Mr Debankon Singh Solanky, the director of "New Classroom" decided to make an overly ambitious project, summing up the lockdown, COVID-19 and the complexities of the transition from brick and mortar to a restrictive and alien setting of online transactions of conversations, ideas, work and even, education in a short span of 28 minutes - the idea was extremely hard to cover in the short duration and it showed.
I genuinely feel at a loss for words when I write about this particular documentary which left the entire convention centre in a kerfuffle about their opinions towards the end and the discussion just added fuel to the dying fire. The documentary, however, was a commendable effort that stumbled through an oscillating journey of the world's largest shutdown and structural collapse from a child's point of view. The lockdown, according to Solanky, was a substantial life experience for kids and he wanted to capture the exploratory nature of children through his art.
New Classroom followed the principle of "show, don't tell" very meticulously as the cinematography of the documentary shoulders the responsibility of storytelling, following the life of Madhav, a curious little boy who navigates through an online classroom. The child was so curious and fascinated with what the camera captured, Solanky said, often ran back to look at the footage and how he looked.
The story starts with a painfully non-interactive session between the little boy and his teacher, where the communication chain between them is broken by the technological barriers that came with the pandemic. With namak ka dabba supporting the mobile phone, the little boy manages his way through a handicapped education as he sits at the dining table to attend his lectures.
The setting of the documentary is dark, dusky, empty, gloomy and intense as the camera either remains static or slowly pans across an empty and silent living room accompanied by more silence that’s so loud that it’s not funny. Solanky has done an excellent job with his camera with most of the shots being either static or slow panning. The camera is only there to observe both living and inanimate objects inside the confinements of the four walls, encapsulating the essence of the pandemic – trapped in isolation.
It shifts to a shot of a calm, gentle rain and the child swimming through a puddle on the concrete. The shot, to my mind, was absolutely beautiful as the child swims through the little water that he can be exposed to, there’s no depth, there’s no destination – it's stagnant but it is what it is. With little that he can do to entertain himself, he ‘‘swims”, gets himself involved in gardening (which we all did, some of us even took out our MasterChef aprons), chases insects or oftentimes, just stares out the window.
Then, in the documentary, there’s a sudden flash of life – the atmosphere is lighter, and the camera gets interactive. The boy comes alive and breaks the fourth wall, talking to his mother (supposedly behind the camera) as he explores the world in his own head, asking an abundance of questions about absolutely everything and anything.
The questions, the energy, and the enthusiasm break the gloomy monotony and you almost see a ray of light, of life or maybe, just hope. He asks, “Who is a soldier?” and then frowns and continues “Chess mein bhi hota hai na soldier?”, “Do plants get hurt?”, and several questions about mythology, the truth, reflection, the human existence followed up by inquisitive, hopeful and curious follow-ups that the mother tries her best to answer.
He asks about the black hole and how it holds the power to consume the entire planet and asks a question that silenced all and rang so loud with the weight of the question and the intensification of the background score that it was almost impossible to avoid – what will happen to us? The black clouds appear and even the sounds of birds chirping become disturbing as the sequence includes static shots of blurred rain, and a child trapped behind the glass looking out of the window.
The background score, brilliantly and skillfully, intensifies further as it pans to the right following a door crack, a boy lurking behind it as the door slowly creaks and closes reflecting the caged world outside, with the boy closed behind the door. The splashes of red and rustic wood are so prominent that it emphasises the harsh and drastic shift in the world during the pandemic.
There’s a brief shot of a dark night as the ever-existing and unaffected moon shines through with a blurred focus on a flickering lamp as somebody hears the news of a loved one getting hospitalised and not responding to the treatment – something that we constantly heard through the 21st century’s living hell (the pandemic). The silences are exaggerated with static, empty shots of thunder, and lightning with a space to absorb and get to terms with the fact that something awful has happened and the sequence of events shifts to the child back in the classroom.
The teacher struggles through technology but tries her best to cope with what little is left, the child, however, who was so inquisitive, curious and excited before has no questions as if something has sucked the life right out of him. The film concludes with a rather abrupt end with the children playing the harmonium, and shots of the child playing with stationery items.
The film left the audience with polarising opinions, some stating the end to be incomplete but as I sat down to think about it, I have grown to find beauty in what little was shown to us.
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