(All Pictures are stills from Gloomy Sunday movie 1999)
A mainstream film could be made into an underground movie,
if its audience decides so. After almost twenty years of its release ‘Gloomy
Sunday’, a Hungary-Germany co-production directed by Rolf Schubel based on a
novel written by Nick Barkow who based the theme of his novel on the life of
Rezso Seress, a musician in the interim period of two world wars who had been shot
to notoriety with his piano composition ‘Gloomy Sunday’ which as the urban
legends go had triggered a series of suicides both in Hungary, Europe and the
United States of America. Billie Holiday’s version of it in her melancholy
filled syrupy blues voice was banned from the radio stations including the BBC
for a long time especially because it meddled with the mindset of the people in
the countries that had gone into the war. The film as infectious as the song
itself has however got a different story to tell that makes it a potential underground
movie liable to be watched by all the democrats in any country that has been
currently ushered into the days of unapologetic fascistic governance.
India fits the bill as she has just been introduced to the
garden of restrictions, suppressions and undeclared censorship on words and
deeds. The current right wing dispensation at the center has proved undoubtedly
that it could lock up a state and its people for any number of days, if months
need be and use military force to maintain ‘peace’ and ‘normalcy’ until the
will of the people are broken completely. While autocrats dream the dreams of
everlasting dominance history works in the opposite direction. It in the most
unexpected moments would prop up a messiah like leader or leaders who would be
ready to either unify a country in the name of democracy or break it up in to
independent federal states with dignified affiliation with an administrative
center that would perhaps look after the larger economy, military, information
and technology. One day, if history wouldn’t fail us decentralization would
become a reality where even the right wing political forces could exist without
its ugly fangs. Till then we have to watch a movie in the underground.
‘Gloomy Sunday’, it is said was not a creation of the spirit
of self-annihilation. Surely it was the result of a broken heart; the tune as
well as the lyrics says so. Learned people say that ‘Gloomy Sunday’ was the
expression of Seres’ personal melancholy but those who would like to connect it
with the general history of the time see its affiliations with the post first
world war depression. The economic depression had caused the collapse of many a
personal nerve. People had gone mad then and the post second world war
depression had made Camus to say that suicide was the biggest philosophical
problem of the 20th century. The whole of existential thoughts had
been birthed by the WW II. When the economies fail it is quite natural that
people commit suicide. In India farmer commit suicide; instead of clutching to
a vinyl record of the Gloomy Sunday, they drink from the pesticide cans and bid
adieu to the world. When more and more youngsters are pushed out of their jobs
and their future looks bleak despite the chest thumping nationalism makes its
inroads at the border areas working overtime to send back coffins to villages,
it is quite natural for the left over population to contemplate on suicide than
to ruminate on the virtues of living. In those days it is imperative that we
see ‘Gloomy Sunday’ the movie in all the possible interfaces so that we could
discern why we live on and if commit suicide, why we do so.
‘Gloomy Sunday’ is a tragic story; of three people Laszlo,
Ilona and Andras. For the Indians who think more about daily moralities than
the freedom that one could eke out from relationships might find the movie a
bit irritating and offensive because in this narrative Ilona, the beautiful
Hungarian waitress at Laszlo’s restaurant ‘Szabo’ at once falls in love with
Laszlo himself and Andras, the new pianist whom they recruit in the restaurant.
She sleeps with both the men and they don’t find it odd to be in that strangely
alluring relationship. On Ilona’s birthday Andras writes ‘Gloomy Sunday’ for
her as the birthday gift. There is a young German businessman, Hans Wieck, a
regular at the Szabo and a friend of Laszlo who also falls in love with Ilona
but rejected by her at the first instance itself. With the Nazis taking over
Hungary, Wieck comes back to Budapest as a Nazi Colonel who is in charge of
sending the Jews to the concentration camps. He takes bribes from the affluent
Jews and sends them to the other ‘free’ countries. On a fateful day, Wieck
demands Andras to play ‘Gloomy Sunday’ and Ilona sings to the piano. Taking
Wieck’s revolver, Andras, once the song is rendered fully shoots himself. Later
Wieck assures Laszlo’s free passage upon Ilona’s submission to his sexual
demands, which she obliges for the sake of Laszlo. But the Nazi Wieck proves
himself to be an Aryan German by doing nothing to save Laszlo. Ilona becomes
pregnant and we do not know whether the child is of Laszlo or Andras or Wieck.
She lives on to die on another day.
Now about why the film becomes an underground variety in
present day India. Though the film could be watched as a love story that ends
up in tragedy (what is there in a love story if it is not a tragedy!) the real
story is how the presence of Fascism changes human relationships; how it creeps
into our daily lives and how treachery and deception becomes a common thing. It
tells us how an unassuming businessman could turn into a military man who could
ruthlessly fleece people for their personal freedom. It could also tell us how
the power that are capable to overlook love and place revenge in its place. It
also tells us how during the days Fascism how women are turned into mere
puppets in the hands of militarized men. Gloomy Sunday is a metaphor of love
but it is a cruel metaphor of authoritarianism as well. The underlying subtext
is what makes the movie of underground variety. It is so interesting and ironic
to notice that in the whole movie that deals with the war time Hungary there is
only one shot is fired; that shot is not fired to kill someone else but Andras,
the musician himself. It is the subtle representation of dispossession of human
beings during the days of Fascism without emphasizing on the pathos though the
music that one of the protagonists writes is melancholic. Andras shoots to fame
when he writes a captivating piece of music but he is pushed to depression when
he comes to know that the music is used by people as an inspiration or
background for their final moments. ‘Gloomy Sunday’ is the song of impending ‘unnatural’
death in everybody’s life; any time the knocking could be heard at your
doorstep. Watching this movie would empower you so watch it.
-
JohnyML
No comments:
Post a Comment