The Dialectical Cinema of Tomas Gutierrez Alea: Insights for Indian Cinema

One cannot hope to create meaningful popular dialectical cinema by accusing mainstream cinema of being vacuous, of having sold out to the lowest denominator, or of functioning as a narcotic for the masses. Neither can opposing mass aesthetics or desire for delusion swing the other extreme where ‘meaningful’ cinema gains only from its purported opposition to mass-cinema, forcing the viewer into a discussion he might be resistant to. Lastly, a medium of mass consumption cannot be successfully co-opted under the program of ‘instruction’ alone. I believe traditional methods of trying to qualify cinema by framing it within an oppositional paradigm of form and content are absurd, as they are both intertwined. The journey from mass amusement to mass instruction or of belonging to a niche group is doomed from the beginning. Rather than trapping the viewer into a debate, cinema can explore its potential better by drawing him into a contemplation and discussion about the film, in other words, making him a more participative, meaning-making entity.