Dhaka-based filmmaker Hemanta Sadeeq directs “Khowab: Castle in the Air” which highlights the Bengali saree-weaving tradition that boasts years of persistence and is linked to communal living, but the practice itself is not sustained well. But his approach goes beyond merely promoting the practice for its continuation. The film portrays this transition to weaving automation through the life of a traditional hand weaver.
Khowab: Castle in the Air is screening at Short Shorts Film Festival and Asia
Days before a local festival, saree weaver Kanchan (Ashish Khandekar) checks out a workshop full of automated powerlooms to see how they work. After finding out how much it will cost him from the weaver’s association, he returns home to the news of the pregnancy of Mala (Asma Akhter Liza), his wife. As the festival comes closer, he ponders about his situation and then decides that he will weave his wife a Jamdani saree. The old weaver reflects on varied concerns, from the value of his old machine to the needs of their growing family.
At first look, the film might look like an age-old debate between modernity and tradition. Perhaps, this might be how director Hemanta Sadeeq designs his film through Samar Dhali’s camerawork that captures the vibrancy of the religious imagery and icon,s while also zooming in on the peculiarities of the loom machines. Zaman Monir’s set design, especially within the big weaving workshop, distinguishes between the exploding colors of the saree threads and the dry gray dirt found in the machine’s belt. But this overtly religious context of the Bengali community where the film is set puts the narrative conflict in a quite contradictory position.
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We can see that even the weaver’s association sees the upcoming local Puja or festival as something valuable for the enterprise. Kanchan is being persuaded by his fellow weaver Mohajan (Ruhul Rahman Sohaeel) and the association representative that the festival will be a great opportunity for him to make more money by making more sari using the powerloom. Going back and forth, it is revealed that Kanchan’s dilemma is never about whether he sees more value in handweaving as an artistic enterprise over automated weaving. Despite being haunted by the tradition in his pondering, he understands that there are needs that are greater than sentimentality.
Khandekar’s performance in this movie may come off as a bit amateurish: he is stiff and with an almost nonchalant reaction to his surroundings and when he reflects. But his brilliance appears when faced with extreme situations. For example, when he meets with the association representative, he has this timid and reserved demeanor of someone asking for a favor at first. But that is only until he hears the condition that he must join the association before he can even avail the powerloom. Khandekar’s confused reaction fits the absurd situation Kanchan is in: forget about the powerloom, when getting into the association is just as expensive.
Asma Akhter Liza, a theater director, helps facilitate this absurdity through her naturalistic performance. Also credited as the story writer, her performance as Mala depicts the contradictory aspect of pregnancy while living in poverty. While effectively does not exercise full agency within the narrative, she commands the scene whenever she is in frame: she brings the bitterness or the sweetness of their married life in her exchanges with Kanchan.
While initially establishing itself as a tale between modernity and tradition, “Khowab” shifts slowly to expose the political aspect of the absurd situation the couple is in. Working in traditional crafts is as hard as it is already and a hope for a better life is promised by new technologies. But the path seems gatekept by the very thing that keeps traditional craft workers like Kanchan in poverty. The film slowly shifts the direction of the theme by playing with this absurdity even further, to the point of being a tragicomedy.
But Sadeeq does not merely shift the direction to make fun of the people he depicts. The humor is dry but also harsh, making the conflict more emotionally impactful. “Khowab” turns the debate between modernity and tradition on its head and inquires a more basic question: who is this modernity for? Maybe it is not the machines that make the tradition slowly fade but the very structure that makes it hard for Kanchan to take a step towards modernity.
