(Re)Defining Borders: A Study of Popular YouTube Short Films

Dr. Ranita Chakraborty Dasgupta

India

*Corresponding Author E-mail: ranita23.chakraborty@gmail.com

I start this paper with a few quotes by film scholars and teachers from around the world. These quotes were their individual responses when they were asked “Why does film matter?” featuring in the Journal Film published by Intellect.

Gabriel Solomons, Creative Director and Series Editor: World Film Locations responded, “Film matters because it has the power to connect us to a world outside of our own, even if the only travelling we do is from our sofa”.

Mette Hjort, Prof. of film making at Lignan University, Hong Kong replied, “Film has an extraordinary capacity to expand our reality, to deepen our moral sensibility and to shape our self-understandings, sometimes by moving us closer to cultures, problems and realities that are distant from those we know well”.

KeyanTomasell, University of KwaZulu- Natal, South Africa and Editor of The Journal of African Cinemas said, “Film, in the generic sense, is the basis of all motion picture forms, and is the most pervasive form of communication and entertainment in the postmodern world”.

Finally, Prof. Pletari Kappa, University of Nottingham Ningbo, China viewed, “Cinema is one of the most efficient ways to debate political and cultural issues in global society, it can help audiences 'old' and 'new' to re-think their place in the world”.

Research in humanities and arts navigate with a wish to study and understand the human condition. For long it was literature that rendered the source material for reflection on what it means to be human. Literature continues to do that, nonetheless, films have come to offer an impacting visual alternative. While providing a narrative similar to literature it provides a strong, audio-visual, fast-paced narrative that mirrors the modern experience. When watching a film, it is not just the sensual experience of sight and sound but also the cerebral experience of the story itself which transports us to a different dimension of perception. Often watching films can be an effective way that helps better understand the ‘other’, a unique understanding that avoids generalizations and stereotypes and acknowledges the existence of the weirdest and starkest of truths. In fact, they can also be termed as the currency of intellectual debate.

Richard Raskin, Editor of the series Short Film Studies had once said in an interview, “When short films are at their best, they are the exact opposite of ‘a long, boring story with no point to it.’ I love brief narratives that are rich in texture, saturated with meaning and tell their stories without wasting a moment on filler of any kind.” It is widely known that the short film is the poetry of filmmaking. To reiterate that statement I’d like to share the most relevant definition of poetry by a Chinese master who said: ‘The writer’s message is like rice. When you write prose, you cook the rice. When you write poetry, you turn the rice into rice wine.’ And as Raskin says the best short films are pure rice wine – so concentrated and intoxicating that they take our breath away. In this paper we will be discussing a series of short films popular on YouTube that deal with the elements of border-lands and the border experience to see what it has come to mean to live in, pass through and think across the borders today through the director’s lens.

The goal is to primarily understand the shifting and ever-widening significations of borders in the context of both conflicting and homogenizing claims of globalization. The focus is on the impact of digital technology and new media in the processes of shaping and re-defining borders and borderlands, conceptually, culturally, and as geo-political entities in areas of cross-border human relationships. Thus, engagement with films, advertisements, social media, blogs, news, video clips and songs will be central to this seminar.

From that context this paper looks at a series of short films popular on YouTube each of which present a unique perspective to the concept of "border", “the borderland” and the “border-experience” in the wake of globalization. Following is the list of the short films that will be the subject of discussion.

· Border ke Uss Par

· Kite: The Messenger

· LOC…A Playground

· Tick Knock (Mexican Short Film)

Each of these films looks at the meaning of border today from a different angle; how on a daily basis people are negotiating, domesticating and acculturating these meanings to accommodate their lives and identities. This in a way helps uncover a very dynamic shift taking place in the significations of borders.

