ABSTRACT
Documentary films complicate the writing of histories. This chapter introduces the work of Sanjay Kak and examines the formal and structural approaches in Kak’s films. The episodes in Kak’s documentaries follow places or public events: rallies, marches, public meetings, theatrical performances, guerilla training camps, military actions and trainings, and civic actions. The witness value is fundamental to Kak’s work, and it is advanced through the editing process in which documentary materials are mobilised to provoke critical discourse. Proactive observationalism involves an ‘increased scopic mobility, a more discursive use of mise-en-scene and smoother time compressions’; through which the documentarist creates a persuasive portrait that compels the viewer to deepen their understandings of political conditions. The Kak’s films, as indeed the wider body of Indian documentary cinema, can thus be understood as embodying a counterpoint to mainstream cinemas in Bollywood, which assert hegemonic cultural and political ideals transposed.
