AT THE FEET OF THE MOTHER
Ask Alok da

Should Gory Films be made, even if they show the ISI’s cruelty? I have conflicting views on it, as on the one hand I feel that it helps to break the inertia of the nation, but on the other hand, it amplifies the baser instincts. 😕

It is no doubt true that the scenes projected on the cinema screen do radiate the vibrations, often intensify and multiply it because of the audiovisual medium. It is true that it can not only influence but lead to the phenomenon of caging if watched with too much focus or at close distance. The influence of cinema and television goes way beyond the book and the story. 

Having said that humanity has to be equipped to understand and deal with this side of existence. The presence of wars, catastrophes and  destruction is a fact of life. The presence of evil cannot be ignored. Hence it needs,to be sometimes presented. But that is where the skill of the author and the artist lies. The context and the presentation should be such that instead of being influenced by the vibration, it induces something higher and deeper, such as the spirit of Justice, of compassion or even of a divine movement that rises to destroy the perpetrators of the gory act. In other words the background, context, the setting and the conclusion are all important. In isolation a gory scene has one kind of effect but in a certain totality, when put in its right and just place and presented with a sensitive eye on truth and beauty and good, it can become a medium of awakening higher movements as we see in the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Certain scenes there can be called as vibhatsa rasa, and they well justify their presence and appeal to some deeper soul of aesthesis that takes delight in courage that resists evil.

Affectionately,

Alok Da

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