Third Person Singular Number: Socially Critical or Stealthily Commercial?

(This article has been published in New Age Weekend Magazine on 08 January 2010. Here's the link
http://www.newagebd.com/2010/jan/08/jan08/xtra_inner8.html
I am uploading the full version of the review in Sachalayatan.)

Third Person Singular Number: Socially Critical or Stealthily Commercial?

Naadir Junaid

Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s latest feature gained much media attention long before its premiere in the country. Its publicity campaign also included the director’s own write-up in the newspaper where he happily gave an account of the praises his film had received since its screening in two international film festivals. Farooki informed us of his intention to show the problems faced by individuals living on the fringes of society and we came to know that a single woman in contemporary Bangladesh would be the main protagonist in the film. Therefore, the film seemed to be different from typical entertainment films and the director also mentioned that he would employ certain stylistic devices of European avant-garde cinema what he had not used in his earlier films. But he also told us not to mistake this film for an ‘art’ film.

Art films are generally non-commercial and more serious and realistic in nature than conventional entertainment films. Farooki did not describe his film as an art film; however, he seemed elated that the film had won high praise from Abbas Kiarostami, eminent Iranian art filmmaker. Farooki’s claim that his film confronted a contemporary problem in our society using some components of art cinema raised our expectation of watching a socially-critical film. Films providing sharp social analyses are becoming increasingly scarce in our country. Rarely do we come across a Bangladeshi film going against the grain of formulaic, commercial cinema. Farooki’s new film, thus, aroused considerable public curiosity.

Third Person Singular Number is the story of Ruba who comes to terms with the difficulties of being a single woman in our society. Ruba was living together with Munna; but when Munna went to jail, she started realizing the unpleasant situations tormenting the life of an independent woman. She eventually got some support from her old friend Topu who once wanted to have an emotional involvement with her. The film continued to attract huge turnouts in cinema halls since its recent release across the country; but a close analysis of the film reveals that despite all the hype, the film does not live up to its promise either artistically or politically. Instead, apart from a handful of expressive scenes, the film consists of banalities, clichés, decorativeness, frivolity and tedium; moreover, it only provides a limited and a one-dimensional analysis of the problems encountered by single women in our society. The film shows the director’s ineptness to seriously address complex social issues and signals his failure to achieve any improvement over his previous films.

The film’s opening begins promisingly; a man mistakes Ruba for a prostitute and spits on her face when she silently ignores his coarse manners. This poignant and powerful moment of the film perturbs the audience and makes us experience a feeling of sadness for the pain of Ruba as well as intense anger toward those people who are to blame for the distress of single women. This emotionally-involving scene suggests at that point that the film is about to sift social injustice. But much to our frustration, the film gradually starts revolving around personal relationships rather than addressing underlying conditions that perpetuate unfairness against single women. Farooki also clings to many clichéd audience-pleasing elements at the expense of artistic subtleties and eventually his film inserts itself in the realm of stereotypical commercial cinema ruining its early promise.

Farooki completes his task of disclosing sufferings of a single woman mainly by showing some lecherous elderly men trying to abuse Ruba. Surely there are other miseries for single women in our society which remain unexplored in this film. Farooki said that the film was done without humour, but scenes often display the director’s penchant for facetiousness, reminiscent of many moments of his earlier films. When elderly men approach Ruba to satisfy their lust, they are presented as comical, provoking laughter instead of aversion. Frivolous dialogues and actions keep recurring and further create an air of unseriousness. Certain scenes made in a surrealistic vein showing Ruba’s inner conflicts and Ruba’s mourning after her mother’s death also fail to produce any strong impression because of the abundance of lightheartedness in the film. For example, a puerile sequence of Topu buying a condom is needlessly extended. The director thus trivializes his scenes, and they never offer any penetrating insights into social issues and psychological complexities.

The film does not dispense with certain showy devices commonly employed in commercial cinema. Ruba’s friend Topu, himself a popular musician of the country, plays a central role in the film, and some of his particular actions coupled with his popular image only add gloss to the film narrative. Ruba also appears most of the time wearing fashionable clothes and she often looks quite glamorous even though she is meant to represent women undergoing struggles in this society. Tedious sequences frequently occupy the narrative showing Ruba and Topu chatting or buying things and these scenes look much too commonplace bearing a strong resemblance to many soap operas or television advertisements.

Farooki’s protagonists are privileged, enjoying the comfort of a materialistic urban lifestyle. Consumer culture actually appears fetishized in the film. Many single Bangladeshi women, if not the majority, hardly expect to have the advantages enjoyed by Ruba. Still, Farooki has decided to show the predicaments of a single woman through a protagonist who has a good job, affluent friends and also has the freedom to take the decision to live together with Munna. Ruba’s life therefore looks pretty comfortable and her mental disturbances over choosing a partner do not seem worthy of serious attention, given the far deeper worries troubling men and women alike in our country. Farooki fails to address these deep-rooted social problems; little by little his much-hyped film dissolves into a tide of hackneyed devices and superficiality and turns out to be a pure spectacle.

The film is also very poorly-scripted; writer Anisul Haque and Farooki jointly wrote the script for the film. It was never clear whether Ruba got married to Munna or they were just living together. We learn that Munna killed a man, but he has gotten a release from prison very easily. The dialogue becomes very slack and often distasteful; and we may suspect it was difficult for the characters to perform well due to the poor quality of the script. Even veteran actor Abul Hayat fails to impress only because he has to deliver an exaggeratedly dramatic performance. Scenes also fail to become visually-striking most of the time.

Third Person Singular Number has not made any departure from the confines of cliché-ridden commercial cinema. The director said that the film was intended to deal with a social issue, but it does not expose and nor does it seriously challenge the roots of oppression in our society. Instead, the film slowly started presenting personal drama without rejecting the stylistic aspects of conventional cinema. Therefore, it makes us think that the film’s promise to examine the problems of a single woman is actually a stratagem in order to provide a veneer of seriousness in the film. When we are witnessing plenty of social and political problems in our country, we simply do not require pseudo-alternative films that also espouse consumerist ideology and provide the same mindless entertainment as market-driven films. We are badly in need of thought-provoking films that will make people aware of the actual causes of social injustice in our society. Farooki’s new film is neither aesthetically sound nor socially committed. It only comes out as yet another Bangladeshi entertainment film.

Naadir Junaid
Assistant Professor
Department of Mass Communication and Journalism
University of Dhaka
and
PhD Researcher
School of History and Philosophy
University of New South Wales
Sydney, Australia

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