Two years ago, Festival audiences discovered a lovely surprise in On the Wings of Dreams. In this gentle, humane fable, director Golam Rabbany Biplob showed the richness of village life in Bangladesh, even as he explored the modern tensions that threaten it. In his follow-up feature Beyond the Circle, Biplob finds a moral tale in the pressing and inevitable shift now facing his society: the move from the village to the city.
Haripada is a musician in the rural north. He is Hindu but has adopted a Muslim boy, Moqbul, into his family. His only brush with urban life came when a reporter once interviewed him about his music. When that interview is eventually published, the journalist, Selim, returns and invites Haripada to come to Dhaka. A capital city of over twelve million, Dhaka swallows men like Haripada by the minute.
Initially eager to see city life, the old man and his adopted son are immediately swept up in commerce. A music company considers Haripada's talent with the traditional flute a precious commodity. Deploying an army of publicists, managers, sponsors and marketers, they set about exploiting his rustic authenticity. Each time Haripada tries to flee to his village, they find one more way to pull him back.
The corruption of a village innocent by the wicked city is the stuff of folk tales, old novels and Frank Capra movies. Like Capra's heroes, Haripada may be naive but he is not stupid. Beset by the many demands of bustling Dhaka, he's forced to find a path back to his music. And the tunes are sublime. Drawing from age-old Bangladeshi folk traditions, Beyond the Circle introduces beautiful new melodies that float through and above the percussive push of the city.
Cameron Bailey
Golam Rabbany Biplob was born in Naogaon, Bangladesh, and studied Bengali language and literature, philosophy and English. He is the secretary general of the International Federation of Film Societies and the founding director of the International Film Festival Bangladesh. His first feature film,
On the Wings of Dreams (07), won the best new Asian director award at the 2007 Shanghai International Film Festival.
Beyond the Circle (09) is his latest film.