Genesis 1986

Genesis is a 1986 Indian Bollywood film released on 1986. Whereas Sens best work derived much strength from being rooted in a specific time and place, giving historical resonances to the particular shapes of the conflicts he depicted, this international co-production mostly financed by European television channel is set in purely symbolic and timeless space: some ruins in the middle of a desert. A farmer (Shah) and a weaver (Puri) exchange their products for goods provided by a regularly passing trader (Raina). A woman (Azmi) arrives, focusing the two mens desires but also urging them to obtain more recompense from the trader. After a visit to a village fair (exubearantly shot with telling details reminiscent of Sens earlier work) the two men become more acquistive and jealousies break out over the now pregnant woman who simply ups and leaves. As the two men fight each other, the traders men attack and enslave the workers again. The film closes with shots of bulldozers and modern machinery clearing the ground. Sens timeless parable about the genesis of capitalism, although acted with convicition by the cast, suffers from its abstraction, transforming the characters into sterotypes and reducing the complexities of history to simplified generalities. G. Chakravorty Spivak (1993) provides a postcolonial reading of the film. [Source: Encl] Check out this page for more updates on Genesis.