Border ke Uss Paar is a 19-minute short film by Shailesh Padsala published on YouTube on 25th March, 2014. Made under the banner of Siya Communications the film tells the story of a little boy who lives in a small border village in rural Rajasthan. It takes into account a period of two days in his life. The film starts on a random weekday showing the little boy on his way back from school. The moment he is back into the courtyard of his little thatched dwelling he busily starts looking for something. On being asked by his mother he informs he is looking for Uniyo, the little lamb, his prized possession whom he lovingly refers to as “maaro chorro” (meaning my son). A little later his mother asks him to graze the sheep for an hour or two and he insists on taking the lamb along. After a long tiring afternoon out in the sparse meadows as he starts gathering the sheep back on track for return, he notices that his little Uniyo has stranded away to the border fences. In spite of his loud callings and his hasty run finally when he reaches the fences the lamb has already jumped over the barbed wire into Pakistan. While he is busy trying to find a way to crossover and take back his prized possession a stranger on the other side picks up the lamb and walks off. In spite of his shouting and wailing the man doesn’t pay a heed. On notice of the ruckus a BSF Officer approaches the scene and asks the boy to go back. What follows is a value-loaded conversation.

The man asks him, “What are you doing here?” the boy replies, “See, he is going away with my Uniyo, please catch him!” He says, “Whose Uniyo? Who is taking away?” The boy replies, “That man!” The officer replies back, “Hey boy, don’t you know this is the border, that side is Pakistan and this is India? Your Uniyo has gone into Pakistan so forget him.” The boy refutes, “Which Pakistan, which India are you talking about? We have one God, same for you and me, so who does this border belong to? Let me go there once and I will get back my Uniyo right now.” The Officer replies “You cannot do that; you cannot cross the border.” The boy in acute desperation blames the man for the loss of his lamb (the Officer here stands for the National machinery which enforces the border). The man says that it is for him that the boy is safe and asks him to head back home. The boy answers back, “I can’t forget my Uniyo, it is my child. Can anybody desert one’s own child?” He requests the man to find a way to get back his lamb and the man informs him that there is no possible way. After all, “if we ask for the lamb, they will ask for Kashmir, if we ask for the Moon then they will ask for the Sun, if we ask for the night, they will ask for the day.” And while this conversation is on, the camera pans on the stranger receding into a distant hut with the lamb in his arms. The lad heads back home dejected only to return at night with a wire cutter and forays into the “other side” desperate to get back his dear pet. Cutting through the lowest barbed wire on the pole he rolls under and tiptoes into the backyard of the hut. Once he spots his Uniyo, while he is busy directing it to come to him with signals, he overhears a conversation. The little child in the household who had been keeping ill for the last two days as its dear pet (also a lamb) had died had suddenly regained an appetite and was getting better once her father had comeback with another lamb. Seeing a photo of the little girl on the wall holding on to her pet, immediately the boy changes his mind and heads back to his country. The next morning, he visits the border poles once again to see his Uniyo happy and loved on the other side. While he is busy staring into the distance, the stranger who had carried away his lamb approaches him and returns the boy’s handkerchief that he had mistakenly left back last night. None of the characters says a word, the boy stares, and cringes and raises his eyebrows in amazement while the man shows love and gratitude by patting the boy on the head and the film ends.

The complete overturning of the border experience that this short film highlights brings a smile and a tear or two in the eyes too. The fact that the essence of humanity rises above the realms of manmade borders and socio-political taboos of mistrust and hatred stand null and void in the face of pure human socialization based on the premises of love, care and sentiments is the crux of this piece. The symbolism brought in by the contradiction in the frame where the camera focuses on the weeding axe as the man approaches the border (hinting to a possible violent move) with the next scene when the axe moves out of the frame and the man returns the handkerchief to the boy with a smile on his face is a remarkable point of reference. Not once does it seem that the opposing national identities of these two individuals in anyway hinder the humane interaction between them. In fact, that they do not speak a word but still understand each other’s thoughts and intentions without any glitch is in a way proof of the superficial existence of the border. Moreover, even the conversation between the boy and the BSF Officer stating what the border stands for and what might be the implications if one tries to communicate across them is deeply significant as it helps reinforce the contradiction that is presented right at the end. The element of care and affection that is highlighted in the story hints toward a changing mind-set that is starting not to believe in the violent politics of borders, the strict surveillance across borders as an important part of national security which marks it as an ‘impermeable’ line dividing people and culture.

