A fictional, non-fictional blend!

In an exclusive interview with Shoma A. Chatterji, award-winning documentary filmmaker Joshy Joseph makes out a case that “Walking Over Water” does not conform to be a docu-fiction as perceived. He concedes that there may be a genuine issue of dissonance for some viewers with the film, but the idea was to try and push the envelope as we live in our fractured lives, by attending to a WhatsApp message and watching a film or a play or while listening to music.

Joshy Joseph is a national award-winning documentary filmmaker, a talented writer on cinema and works with the Films Division, Eastern Region as its head. He is from Kerala. But Films Division brought him to Kolkata more than 25 years back. Since then, he has become a Kolkatan. Recently, noted journalist Vidyarthy Chatterjee was awarded the prize for the Best Writing on Cinema by the Chidananda Dasgupta Centenary Trust, Kolkata for Calcutta Lives – A Joshy Joseph Trilogy which underscores the long and eminent track record of Joshy Joseph. The three films Chatterjee covers in his book are – One Day from a Hangman’s Life (2000), A Poet, A City and a Footballer (2014) and Walking Over Water (2021), a feature film. In a one-to- one, Joshy opens up about his very personal film.

After several decades in filmmaking, what made you decide on an autobiographical film which appears to be a docu-fiction?

I was making all kinds of films all these years, but mostly non-fiction films. The idiom of story-telling in my films were more or less indebted to a fictional tradition. I pushed the boundaries to such an extent that it becomes invalid after a point if I could hook my viewers. In some films, obviously a viewer- friendly idiom happened and in some others, a labyrinth signalled to more subterranean plots. In ‘Walking over Water’ a lot of 8mm home-video footages were blended with enacted ‘drama’ and I don’t know whether a conventional terminology like ‘docu-fiction’ is apt to use for it.

Why the name Walking Over Water and how do you link your film with the Biblical miracle of Jesus, that is, if I am right?

They say that Christ was cent percent human and cent percent God. One can accept or reject it. ‘Walking over Water’ is both fiction and non-fiction at the same time. The spiritual life of Anandmayee Maa and the dedicated service of late Sindhutai Sapkal have also influenced me.

It is a very personal film where you use the medium and language of cinema as an outlet for letting off the steam of your emotional pain through your entire journey as a filmmaker. Why?

This actual life conflict is a daily reality for the character of Ozu. It is his experience that his father (in this case, the filmmaker) breaks cups at home while quarreling with his mother on the subject of cinema. It is a bizarre situation for the viewers as well as for the young man. When this ‘Grihajudha’ or war at home is put under trial in the family court of writer Mahasweta Devi, it is a documentary sequence. But when the same quarrel between his parents is discussed between Ozu and his girlfriend Prasanti, it is purely a fictional sequence. You actually see a cup there where the word ‘DIRECTOR’ is inscribed.

Some of the most outstanding directors in the world have, at some time or other, ventured into personal films such as Truffaut’s 400 Blows, Kieslowski’s Camera Buff, Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander and so on. But all them were heavy on fiction with very little reality which came across later when the directors admitted to these being partly autobiographical. But Walking Over Water is not entirely fiction. Can you explain this very unusual approach as director, conceiver and scriptwriter?

Prasanti comes up with a story which acts as a springboard for Ozu to think about his parents. So, the structure of the film alludes to different metaphors like the Golden Record in the NASA Spaceship Voyagers and the very title ‘Walking Over Water’. It is a network of metaphors. There may be a genuine issue of dissonance for some viewers with this film, but I was prepared for it. I tried to push the envelope as we live in our fractured lives, by attending to a WhatsApp message and watching a film or a play or while listening to music.

Basically, your film is about the director’s (your) conflict with the wife and his son Jose, looked at from the point-of-view of the three characters who people the film. The perspective of the director dominates the film while the wife and the son are given their space, true, but are overwhelmed by the voice-over presence of the director who is related to them. Why?

Most of the time, we are obliged to live a much fractured life, where we are separate from our selves. Walking Over Water attempts to make you aware of life which is not separate. Because, what is explored in it is actual life, absent from our ‘everyday’. Every character/persona is present in the film. It is structured in a very Indian way of story-telling in which the audience can see even those details which characters/persons are not aware of themselves. The narrative and its atmosphere are kept open so that viewers can climb into the film and touch it.

The director who is the protagonist, is present only through his voice-over and never appears visually in the frame. But his wife and son do enjoy screen space quite a lot though Jose is very silent, passive and confused. He hardly has anyone to share is confusions with. Is this a reflection of his real-life character?

This was a deliberate exercise from my perspective as I, as the protagonist of the film and also its director, did not wish to dominate the scenario which might have marginalised the other major characters like Jose and Amma and Prasanti. My aim was to make them let off steam through and from within the frames and I hope it worked.

What about Jose, the son of the director also your own son in personal life?

I shot my son for a period of 14 long years from the age of eight. He is not acting out a role of a character in the fictional part of the film. But keeping the basic character of Ozu (his name) remains unaltered, I had planted other characters around him. It is not to say that everything about what you see in the film about his character is real and all other characters are part of the fictional narrative. For example, the conflict between his parents on the subject of ‘fiction’ is real.

His mother is theologically opposed to fictional films dubbing them as an escape to an imaginary world bereft of reality. She actually believes that making feature films is cursed and brings curse upon the family. I, as a filmmaker myself, believe cinema to be my Life, my mission and my way of expressing myself. The son is tragically caught between this ideological and real tussle between his parents.

Looking back on the film, what is your take, as a husband, father and filmmaker, on this very unusual film?

Even in the midst of fights, disagreements between Amma and Appa, what has kept us together as a family has been our one, unified belief in Christ and his word, The Bible. The tribulations, mentally and physically, could not have made us move away from each other. Neither did it weaken our faith in Christ. Rather, the odds in our lives were translated into testimonies that Amma could share with others as a pointer to Jesus. As for Appa, he could apply his artistic skills and blend of mind and come up with such a profound film. Let the mist and mysteries remain. I could arrive at that zone in ‘Walking Over Water’ through a narrative which conceals and reveals or vice-versa, which is essentially an Indian way.