A Season Outside
1997
Film, 00:30:00.
Materials:
Collection: Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York, Paris and London.
Amar Kanwar's film A Season Outside is a formative documentary that was broadcast on television in India. It offers a very personal view of the relations between India
and Pakistan fifty years after partition at the stroke of midnight on August 14, 1947 — a brutal process that left millions on the ‘wrong’ side of the border, and burgeoning sectarian violence. The film begins with the daily ritual at sunset of closing the gate on the border at Wagah-Atari village, where soldiers enact a display of nationalist pride and aggression. Crowds of spectators watch from either side of the thin white line. Alongside witnessing the arduous cross-border movement of goods for trade, we also witness protesters beaten by police, a crowd cheering as two rams lock horns, and children fighting. In a personal reflection, we hear the artist
himself narrating, forming a more abstract and emotional film. Sitting in contrast to Mahatma Ghandi’s insistence on pacifism, this staged ritual of enacting conflict on the militarised border becomes the means for reflecting metaphorically on violence. The artist has stated: “A Season Outside is a personal and philosophical
journey through the shadows of past generations, conflicting positions, borders and time zones—a nomad wandering through lines of separation, examining the scars of violence and dreams of hope scattered among communities and nations”.
