The digitally remastered 4K version of Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, an Indo-Japanese co-production of the early 1990s, is a living proof of the vision and finesse that Ram Mohan, the doyen of Indian animation filmmaking, brought to bear upon his craft as well as of the power of myth to break barriers of geography and time.
An adaptation of the Indian epic, which was produced and co-directed by filmmaker and Indophile Yugo Sako to mark the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between India and Japan, is a lively, entertaining and magnificently accomplished piece of feature-length animation.
Completed in 1992, Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama was released worldwide. It also played successfully at film festivals across the globe. Its re-release in Indian multiplexes is an opportunity for the current generation of filmgoers weaned on Hollywood animation films to savour this largely home-grown wonder on the big screen.
The film combines elements of Japanese anime with Indian pictorial styles influenced by the art of Raja Ravi Varma. The coalescence of distinct visual traditions is the most pronounced in the figure of Sita. In her are blended strokes rooted in the imagination from which Snow White originated, lines that evoke Hayao Miyazaki’s artistry and eye for detail and the aura of a goddess right out of a portrait adorning the wall of an Indian living room. The film is a joy to behold.
Awash with remarkably vibrant colours, the film presents an array of characters who fight against or for Prince Rama and what he represents. They range from King Sugriv, the towering and mighty Hanuman and a sprightly Angad. No key episode from Prince Rama’s years in exile and his war against Ravan is missed.
In the enemy camp, Ravan is surrounded by his shape-shifting son Indrajit, the invincible Kumbhkarna, younger brother Vibhisana, who reneges against him, nephews Kumbha and Nikumbha and several others who plunge into the war to prevent Sita from being rescued.
Coming three years after English director Peter Brook’s Mahabharata, a condensed filmed rendition of the nine-hour, three-part stage adaptation of the sprawling epic scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere, Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama gave the world one of the most definitive screen adaptations of an Indian epic.
A dubbed Hindi version of the film had a limited release in India five years later. After a brief, largely unnoticed run, the 135-minute animated film, which had the voices of the likes of Amrish Puri, Arun Govil, Rael Padamsee and Pearl Padamsee across its two versions, dropped off the theatrical radar although it continued to be screened on television.
The historically significant work created by Ram Mohan with Sako and Japanese animation filmmaker Koichi Sasaki (the only surviving member of the original trio behind the film) used painstaking cel animation to bring the Ramayana alive on the big screen. It is believed to have taken over a decade to complete.
As we watch a spruced-up version of the film 32 years later, the quality of the animation at once strikes us as exceptional. However, the new voices and the subtitles do not quite live up to the standards set by the dazzling perfection of Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama.
Its technical proficiency is of the highest order. The beguiling but unobtrusive use of shadows, streaks of light and reflections to illuminate frames and vividly imagined physical spaces that lend a sense of depth to the 2D animation stands out in bold relief.
The background illustrations that the Japanese animators used as the basis for the creation of the characters and the settings were contributed by Indian filmmakers Nachiket and Jayoo Patwardhan. The music was composed by Vanraj Bhatia. The score, which has clearly stood the test of time, adds immense value to the film.
Back where it belongs after a long history of dubs, releases, distribution deals, festival screenings and awards, Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, distributed in India by Geek Pictures, Excel Entertainment and AA Films, celebrates more than just a legend.
If viewed in the context of the narratives that are spun in present times around the core conflict between good and evil, the film acquires a revisionist edge. It highlights the righteousness, generosity and courage of Prince Rama who goes into a 14-year exile to honour his father’s wish and is drawn into a war with Ravana to rescue his consort, Sita.
But it also brings to the fore the values that made him the unvanquishable hero that he was. He fights for what he believes is right, but his victory is not followed by heraldic triumphalism. His demeanour in battle and at its end encapsulates a clear anti-war stance. After he annihilates an evil ruler, he does not exult and preen. He advocates that fallen enemy soldiers be given dignified last rites.
Warriors, Prince Rama tells King Sugriv’s army and Hanuman, are on one side or the other only as long as they are alive and fighting. Once dead, they are only humans. We are human first, Kshatriyas later, he declares. Sita, too, seeks forgiveness from the army dragged into a war that could have been avoided.
When you see this pacifist version of the Ramayana, you also grasp the hollowness of the militaristic muscle-flexing and divisive wall-building that informs contemporary geopolitics. The film does not see a battle between good and evil as a pretext for belligerent grandstanding and an eschewal of all vestiges of civility.
It projects Prince Rama as a paragon of virtue not because he is blessed with uncommon valour but because of his fierce commitment to probity, benignity and the principles espoused by his dharma. Therefore, as a piece of cinema, it may be a thing from the past, but its message is still as relevant as ever.
