Dr Patricia Mohammed, professor of Gender and Cultural Studies at the St Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies, has written a new film that will be screened as part of the T&T Film Festival 2009. Mohammed, who is the campus co-ordinator of Graduate Studies and Research at UWI, will screen Coolie Pink and Green. The film was directed by Michael Mooleedhar, who also directed Queens of Curepe, screened at last year's festival, and Becoming Elsa, which he worked on and edited with Christian Din Chong. Sharda Patasar, daughter of master sitarist Mungal Patasar, wrote the original music score.
Mohammed says, "The film is an attempt to find another way of seeing the Indian esthetic in the Caribbean, using Trinidad in particular."
She says it seeks to look at its images, patterns, rituals and sounds and the meanings of these–but to not see them in cliched ways." Her provocative title refers to the idea that a certain "Indian" sensibility and sense of colour is denigrated. "This film says look again and see what you've missed." Mohammed grew up Muslim but went to Presbyterian and Christian schools. While growing up, in "a cute little village" in south Trinidad, Hinduism seemed much more colourful and always held fascination for her. Compared to the conservatism of Islam, she saw in Hinduism "so much colour and activity."
Looking again
The film celebrates aspects of Indian culture, but through the point of view of someone who is an outsider to Hinduism: "I think a lot of this film come out of a fascination with this from when I was young.
"First, it's about esthetics, she says. Second, it's about the word 'coolie'." She said while growing up in her humble community she never learned racism, perceiving no real difference between people: "When you're growing up in the country, you're not affected; everyone is the same."She argues that the term bears no negative association or become pejorative until it is taken into the urban environment, where there is, at once, a sense of being other.
Mood music
Sitarist Sharda Patasar says of the experience, her first time scoring a film: "I had to find a balance between my classical training and the 'Trinidad-Indian-ness' of the film." She says she was able to pull popular ragas and use them in the sound of film. "I thought of different ragas I associated with particular moods, times of year, water...etc." "The music is straddling local music, chutney and classical, but there is a sound Trini audiences will be able to identify with." Patasar was present on set for much of the shoot, "I had to have a sense of the visuals."
She admits she is very happy with the end result and feels that she has grown as a musician working on the project. Director Michael Mooleedhar's last film caused a stir, dealing as it did with drag queens working in Curepe. He says when he heard the racial slur in the proposed title of Mohammed's film he wondered if it was going to be a case of controversy all over again. He admits that although his family's heritage is Indian he was out of touch with Indian culture. "I had a big learning curve," he said. On his first read, he says, there was a lot he didn't understand. He describes deep culture shock during his first visit to a Hindu temple.
His unfamiliarity with the religion and its striking iconography gave him pause at first: "I didn't know if I could do it justice."
But he stuck with it. "It was hard, working through every word, every visual. But after I got through the rough cut, I understood. I was like, 'this is what needs to happen.'" Jamaican cinematographer Franklyn St Juste also worked on the film. Mohammed says he first helped interpret the visuals in a more literal sense, "...then we had to move from literal to visual poetry."
Mohammed describes the film as an experimental short. "It has shades of Bollywood, music video, documentary and narrative film."
She says it is a feel-good coming of age movie that centres around a sexy young female and an older male. Mohammed says, "We've worked so nicely as a team, so serendipitously, with our different skills, to create what we hope will be an amazing film." There will be a media launch of the movie at Soft Box Gallery on Alcazar Street in Woodbrook tomorrow, from 5.30 pm.
More Info
Coolie Pink and Green will be screened at the T&T Film Festival 2009. View the festival's related page at:
http://www.trinidadandtobagofilmfestival.com/film.asp?f=m08
? September 18, at MovieTowne
? September 25, at MovieTowne
? September 25, at Institute for Critical Thinking, UWI
? September 26, at MovieTowne Tobago