The next film we will be discussing is Kite: The Messenger. Produced by APEE Films as part of the Pocket Films series and directed by ParthaSarathi Manna this short film tells the story of a little boy called Hussain. As the 15 mins 23 seconds movie starts the camera gives a pan-optic vision of an arid desert country-side with two little boys in white madrassah uniforms panting for breath. The next frame takes us on a flashback two days ago and starts from a tea stall situated somewhere along the Pakistan-India borders 180 kms away from Karachi. Once back from the madrassah Hussain the little boy is asked by his father, (who owns the tea stall) to go and serve tea to a nearby dwelling where some Pakistani officers are having a meeting. He goes ahead and mistakenly overhears a conversation between a Pakistani army officer and two supposed terrorists. He chances upon the individuals discussing a possible infiltration into India, plans of an attack on Delhi, violent bombings in both India and Pakistan and a prospective outbreak of a war that would lead to a power shift in Pakistan. Also, they are found discussing the prospective new map of Pakistan which is shown including the disputed lands of Kashmir as its territories. Scared and disturbed the boy returns home. That day he spends a few extra minutes in namaaz making his father wonder what was he praying for. At night while having dinner with his parents Hussain spills his secret and how it was at stark contradiction with what he was taught at school, which was to take care of one’s neighbors and avoid the path of violence which has nothing to do with one’s religion. As his mother breaks into tears fearing the safety of her child, Hussain’s father tells him that God had created one world for all, it was man who cut it into pieces for his selfish needs and that Hussain need not worry, God will save the situation. However little Hussain struggles through the night contemplating the worst and recapitulating the words of his father.

Next morning, he buys some kite paper from a shop and makes a kite. While he is hurrying with his backpack through the by-lanes a classmate grabs him inquiring why is he heading opposite the way to the madrassah? Hussain quickly involves his friend on the mission and says he would explain things later. A while later we return to the scene from where the film had started. The two boys are out in the countryside panting for breath. Now Hussain reveals to his friend that they are here to fly a kite on which Hussain has written a letter to God informing him of the havoc that is about to happen in a couple of days. In a monologue we get to know what exactly Hussain has written there, his request to God to save guard the children on the other side and also a very pertinent question that he asks, why is there such difference in what we are taught and what our actions are? The teacher at school informs him that even saving a single life is same as saving the entire human race, but he sees people around him busy in violence and bloodshed. Finally, two days later a radio broadcast informs that thanks to a kite which had flown in from somewhere in Sind, the Indian army had managed to resist an infiltration into its borders saving a possible violent outbreak. And little Hussain heaves a sigh of relief, looking up to the skies in gratitude to the Almighty.

Another remarkable short film by the same director and for the same series is called LOC… A Playground. A film spanning for a bare 5:56 seconds it starts with an Indian soldier sitting with a radio next to the LOC listening to the live commentaries of an India-Pakistan cricket final. Soon a Pakistani soldier approaches and while the radio signal starts getting disturbed, he shoots the radio. Caught at utter surprise the Indian soldier is terrified at the suddenness only to realize that the Pakistani soldier hints him to adjust the station properly for an uninterrupted commentary. What follows next is an across the LOC cricket match between the Indian and Pakistani soldiers where the pitch lays across the borders starting from one country and foraging into the other. Symbolically the Pakistani soldier uses his gun as the bat and the Indian soldier uses a grenade as the ball showcasing the pure spirit of sports taking over the space of mutual hatred and suspicion cultured and mitigated by the state machinery. The film aims to remove the enmity between both the countries by playing a cricket match.

Both the films showcase a unique perspective, the emerging new age of a global consciousness, a friendly sense of neighborhood that forces the audiences to re-think the equations of border and border security. At times the borders actually appear to be hindrances to the collective happiness of people living on both the sides weighing more than an insurance of their safety.

