In the center of Kathmandu there are both: shabby cows rambling through the town and youngsters with mobile phones strolling about. There is a great contrast between scales of living in Nepal, the same way as in any developing country, though. Next to a huge black jeep, one can see a toothless old woman keeping dirty barefooted children off.
Here, in Katmandu, people like football (proper one, that in US called ‘Soccer’) very much. They play volleyball and lapta too but not very well. We came to Katmandu as participants of a photo workshop and succeeded in getting to the football field free of charge. My fellows showed driving licenses, I produced a shining pass to the New Zealand School of English. After that we were allowed to do everything. We could even go out on the field if we would. Pavel’s theme of the Sergey Maximishin’s masterclass we were undergoing in Kathmandu was “Resting”, and he photographed himself every other minute and in every place, say, in front of some picturesque football fan in the stands. He used to squat down in front of a fan at almost no distance of a mere foot away and looked at him through his camera. I asked him whether people felt bothered by the blind spot created by him and his camera. He said that it bothered them very much, and added: for the first ten minutes only. Our fellow Nick was bored at the time and sluggishly idled about in the area of the goal though the ball kept ignoring the goal line.
The match was kind of super final, so the stands were full and the price of tickets was up to 500 rupees. There were three kinds of entrance tickets: proletarian tickets for wooden benches outdoor, VIP tickets – for plastic chairs in the veranda, and super VIP tickets – for the row of plastic seats along the field boundary. I was a little surprised and alerted by the amount of guards at the stadium. They didn’t allow to take pictures of themselves.
The game was nothing special at all. The goalkeeper used to kick the ball out when threw it in, players kept tangling in their own feet and managed to score a goal only in the end of the game when everybody got tired. As I got it, the most part of people there supported guys in a black uniform. Perhaps, it was a national team of Nepal. But for all that, the game still hindered our efforts to take photos. It kept drawing our attention from cameras and not once I caught myself watching the ball. Have to say that people were not very active in showing emotions. After the only and decisive goal nobody became hysterical and no one jumped with joy. Instead of forming a hysterical wave they just raised their arms and sticked thumbs out as if saying “super”. I got lucky to find one teenager in the whole crowd, who jumped, shouted and applauded. He was surely playing up to my camera.
Here in Auckland, there is a retirement village in my neighborhood. The village consists of a mere few oblong and stocky blocks of flats. Almost every evening, when I return home from work I pass those one-roomed cells shut off from the external world by plastic sliding doors. Near one of the flats there is an old useless TV set which practically melts into the background in the gentle shadow of a nearby tree. The TV set is there in the rain and in the heat, very beautiful, almost like in the “American Beauty”.
It seems to me, now I start to realize why I used to admire photos by Stephen Shore. He was the first photographer in the world having exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art inter vivos. A year ago I kept the browser window with his works in sight trying to understand why they seemed so much special.
I don’t know about you but I am often attracted by the harmony of static scenes being, as one would think, quite ordinary. It can be soft light, geometry of lines, a combination of colors, a combination of textures, or all said above in one. I mark such photos with purple tag. They represent a space for the lively play of fancy, the scenery for imaginary situations and characters. This is the way to obtain photos without people involved. No faces at all. The time-space, which has been stopped in a photo and fixed as it was, does not notice anything and continues its own existence. You are watching a film where static actors are shot on a static camera but there is no doubt that they are alive.
