Mati Manas (1984)
Director: Mani Kaul; Producer: Mani Kaul; Cinematographer: Venu; Cast: Anita Kanwar, Robin Das, Ashok Sharma
Duration: 01:30:54; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 45.569; Saturation: 0.076; Lightness: 0.291; Volume: 0.144; Cuts per Minute: 5.456
Summary: Episodic film about the ancient Indian tradition
of terracotta sculpture and pottery and the
several legends associated with this tradition.
The artefacts involved include some of the
oldest items of Indian civilisation (from the
Indus Valley, 2500BC) and have been, together
with the legends associated with terracotta
techniques, central to historical research into
e.g. the origins of patriarchy, the shift from
pastoral to agrarian systems, etc. The film
enacts a series of such legends. The first is of
the Sariya Mata or cat mother whose kittens
remained safe in the interior of the baked pot,
a legend associated with Harappan
archaeological sites which had human
skeletons buried in womb-like pots. The
second legend revolves around the Kala-Gora
(Black-White) icon produced in the village of
Molella, Rajasthan, and features the witch
Gangli who transforms Gora into a bull by day,
making him work in her oil-press, until finally
Kala beheads Gangli. The film connects this
tale with the Mesopotamian legend of
Gilgamesh and Enkidu. The third, and best known,
legend features Parashuram who
beheads his own mother Renuka with his axe.
Interwoven with these tales are stories narrated
by the potters themselves and fictional
sequences featuring three contemporary
historians who recall the legends while looking
at the terracotta artefacts, often through the
eyepiece of a camera or from behind glass
panes in a museum. Shot throughout Central,
South and Eastern India, the film deliberately
suppresses its variety of locations to achieve
the idea of an integrated civilisation endowed
with a sense of immortality through cultural
(pro)creativity. At the same time, the technocultural
process of film-making is presented as
an extension of similar craft traditions.
Explosion inside the pot: the birth of the kittens, and the spider who closed the pot with its web: 'My eyes opened'
Kaul The Creative Process
Bollywood class 8
Kaul The Creative Process
Let me tell you a story
From Lothal to the narrating of a Rajasthani genealogy to the ;laying of a wheel
Kaul The Creative Process
'Listen, Shravan' - to the origins of storytelling: from the mother or the father. Astonishment.
Kaul The Creative Process
The marks on the neck of the pot were a garland from the mother. Time passed. How distant has this world become
Thesis 1 DON'T WAIT FOR THE ARCHIVE: The finished pot is a container, a vessel that has a bottom and whose shape and form has been defined. What remains possible is to inscribe upon it. Is this what annotation would be to the archival image, or does something malleable remain there that can be reshaped?
thesis1
Kaul The Creative Process
Myth of creation
Myth of Creation II
Myth of creation III
Myth of creation IV
What she can do and what she cannot do
When she separated from her daughter: then it was that she became a mother
Yeh naksha meri nazar se bana
Myth 5
Myth 6
Vishwaheen ho gaya
Neele aasmaan me safed jahaz ko jaate dekha
Indiancine.ma requires JavaScript.