Tick Knock is a Mexican short film with the tag line Illegal Border Crossing in Mexico. Directed by Rowan Brooks, Isiah Flores and Camila Magrane the film is a 7:26 minutes masterpiece by Paraplux. Featuring four men and a young woman with a baby waiting in a truck in the early hours of dawn to be led into USA by a coyote, the film sensitively captures all the various shades of anxiety and insecurities enmeshed with dreams of a better future that precedes an illegal immigration. The title resonates the customary ticking sound of a clock tick tock it stands for the fear of the impending knock on the closed shutters of the truck that the immigrants both desire and fear. The fear of being caught by the police or left deserted by the coyote lurks at the back of their head even when they all sit inside discussing a prospective new beginning in the land of opportunities. Lupe wants to start a restaurant, the man with the violin wants to work with metals in his uncle’s shop in Jalisco, the Pop Pops eating young lad wants to marry a blonde American girl and all that the fourth man wants to do is send some money back home to his mother and sisters. When asked, Camilla, the young woman with the child doesn’t answer what are her plans in the new land, but it seems from the blonde baby in her lap and her own native Mexican features that she is going into USA in search of an absconding lover, the father of her baby.

It features a documentary style making, the camera shifts from one speaker to the other like done in a conversational interview. The film features the helplessness of illegal immigrants who go into the States in search of a fresh start. They give up all their possessions to the coyote, so much so that even their watches are taken away and they are unable to keep a track of the time and of the fact as to when their ordeal of waiting in anticipation is going to come to an end. And finally, when the van starts moving, the sigh of relief, the tears and smile and then lastly when the characters walk out of the van the bright, hopeful expressions on their faces all add to the nuanced intricacies and complexities of illegal immigration that this film captures with flying colors.

Now let’s look at the ways in which each of these films deals with the idea of border and borderland and the experience of being in the border or crossing it. The idea of frontiers or borders is a European mechanism employed to perpetuate and reinforce difference. Their purpose was to mark a distinction between those who were entitled to access the rights and benefits of the state and those who were not. In the words of Hannah Arendt, “People’s right to have rights is then determined by their status as nationals or foreigners of a state, since national institutions rest upon the formulation of a rule of exclusion, of visible or invisible borders, materialized in laws and practices. (Balibar, 2004: 23).

For the first three films the question in mind is doubly complex, on one hand people in this case were initially nationals of the same state (undivided India) who are now torn apart (into India and Bangladesh). So, there are the remnants of shared experiences still stored away in memory. On the other hand, what naturally seems like home is marked by the barbed line of distinction; the free-flowing meadow that starts from one’s courtyard and ends into another’s is the very border space which stands for the division of one country from the other. However, amidst the expected culture of hatred that people of the bordered neighborhoods are supposed to harbor, the films show them actually caring for each other in the face of the worst adversities. The films portray a sense of belonging, a fellow feeling and most importantly how these people care for each other. What can be brought in here for a further analysis is the notion of ethics of care propagated by the American ethicist and psychologist, Carol Gilligan. The ethics of care is a normative ethical theory that holds interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue as central to moral action. Ethics of care criticize application of universal standards as "morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference." If we use this notion to read the actions of the little boy in Border ke Uss Paar or little Hussain, they are born out of a sense of care and an overarching concern for the well-being of all that weighs more than the fact that the people they care for belong to the other side of the border.

Similarly, the sense of mutual trust and benevolence that the Pakistani and Indian soldiers manage to portray effectively re-defines the equations of border surveillance. It also creates the hope for a transformed future when the entire school of thoughts regarding borders and their significance will undergo a foundational change. It is the changed actions of the bordered individuals which signal to a prospective change in epistemological understanding of the “border-space”.

