Exploring Calcutta: A Commentary on the Film

The latest episode of my Exploration film series was shot entirely in the city of Calcutta, India around New Year's Day, 2008. I was visiting family and friends around that time and had an opportunity to tour the city and capture a number of fascinating locations on film. In fact, I ended up with so much footage of various historical sites in Calcutta that, ultimately, only a tiny fraction made the cut into the film. The vast majority of the footage is still waiting for another film possibly at a future date.In addition, I must mention that at a couple of the sites I visited, videography and still photography were not permitted. So I wasn't able to capture on film the images I witnessed firsthand. The most striking example of this is the Marble Palace in Calcutta, which is filled with spectacular art treasures dating to the days of the East India Company. Unfortunately, I was only able to capture fleeting glimpses of the external façade of the building.In the end, I needed a theme on which to base my film. As I delved through the footage, cataloging it and cleaning it up prior to my editing process, what captured my imagination were some images of a painting of The Last Supper that I had had the opportunity of filming in St. John's Church, Calcutta. Apparently, this was a pretty controversial painting, as the painter, a colonial Englishman, had modeled the figure of Judas in the painting after the local (English) chief of police and the figure of John after his girlfriend. I immediately thought of Dan Brown's book The DaVinci Code and the Ron Howard film based on it-what struck me was how the figure of John in the painting was really a secret representation of Mary Magdalene in disguise, so to speak.Then it occurred to me that Dan Brown's latest novel, The Lost Symbol, was due out in October. And so the theme of the film fell into place, and the film became a sort of unofficial tribute to the literary works of Dan Brown, specifically, the Robert Langdon novels.The film begins with the Victoria Memorial, the pre-eminent, iconic monument to the British Empire in India (Calcutta being the capital city of that empire). What struck me was the uncanny resemblance the marble-domed building bears to the US Capitol building, which features prominently in Brown's latest book, The Lost Symbol.It's also striking that at the pinnacle of the marble dome of the Victoria Memorial is perched the mysterious figure of a graceful angel. This provided a segue to the second phase of the film, which echoes Dan Brown's first Robert Langdon novel, Angels and Demons, in which Langdon visits the churches of Rome, following clues provided by statues of angels in the city to lead him to the secret hideaway of the Illuminati, the secret society that features prominently in the novel. Similarly, my film recounts my own visit to a couple of the major Anglican churches in the city of Calcutta, with images of angels (in effigy, sculpture, carving and painting) figuring prominently at each of the sites.My film arrives at its climactic moment with the shot of the painting of The Last Supper in St. John's Church, bringing to mind Dan Brown's most famous and successful novel, The DaVinci Code.I then round out the film with shots of a few monuments in the vicinity of St. John's Church. The first is the so-called "Black Hole" monument-an obelisk-like edifice featuring the image of an angel on its dedicatory plaque. The monument commemorates a tragic event in colonial history, in which the Islamic Nawab (ruler) of Bengal supposedly incarcerated British and Anglo-Indian prisoners of war under such brutal conditions that a majority of them died from suffocation, heat exhaustion and crushing. This event subsequently was used as a major item of propaganda by the British Empire to justify its continued presence and its own brutally repressive practices in India.The film ends with images of the mausoleum to Job Charnock, the founder of modern Calcutta, and the Rohila War monument, both also at the site of St. John's Church.After completing an edited cut of the film to my satisfaction, I began work on the soundtrack. After scouring through any number of potential musical scores, I settled on an excerpt from Antonin DvoYák's Symphony No. 8 as the musical backdrop to the Victoria Memorial segment, as it truly captures the nostalgic old-world flavor of the bygone days of the British Empire. I then excerpted segments from Handel's Messiah and some haunting Gregorian Chants performed by the Benedictine Monks of St. Michael's for the remainder of my film. All the symphonic pieces were performed by the Peabody Concert Orchestra. All music used in the film is in the public domain.I had a pretty interesting experience making this film and I hope that the subtleties are not lost to the viewer! Inspired by the symbolism of the Dan Brown novels, I have included a number of visual puzzles in the film to enhance the viewing experience and make the films a bit more interesting and entertaining to watch. I was also pretty awestruck by the way the Gregorian Chants so effectively and beautifully captured the solemnity of the ambiance inside the churches and the way the third segment from Handel's Messiah so brilliantly complements the scene in which one of the church's junior ushers turns on the lights at the altar of St. John's church, illuminating the magnificent frescoes on the wall behind the altar.Horizon Cybermedia sincerely hopes that the film provides an enriching cultural experience to the viewer, both in terms of strengthening one's Christian faith (if you happen, like myself, to be a Christian) as well as exploring the cultural diversity of the multifaceted nation of India. Check back soon for the next film in our Exploration series which visits the ski resorts of Big Bear Lake, CA in the mountains of the San Bernadino National Forest. Meanwhile, do check out the current film on Calcutta at our website, http://www.explorationtheseries.com.To learn more about Horizon Cybermedia and Exploration with Uday Gunjikar visit http://www.explorationtheseries.com.