leeper@mtgzx.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) (05/24/90)
THE MAHABHARATA
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1990 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: One of the great stories of world
literature--fifteen times the length of the BIBLE--comes to
the screen in a supremely boiled-down CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED
format. Rating: low +1.
One of the great classics of Western literature is the ILIAD, an
account told in poetry of a great war in which the gods participated. The
telling has deep mythic meanings. Virtually the same description applies to
the great classic of Indian literature, the MAHABHARATA. The mammoth poem
of 90,000 couplets is told in eighteen volumes and is fifteen times as long
as the BIBLE. It was written roughly around the time the NEW TESTAMENT was.
The story traces the causes and fighting of a civil war in the land of
Kurus. The land was captured by the blind man Dhrtarastra. Being blind, he
was considered unfit to rule and gave the kingdom to his younger brother
Pandu, who ruled for only a short time before returning Kurus to his
brother. Each of the brothers had sons, each by supernatural means, and the
two sets of cousins grew up together. Each group of cousins eventually
claims Kurus. The two groups go to war with each other in spite of the
reluctance of Arjuna, the leader of the sons of Pandu, to make war on
members of his own family. Sound familiar? Right. This is the war that
was the setting for the BHAGAVAD-GITA. In fact, the GITA was adapted into
the MAHABHARATA. (Hey, I'm impressed you picked up on that. You must be a
whole bunch more erudite than you look!)
Peter Brook produced THE MAHABHARATA as a nine-hour play and as two
films, a 321-minute version for television and a 171-minute version
theatrical version. Brook's work in film is perhaps a little too similar to
his stage work. This is a story that really cries out for spectacle as
giant armies fight. Instead Brook puts his camera right into the action so
we never see more than a tiny piece of the action.
Doing a story fifteen BIBLEs long in a film, even a film almost three
hours, is a feat that is just barely possible and perhaps just a tad
misguided. I knew the basic story going into the theater and I still found
myself at a loss to remember all the important characters and relationships.
Perhaps the proper medium for this film is on videotape that can be stopped
and replayed, allowing the viewer to make notes.
This film was funded by an incredible list of organizations including
Finnish public television, American public television. Britain's Channel 4,
and a bunch more I either did not recognize or cannot remember. Perhaps it
was for that reason that Brook has the very odd racial mixture he has in the
casting. Presumably the story should be told mostly with Indians. Instead
it is told with Indians, Chinese, Blacks, Americans, British, Italians, and
probably several more. With most of the characters coming from one family,
this is a distraction at best and occasionally adds confusion. And
confusion is one thing this telling has in more than sufficient quantities.
It is somehow understating the case to call THE MAHABHARATA an
ambitious failure. To bring a great work of such length to the screen you
must cut very, very much more than you leave in. What remains you have to
force-feed your audience at a rate faster than most can assimilate it. Many
in my audience gave up and there was a notable rash of watch-checking. It
is a good introduction to one of the great works of world literature but it
is scarcely more than an introduction. The adaptation, written by Jean-
Claude Carriere, gives us at once not enough and far too much. As a mix of
very good, mediocre, and misguided, I would prefer not to rate it, but if I
must, I would give it a low +1.
Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzx!leeper
leeper@mtgzx.att.com