Society may progress, particularly through implementing new technologies in every day life, but no matter how beneficial this procedure may be, there are always some people left behind, particularly those who cannot or will not adjust. Gurbhej Guru presents such a part of the population, the people who manufacture diva, the lanterns used during the Diwali, from soil, an art that has become preterit due to the extensive use of plastic and steel.
“Diva – The Base of Diwali” review is part of the Submit Your Film Initiative
The documentary follows two interconnecting narrative paths, one comprising of interviews with three generations of people dealing with soil pottery and the other one showing the production method. Both paths are quite eloquent in their message. The job is back-breaking, dirty, and essentially does not leave much earning, since people do not prefer these products anymore. The tiredness and sense of abandonment is evident in the faces of every one interviewed, and even more in the men in their 30s who feel like they are wasting their best years for nothing. An elderly woman, whose whole family deals in diva, highlights the fact that this is the only thing they know to do, and that is why they keep at it, along with a sense of dedication to the work, which is, though, quite toned down in the younger generations.
The whole process is quite impressive to look at, and Guru's camera has captured it rather nicely. First they make the mud from soil, and then use their feet to create the dough. Once the mixture has solidified, they move to the wheel where they mold into diva shape. The handmade furnace, created with a kind of dried grass, harbors hundreds of these candles, where they are kept for 2-3 days. Then they are colored and are sold door-to-door mostly, with gypsies helping in the procedure. The documentary even includes the bartering during the sale, which again, reveals that even people who still buy this kind of diva, they buy much less.
The despair that turns into a plead for people to keep buying these products in order to allow these people to have a decent living permeate the narrative, as much, however, as a sense that they are stuck in a Sisyphean path with no way out, since they seem not to able to find anything else to do to support themselves, but neither managing to do so with this specific line of work.
“Diva – The Base of Diwali” is a well-shot short (although the subtitles definitely need some work), that highlights an issue that seems local in the beginning, but is actually universal.
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