Sarmaya – Freeze Frame w/Sarmaya

A series that translates objects from the museum collection on celluloid, as we re-visit some of the most impactful, meaningful and fierce cinema made in the 21st century.

Sarmaya is a museum with a collection that represents the diverse histories and artistic traditions of the Subcontinent. The archive is based in Mumbai, India.

feat. West Beirut, 1998. Dir: Ziad Doueiri

This emotionally vibrant coming-of-age drama, set in the Lebanese city torn apart by the 1975 war, traces adolescent Tarek’s quest for peace amongst other things as he and his family struggle to keep their souls alive in the midst of war. In this particular scene from ‘West Beirut’, he is seen chatting with his confidant Omar about the Quran. 

This image of the main mihrab of the 16th century Jama Masjid mosque in Bijapur forms the perfect backdrop to this conversation. Verses from the Quran richly decorate the arched mihrab in gold and is believed to be executed at the order of Muhammad Adil shah.

The Holy Quran carries the message of mercy, forgiveness and peace for all mankind. Like the Bible, the Quran has verses about war as well as peace. Perhaps Tarek was very close to finding his answers?

feat. Call me by your name, 2017

The dream like quality in Jethro Buck’s ‘Wild Things’ created using oil paint and 22 ¾ gold leaf on Gesso panels, transports us to the quiet summer of 1983 somewhere in northern Italy – in a place so enchanted, that it seems like it belongs in a fairy tale. Various worlds, relationships and desires from Guadagnino’s film ‘Call me by your name’ flow into each another in perfect harmony in a series of frames.

Jethro portrays coming together of the urban and rural, natural and built through dynamic figures in a miniature style in one large frame. As the eye travels across the large Gesso panels, one can spot smaller intimate compositions creating their own stories, quite similar to the intimate moments between Oliver and Elio which create smaller films within the larger narrative.

feat. Monsoon Wedding, a film by Mira Nair

Do you recollect that particular scene from Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding’, a moment we all could connect with instantly? Yes, where the whole globe is converging on a single family home in New Delhi, posing for a family photograph. And by the time this scene made its appearance in the later part of the film, just like Alexander Gorlizki @alexandergorlizki , we were all painting our own characters over their reel self, superimposing our understanding of them in context to the story and their place in the larger drama.

Gorlizki heavily uses symbolism and irony in a lot of his Mughal miniature inspired compositions. Quite symbolically, Nair paints sequences in the film that portray every kind of mood and genre- dreams of escape and memories of brutality, uncertain futures and promises of a better life.