|
Part three of The Alien:
When it comes outside the capsule, which looks like gold, the weightless visitor "is a cross between a gnome and a famished refugee child; large head, spindly legs, a lean torso." Sex indeterminate. "What his form basically conveys is a kind of ethereal innocence, and it is difficult to associate either great evil or great power with him." It, the Alien, is the constant observer of ordinary human events. The strange and scientifically advanced oscillate with earthly reality. "Yet a feeling of eeriness is there because of the resemblance to a sickly human child."
In The Alien script Ray is an amalgamator of his established realist style with sequences of fantasy bounded by scientifically valid images. Something of this combination appeared in Paras Pathar-The Philosopher's Stone-his third film.
The inhabitants of the village are caught between the two invading forces-the materialist schemes of Bajoria, who is both a threat and slightly comic, and the Alien with unexplained energy as the corollary of his presence. The spaceship occupant is observer from the start. Only gradually do his surprising powers unfold.
Ray's sensitivity in the conception of his Alien is the furthest cry from the threatening monsters of accepted science-fiction. His creation is an intriguing creature with the curiousity of Apu translated on to a supranatural plane. In the last scene where the Alien is seen-the one before the final scene where the spaceship takes off with a sudden hiss which turns to a hum glidiing up "to a dizzy pitch, and with a sound like that of high-C pizzicato on a hundred violins"- he is sitting inside the space cabin "cross-legged on the floor in the classical manner of the Buddha, a red disc of sunlight on his face and around his head." The image has a mystic rather than monstrous element; a quality of innocence along with wisdom to be accentuated by the sound, for the Alien sings a simple folk-song about flowers, rivers and paddy fields taught to him by Haba.
In a state of weighlessness and suspended animation, the boy floats in the cabin, together with the other earthly specimens he helped his "friend" collect-a frog, a firefly, a snake, a lotus, a squirrel, and a bulbul bird, all of which are also in a condition of suspension. Inevitably, the conception of the Alien suggests that only those who are as little children can enter another plane, or planetary existence. This Superman is not endowed in Ray's imagination with the conventional qualities of power.
Meanwhile, there is the second dominant motif, that of G.L. Bajoria and his assumption that the dominance of money is supreme. But during the course of the story this assumption fails to be proved. First, he fails to win over the aspiring journalist, Mohan, who gradually fits scraps of information into a pattern which causes him to realize that a visitation from another planet has taken place. At the beginning, it might appear that the silent but shrewd Devlin is Bajoria's man, having been employed by him to well-drill. He makes no obvious protest to Bajoria's suggestion that he carry a gun to the pond, nor to using it if necessary. He uses it to no effect except to be mistaken for a hero. Then he throws it into the pond. Bajoria is totally pooped by circumstances beyond his control. His own standard of values appears to rebound on him, reducing him to helpess idiocy.
(one more to go...)
|
Login 
Register
FAQ
Search