2. Auckland, New Zealand
3. Zeya, Russia
4. Zeya, Russia
5. Zeya, Russia
6. Heihe, China
7. Guangzhou, China
8. Kathmandu, Nepal
9. Nanchang, China
10. Zeya, Russia
11. Guangzhou, China
12. Katmandy, Nepal
13. Guangzhou, China
14. Zeya, Russia
15. Pekin (Beijing), China
16. Pekin (Beijing), China
17. Novosibirsk, Russia
18. Hong Kong, China
19. Zeya, Russia
20. Zeya, Russia
21. Zeya, Russia
22. Harbin, China
23. Blagoveschensk, Russia
24. Shenyang, China
25. Shenyang, China
26. Shenyang, China
27. Shenyang, China
28. Pekin (Beijing), China
29. The Great Wall of China
30. Pekin (Beijing), China
31. Pekin (Beijing), China
32. Xiamen, China
33. Xiamen, China
34. Xiamen, China
35. Xiamen, China
36. Guangzhou, China
37. Guangzhou, China
38. Guangzhou, China
39. Guangzhou, China
40. Guangzhou, China
41. Shenzhen, China
42. Shenzhen, China
43. Guangzhou, China
44. Shenzhen, China
45. Hong Kong, China
46. Hong Kong, China
47. Macau, China
48. Macau, China
49. Hong Kong, China
50. Hong Kong, China
51. Macau, China
52. Macau, China
53. Macau, China
54. Macau, China
55. Macau, China
56. Macau, China
57. Shenzhen, China
58. Macau, China
59. Macau, China
60. Macau, China
61. Macau, China
62. Hanoi, Vietnam
63. Hoi An, Vietnam
64. Macau, China
65. Macau, China
66. Shenzhen, China
67. Nanning, China
I would modestly remind you that any of the above photos you can get for private use (for your desktop or wallpaper), if you apply at the following address
Here in Kathmandu the filming of the movie “Dasdgunga,” of which I began to speak in the first of three planned posts about Nepalese films, continues.
I’d like to remind you: in the Nepalese film studio, a couple dozen people and one Bollywood star are filming a thriller based on the mysterious death of several high-standing persons. In 2008 I was fortunate enough to spend several days with them. One year later, after passing censorship, the movie saw light. At the end of the post is an episode that had been cut out by censorship.
And so, yet another day of filming after many hours of working in a closed pavilion that is meant to act as an interrogation room, it was decided to spend it in the home of the director’s friend’s friend. On the second day, the beaten-down Nick and I spend several hours looking for the address which we were given at the studio, we were afraid of being late, yet after arriving we spent a while watching the adjusting of equipment and the set-up of a mini-screen for the camera. The actors, wearing make-up, repeated their parts and worked on the dialogues with the director and his assistant. The operator, as before, smoked a lot and was hostile. I guess that’s just the type of person he is.
The director, in the top left corner, watches over the filming of the scene “Entering the house.” The actors ascended five times. Passersby and the owner of the house kept getting into the image.
The operator demonstrates what has been filmed to the actors playing the main characters and to the director.
Boys are playing next to the building across the street that looks like a dormitory.
The son of the owner of the house. We chatted a little. He is a student in Kathmandu, plans to be a designer. Meanwhile he’s helping his father with a small business, I don’t remember exactly what kind.
The newly-set-up crane occasionally bowed dangerously. A worker was put next to it for safety.
The camera was placed on the crane with pancake-like weights on a balancing foot. It smoothly rolled into the window as the work progressed.
Walking by, a curious worker went up to the viewfinder.
A room on the second floor of a typical Kathmandu building is decorated to look like an office of a politician of moderate importance. There are portraits on the walls, flags everywhere and other attributives. Attention! “Action!” The director speaks English. Everyone freezes in positions that have been taken ahead of time, like in a game of freeze tag. In the middle of the house, the owner offered everyone hot tea which he himself carried around on a tray.
In several days we sort of befriended the guys from the filming crew. Both we and they felt somewhat special.
“Detective” Anup Baral and his assistant are asking the suspected official ticklish questions.
Like last time, after the photographs from the places where events took place, I’m attaching a chunk of the movie, in which you can see what came out at the exit and compare. This episode didn’t pass censorship and didn’t end up making it to the theaters.
In the next post I will introduce you to the, so to speak, kitchen. This will be a photo report from the production workshops of Nepalese studios: film development, printing, editing, voicing.
