Katharine Ainger - 1 June 2003 - United Kingdom - Drowned Out -
Quiet, fierce, beautiful
Publication: New Internationalist
This quiet, fierce, beautiful film follows the story of the Sonkariya family, who live on the banks of the Narmada River in India under the long shadow of the Sardar Sarovar dam - synonymous with all that is wrong with big development.
Luhariya, traditional healer of Jalsindhi village, and Bulgi his wife have sworn to stay there and drown with their children, preferring death to the inadequate resettlement programme or a life in the slums - for them, another kind of death.
The story is slow, like the slow-flowing river water itself. The three years it took to make the film have allowed intimate moments of life in the village, the voices, emotions and fears of those like Bulgi - 'Of course we feel like crying. Who would feel like laughing?' - to build gradually into what is, by the end, a towering testimony against the dam-builders.
For the dam, we discover, will not bring the water promised to the drought-prone areas of Gujarat, but will take it to the industrial zones where huge sugar-processing plants are already being built in anticipation.
Drowned Out doesn't preach, yet it condemns the dam-builders through their own words. In one memorable moment in the film, Gujarat's minister shows off his opulent home while declaring that the adivasi (indigenous people) should make the 'small sacrifice' of giving up their homes with a smile, for the greater common good.
In another memorable moment, the village children sing in chorus to the sacred River Narmada. It is impossible to watch this film without being pierced by their clear, small voices.
www.newint.org
