Beyond Udta Punjab: Cinematic Masterpieces that Dodged Censorship

Do you know which great films managed to give the censor board a slip? Read on to find out!

Terrific cinema has come out world over despite censorship. Stills from Udta Punjab, which was threatened with censorship by the CBFC.

The ongoing Udta Punjab controversy has fanned the debate on censorship yet again. Now everyone wants the system to be abolished, for such practices cannot exist in a liberal democracy. It’s important we realise that censorship is a tight slap on the face of creative expression, and our films only deserve to be rated, not edited by CBFC.

But like all art forms, history is witness to the fact that filmmakers have found clever ways and means to defy censorship, and make their kind of films anyway. When subversion was employed as a tool, cinema produced some of the most iconic artefacts for posterity to preserve and cherish.

This is not a piece in favour of censorship, but to tell you the other side of the story, of the great minds that challenged norms to fool puritanical ideas, and in the process, made terrific cinema.

China: Raise the Red Lantern (1991) / Farewell My Concubine (1993)

A still from Farewell My Concubine

Chinese filmmakers have always fought control to maintain the sanctity of art. It was the Fifth Generation of filmmakers from China who exposed the world to the brilliance of Chinese cinema, bringing in a wider audience, and filmmakers such as Tian Zhuangzhuang, Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou, who made films that were potent in ideas and subversive in execution.

Despite their artistic merit, The Blue Kite (1993) and To Live (1994) suffered bans, even jeopardizing the directors’ careers for a few years. But a few films that managed to wriggle past control, Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991) showed a critical portrayal of Chinese history and the treacherous impact of its political movements, and managed to stay afloat, in the guise of drama and entertainment. In terms of filmic might, all of them deserve a place in the grand pantheon of cinema.

United States of America: Notorious (1946) / North By Northwest (1959) / Psycho (1960)

Psycho is one of Hitchcock’s best works

Hollywood has a long tradition in challenging the conventions through cinema, and out of the infinite list of filmmakers, Alfred Hitchcock is our absolute favourite.

When the production code forbade a kiss lasting longer than three seconds, he made Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant kiss, talk, kiss, and repeat it till it clocked more than two-and-a-half-minutes, thus creating an elegant and long kiss in Notorious, all within the rule book of censorship. In North By Northwest, during a romantic scene, he uses phallic symbolism, showing the train speeding into a tunnel. In Psycho, he went full throttle, by showing a flushing toilet, an unmarried couple on bed, and the infamous shower scene, which cleverly juxtaposes nudity and violence with shock.

Hitchcock, for his entire career, withstood the stupidity of puritanical censorship with terrific shrewdness by serving disquiet that his audience relished, and challenges that the production code hated.

Iran: Kandahar (2001) / Ten (2002)

A still from Ten

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over the reigns of Iran, a strict code of censorship ushered in a new era where cinema and artistic freedom could no longer co-exist. But this regimented control also nourished the look and feel of Iranian art films that is currently celebrated around the world for their innovative techniques and political spine, served with allegories.

Using the innocent eyes of children, or the set-up of traditional village life, filmmakers have skirted censorship with great dexterity. Almost all the output by Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Majid Majidi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Asghar Farhadi warrants special mention for mixing poetic and philosophical with the political, and despite bans and other such detriments, they continue to make films as a movement that’s invested in human autonomy. Kandahar (2001) by Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami’s Ten (2002) are two conceptual tour-de-force creations that can be a good start for the uninitiated.

Czech Republic: The Shop on Main Street (1965) / The Fireman’s Ball (1967)

A moment from The Fireman’s Ball

With the communist regime taking over Czechoslovakia, the students of The Academy of Performing Arts in Prague chose to voice their dissent by making films, thus giving birth to the Czechoslovak New Wave.

With Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Ivan Passer, Jiří Menzel, Juraj Jakubisko and many other radiant names associated with it, the movement took on the oppressive rule by employing non-professional actors, improvised dialogues and biting dark humour. Forman’s The Fireman’s Ball (1967) was such a sharp satire on the East European Communist system that he found himself in exile post the release of the film. The Shop on Main Street (1965) by Ján Kadár and Elmar Klos concerned an everyman caught in the net of moral responsibility in the face of genocide.

Japan: A Woman Called Sada Abe (1975) / In the Realm of the Senses (1976)

A Woman Called Sada Abe kicked off the pink film genre

Sada Abe, who erotically asphyxiated her lover, and then cut off his private parts to carry them around in her kimono, rightfully became a coast-to-coast fixation in Japan, acquiring mythic overtones. Noboru Tanaka, the famous ‘pink film’ director examined the morbid obsession with death in Japanese culture in his interpretation, A Woman Called Sada Abe, whereas Nagisa Oshima went further than the pink film genre with his explicit depiction of sex scenes.

Both were brave to be made and released, but Oshima’s film could not have passed the censors if he hadn’t listed it as a French production. Oshima, in fact, shipped his film to France for processing and editing in secret.

Spain: Viridiana (1961) / The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

A still from The Spirit of the Beehive

The sly provocateur Luis Buñuel made films that outraged audiences, and were found to be blasphemous by religious organizations. Viridiana is hailed as a masterpiece today, but during its release, Francisco Franco tried his best to have the film withdrawn from theatres, but failed.

The idea of a film pregnant with symbolism led Víctor Erice to make his masterpiece The Spirit of the Beehive, a subtle critique of the Francoist regime through a child’s haunted interior life.

India: Aandhi (1975) / Hirak Rajar Deshe (1980)

Hirak Rajar Deshe is a Satyajit Ray masterpiece

Indira Gandhi’s autocratic gun harmed many films, importantly, Amrit Nahata’s Kissa Kursi Ka (1977), which was banned and its prints burnt; I.S. Johar’s Nasbandi (1978) and Gulzar’s Aandhi (1975). With the Janata government in power, Gulzar was lucky to get his film back in public circulation.

P.A. Backer’s Malayalam film, Kabani Nadi Chuvannappol (1975) was also denied a censor certificate, but finally saw the light of the day, even winning awards in the home state. A few years later, Satyajit Ray’s Hirak Rajar Deshe (Bengali, 1980) dealt with the grim period metaphorically, and in 1988, Shaji Karun’s Piravi (Malayalam) took the same route of allegory. Both went on to win National Awards, and are now considered an essential part of the Indian canon.

(The writer is a journalist and screenwriter who believes in the insanity of words, in print or otherwise. His Twitter handle is @RanjibMazumder)