Here in Kathmandu, local cinema is called Kollywood. The cost of one movie, as I was told by a manager who decided to audition for the part of a tour guide, is 10-50 thousand American dollars. In just a few months, a crew of 7-10 people manages to make a ready product. Detective stories with a lot of killing are well-liked. In one year, the studio makes up to about 70 (!) films. I got to visit and participate in the making of the movie “Dasdgunga,” about the to this day mysterious death of Nepalese leaders.
The story is so fishy that the movie did not pass censorship right away and was approved for showing only in January of this year, one year after its making. In short, the plot is based on the death of two representatives of the top of the government of Nepal: Madan Bhandari and Jivraj Ashrit. In the 1993 incident, they died in a car accident. The driver, Amar Lama, somehow survived, but was killed ten years later. The murderer was not identified.
The main part of a detective with a difficult life is played by the star of Nepalese theater and cinema Anup Baral. The director is the round-faced Manoj Pandit with kind eyes. They say he’s also pretty famous.
Meanwhile, we look under the cut at a series of 35 photographs with commentary.
Make-up took over an hour. Mustaches got combed, faces got powdered and after three hours of waiting for lights to be ready, filming began. I included the best picture from this period in the “The Culture of Modern Nepal” series.
An extra playing a guard watches as the workers set the lights.
Meanwhile, a scene was being filmed in the hallway. A driver is being led to be interrogated. The blinding light of a projector hits the characters in their backs.
Most of the first day was spent on setting the lights.
The workers of the studio spent over four hours covering, setting and adjusting do-it-yourself reflectors made from rags, white panels and mirrors.
Speaking of the necessity of a professional set, lighting equipment and super-expensive lenses and cameras. Any available resource is used in Kollywood. The room was whitened in one day, rags, mirrors and ropes were brought from storage. The intensity of the projectors’ light is set using black discs with a hole in the center.
A static stage, the set is ready. We are witnessing an interrogation in the basement of a Nepalese security service.
Before starting to film, the director and the actors discuss the details.
The director accentuates the attention on something of moderate importance.
The equipment, as you can see, isn’t cheap. The camera, no matter what, is rented, and there’s a special person designated to watch it. One films, another controls, the third watches over so that the camera doesn’t get dropped.
The operator seemed like a nervous person, smokes one after another. There is something in his position that opposes the power of the director.
The detective wearing a hat strictly gazes into the eyes of the suspect. They sit close to each other, so their eyes are a bit crossed. On the chair with an umbrella during the filming sits the suspected Amar Lama and sweats.
The director and operator occasionally check how the light falls on the faces of the actors. Sometimes they asked me to show them what the photographs looked like: sometimes the shadows were too rough, sometimes there was too much light.
The terrifyingly quiet partner of the main character. At some point, judging by the circumstances, they attempted to play bad cop/good cop. It didn’t really work, the suspect laughed a couple of times.
I don’t know why they gave the main character of Asian decent, who doesn’t have very abundant facial hair, a stupid mustache. But a special person adjusted it almost every other set.
The director’s assistant. Anup Baral’s companion at the teaching workshop. A sweet person with pretty decent English.
Outside of the scene, of course, you have to sit quietly and wait for it to end.
The view of the set.
In my search of an interesting angle I climbed to the top level using a rocky ladder. The director is explaining something to Anup.
The director, Manoj Pandit.
The actor playing the main part, Anup Baral.
Dayahang Rai, the actor playing a secondary character, the driver Amar Lama at the interrogation.
It’s normal to smoke in the police station basement, there’s nothing to explain here.
The detective’s assistant repeats the text. He did not have many words. Mainly he goggled his eyes.
The person who controls the operator’s work. As you can tell, he wears the headwear of a brahman and not all work can be done by him.
Working on the key moments with the director.
Since you scrolled through to the end, you will probably be interested in finding out a bit more.
You will recognize some scenes right away. Some of the phrases were repeated so many times during filming that even today, a year and a half later, they seem familiar to me.
The guys and I spent several days with the crew. Pasha (r0ver) ended up with a short but good combined report. In my remaining posts from this series you will see the second day of the filming process and the dungeons of the film studio where development, printing, editing, voicing and everything else without which a movie can’t happen take place.