short films’ of Bangladesh time history gender nation Liberation War of Bangladesh military dictatorship metaphor memory

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Akhter

(2014). Panning from the past to the present: The climate, context and concept of Bangladeshi National Cinema. Shilpakala, xxii, 49–67.

Akhter

(2015). The construction of the ‘new Bengali woman’ in Nasiruddin Yousuff’s Guerrilla. South Asian Popular Culture, 13(3), 199–216.

Brownmiller

(1976 [1981]). Against our will: Men women and rape. New York, NY: Bantam Books.

Burton

(1985). Marginal cinemas and mainstream critical theory. Screen, 26(3–4), 2–21.

Chow

(1995). Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography, and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Daily Star (2014, October 26). Return of the shoe. Retrieved from https://www.thedailystar.net/return-of-the-shoe-47404

D’Costa

(2011). Nationbuilding, gender and war crimes in South Asia. London, UK and New York, NY: Routledge.

D’Costa

, & Hossain

(2010). Redress for sexual violence before the international crimes tribunal in Bangladesh: Lessons from history, and hopes for the future. Criminal Law Forum, 21, 331–359.

Ethirajan

(2013, September). Bangladesh: Abdul Kader Mullah gets death penalty for war crimes. BBC News. Retrieved from www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24108640

10.

Eusuf

(1984, January 15). Agami: Ekti Sot o Antorik Procheshta. [Agami: Is a sincere and earnest effort]. Shaptahik Robbar (6th year), 21, 47–48.

11.

Gayen

(2015). Women, war and cinema: Construction of women in the liberation war films of Bangladesh. French Journal for Media Research, 3, 1–25.

12.

Guhathakurta

(1997). Sonar Bangla: Inspiration, illusion and extortion. Humboldt Journal of Social Relations, 23(1/2), 197–217.

13.

Hayat

(2011). Bangladesher Muktijudha Bhittik Chalachitra [Films on the liberation war of Bangladesh]. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh Film Archive.

14.

Hayward

(2005). Cinema studies: The key concept. London, UK: Routledge.

15.

Hoek

(2014). Celluloid obscenity and popular cinema of Bangladesh. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

16.

Islam

A. A.

(2008). Bangladesher Cholochitro: Arthosamajik Patobhumi [The motion picture of Bangladesh: Socio economic background]. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangla Academy.

17.

Islam

(1984). Agami [The time ahead] [Motion picture]. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Chalachchitram Film Society.

18.

Islam

(2006). Aalmgir Kabir O Ami [Alamgir Kabir and I]. In Munni

M. M.

(Ed). Chalachitracharja Alamgir Kabir [Great teacher of film, Alamgir Kabir] (pp. 110–114). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Sonarong.

19.

Islam

(2018, November 24). E-mail communication. From the e-mail reply of Morshedul Islam to the author, Fahmida Akhter with some answers.

20.

Majumdar

(2011). Importing neorealism, exporting cinema: Indian cinema and film festivals in the 1950s. In Giovacchini

& Sklar

(Eds.), Global neorealism: The transnational history of a film style (pp. 178–193). Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.

21.

Mitry

(2000). Semiotics and the analysis of film. London, UK: The Athlone Press.

22.

Mohaiemen

(2016). Simulation at wars’ end: A ‘documentary’ in the field of evidence quest. BioScope, 7(1), 31–57.

23.

Mohsin

(2004). Conceptualizing international security: Where are the women? In Ahmed

(Ed.), Women Bangladesh and international security: Methods, discourses and policies (pp. 15–27). Dhaka, Bangladesh: Bangladesh Freedom Foundation and The University Press Limited.

24.

Mokammel

(2013). The short-film movement. In Guhathakurta

& van Schendel

(Eds.), The Bangladesh reader: History, culture, politics (pp. 390–393). Durham and London, UK: Duke University Press.

25.

Mookherjee

(2015). The Spectral Wound: Sexual Violence, Public Memories, and the Bangladesh War of 1971. Durham and London, UK: Duke University Press.

26.

Mujarrad

(n.d.). Two decades of alternative film movement. Celluloid, 28–31(1–4), 37–40. Retrieved from http://www.celluloidbd.org/

27.

Mulvey

(1989 [1975]). Visual pleasure and narrative cinema. In Mulvey

(Ed.), Visual and other pleasures (pp. 14–26). Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.

28.

Raju

Z. H.

(2012, May). Freedom on screen: The long route of short films. Forum, Daily Star, 6(5). Retrieved from http://archive.thedailystar.net/forum/2012/May/freedom.htm

29.

Ray

(1976). Problems of a Bengali film maker. In Ray

(Ed.), Our films, their films (pp. 38–43). Delhi, India: Orient BlackSwan.

30.

Sarker

(1998). Higher secondary history. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Hasan Books.

31.

Saikia

(2011). Women, War, and the Making of Bangladesh: Remembering 1971, Durham and London, UK: Duke University Press.

32.

Siddiqi

D. M.

(1998). Taslima Nasreen and others: The contest over gender in Bangladesh. In Bodman

H. L.

& Tohidi

(Eds.), Women in Muslim societies: Diversity within unity (pp. 205–227). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

33.

Silverman

(1992). Male subjectivity at the margins. New York, NY: Routledge.

34.

Solanas

, & Gettino

(1976). Towards a third cinema. In Nichols (Ed.), Movies and methods: An anthology (Vol. 1, pp. 44–66). Bekerley, CA: University of California Press.

35.

Van Schendel

(2009). A history of Bangladesh. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.