- What are you making?
- Houses of sand
- But the water will sweep it away
- So what? We’ll build it again
Such is the depth and strength of a conversation between Rudro, a young artist from the city, and a child from a fishing village.
'Nonajoler Kabbo' (The Salt in Our Waters) is the story of our fishermen and how their lives have been affected by the effects of climate change.
The story moves through the journey of a young sculptor Rudro, who comes to the village trying to track where his father had visited long ago with relief material.
The movie glides beautifully through the personal journey of Rudro, who believes his universe lies in the huge box where he carries all things dear to him, to the lives of the villagers whom he touched with his mind and actions.
The timeline of this story continues in a time where the village was recovering from the aftereffects of a cyclone and on the verge of another. Notable for portraying the effects of climate change, The Salt in Our Waters was screened at the COP26, 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
“I believe that as a storyteller, it is my duty to bring up the tragedies of the people. But most people who hear about the lives of these people on the news, have an image of them as poor, unlucky people who are very resilient despite what nature throws at them," said the director Rezwan Shahriar Sumit in the premiere of the film in Blockbuster Cinemas.
"I wanted to show them that beyond this resilience, beyond this misfortune, these people have dreams and aspirations, just like us. I wanted to make their image a bit closer to home while making you think about their lives.”
The dreams and aspirations come up in the stories of other characters as well, like that of the female protagonist Tuni’s, her brother’s and so on. The movie wonderfully blends the attempts to break through the chains of patriarchy, superstitions, power hierarchies with little nuances of innocence and dreams.
The movie leaves the audience with melancholic feelings. On one side, one cannot remove his/her eyes from the beautiful colours of nature, it makes one think about the purpose of human life, especially humanity in the context of a challenging livelihood.
Along with the splendid cinematography and colour grading, the intent behind making this movie needs to be remembered.
The Gangamotichar, where the movie was originally shot in 2018, has now been swept away by the sea. It is a stark reminder of how climate change keeps on devastating the lives of millions every year by sinking many such lands.
It also reminds us to be more aware as a society to bring changes in the policy levels to stop many such preventable instances and to be fiercer in our global fight to ensure the safety of our homes from the impacts of climate change.
The writer is a second-year student at IBA, University of Dhaka.
ipshitamrahman@gmail.com