For me this film defines "unwatchable." I had missed the stage version through my own ineptitude; it was twice as long, stretched out over two nights, and would have been monstrously expensive, especially when calculated by the minute, given the number of minutes I would have been able to take it. My angel must have been on duty that day.
When the film turned up at the nearest art cinema, I rushed to see it, and by practising isometric exercises and mentally compiling a grocery list was able to stay in my seat for 45 minutes; but that was it. By the time the film made it to public TV I had gained enough discipline to sit it out as far as an hour. After that it may go on to become one of the masterworks of our age, but if so I'll never find out.
Why? Well, it shows, by counter-example, the great value of art, which I hadn't previously recognized. Real art, that is, that has evolved historically into forms, with the techniques and conventions demanded by each. Real art; not proto-art--and especially not imitation proto-art. That's what The Mahabarata is. It isn't a real film, although it's on film; its performers are reciting a text that isn't drama, poetry, or novel, and performing movements that aren't dance. The casting is cross-cultural and cross-everything-else, so that the performers don't look, speak, or move like the persons they're supposed to be playing. Male may be female, old may be young, white may be black, indiscriminately. Yes, they're demonstrating universality, one is all and all is one, googoogajoob. But by the same token, this robs them of all particularity, which is the reason for watching and listening to _artists_. In the theatre, they may have got away with it; indefiniteness can work there. But so can air.
Someone will like it, I know; there's always someone who likes _every_thing. But to me, it's simply an extension of the Emperor's new clothes, where there are not only no clothes but no Emperor.
When the film turned up at the nearest art cinema, I rushed to see it, and by practising isometric exercises and mentally compiling a grocery list was able to stay in my seat for 45 minutes; but that was it. By the time the film made it to public TV I had gained enough discipline to sit it out as far as an hour. After that it may go on to become one of the masterworks of our age, but if so I'll never find out.
Why? Well, it shows, by counter-example, the great value of art, which I hadn't previously recognized. Real art, that is, that has evolved historically into forms, with the techniques and conventions demanded by each. Real art; not proto-art--and especially not imitation proto-art. That's what The Mahabarata is. It isn't a real film, although it's on film; its performers are reciting a text that isn't drama, poetry, or novel, and performing movements that aren't dance. The casting is cross-cultural and cross-everything-else, so that the performers don't look, speak, or move like the persons they're supposed to be playing. Male may be female, old may be young, white may be black, indiscriminately. Yes, they're demonstrating universality, one is all and all is one, googoogajoob. But by the same token, this robs them of all particularity, which is the reason for watching and listening to _artists_. In the theatre, they may have got away with it; indefiniteness can work there. But so can air.
Someone will like it, I know; there's always someone who likes _every_thing. But to me, it's simply an extension of the Emperor's new clothes, where there are not only no clothes but no Emperor.