Tick Knock deals with the question of border from a different angle. The looming question of assimilation that these characters anticipate marks the undercurrent of the film. After all assimilation is one of the most common and serious problems that transnational migrants face in the new land. Often these people are seen as a threat to social security of the host country. Current trends of immigration show a tendency of people moving from areas of high political, social, or economic insecurity to what migrants tend to perceive as areas of lower insecurity. Yet this process is considered turbulent due to the effects it causes in hosting countries. On a secondary level, it is believed by many that immigrants carry with them the underdevelopment characteristic of their place of origin (Heisler and Layton-Henry, 1993). The perceived problem with immigrants is that they do not want to put their culture aside in order to adopt the dominant culture. For instance, in the case of Mexicans in the U.S., language, religion, traditions, and poverty are considered to be completely antithetical with the American way of “making good (Nostrand, 1970: 642). In addition, Mexican heritage is closely associated with a tradition of failure (Poyo and Hinojosa, 1988). Thus, slow assimilation, in combination with stereotypes of failure and laziness, are the reasons for which Mexicans appear undesirable to white America.

When analyzing Tick Knock, I was wondering how was this film re-defining the idea of borders? Or was it simply portraying yet another picture of a sad immigrant story? Nonetheless, I could feel there was something in its making that was uniquely ground breaking. The element of anticipation is so concentrated that with the characters on screen even I was anticipating the worst with a panting heart. On deeper scrutiny I realized that it was the element of “otherness” that was so engaging. All the characters except Camilla (who doesn’t speak at all) are shown speaking very positively about the domain of the other that they aim to reach and reside in. Each one of them know that they are a stranger to the land they are heading to, but weighing more than the uncertainties is the hope that they associate with that other land, the smile that appears on their face when they sit discussing their future prospects in that unknown land. I believe this approach is a new-fangled one. I think the basic human tendency to naturally trust the other gets highlighted here. The positive motive that the makers introduce give a new perspective to a known story that had been said so many times, the story of a failed migration, a deserting by the coyote and a series of sad demises out in the parching desert. The fact that the characters in Tick Knock reach their destination is like a parallel journey for the audiences also, that helps them to successfully transport to a new mindset, and the physical journey resonates the mental transportation.

On a concluding note, one must recognize and appreciate the novel approaches taken by the makers of these short films who choose not to tread by the common and the everyday but look at the entire concept of border and the border experience in a complete new way and in the most concise and effective way possible. The fact that these films are seeing popular circulation and viewership at online portals like YouTube is a positive step ahead. YouTube happens to be an integral part of the Internet users' or in that sense the global users' online experience today. The site receives around 3 billion views on a daily basis making it an impactful stage for global communication and interaction of the most viral kind. One of the greatest strengths of this online media portal is that it allows viewers to track the number of views a video has received and also go through the comments that viewers from all around the globe is sharing about a particular piece.

Hence, chances that these films are sowing the seeds of a new attitude into the psyche of an expansive global audience thereby accelerating a process of attitudinal transformation towards borders and bordered identities are rather stout. That in fact hints at the positive impact that a social media site like YouTube can have on commenting/highlighting/dealing with such sensitive factors like the "borders" issue and entire curiosity around the "bordered identity" in today’s world which characterizes antagonism and a constant social flux.

References:

Border Ke Uss Paar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnI66dYZH4)

Kite: The Messenger (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zT1UJLAU3o)

LOC…A Playground (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ma6TVZe0gc4)

Tick Kock (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4M6OKKxMaA)

Border Identities: Nation and State at International Frontiers. Edited by Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan. (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998)

Border Crossings: Cultural Workers and the Politics of Education. Edited by Henry A. Giroux. (New York, Routledge, 2005)

Crossing Borders, Reinforcing Borders: Social Categories, Metaphors, and Narrative Identities on the U.S.‐Mexico Frontier. Kathleen Murphy. Journal of the American Ethnological Society. Vol. 29, Issue 2, May 2002

Nlday, Donna & Allender, Dale. Standing on the Border: Issues of Identity and Border Crossings in Young Adult Literature (https://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/winter00/niday.html , accessed on 21.6.2018)

Accepted on 20.06.2019

International J. Advances in Social Sciences.2019;7(1-2):09-14.

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2679.2019.00003.3