Anaconda.
That’s the name of the boat owned by government officials who race into Loktak Lake, in the North East Indian state of Manipur, in a bid to evict it’s fisherfolk community.
The movie begins after an effort to remove these swamp dwellers who eke out a living growing herbs, all while battling fishing lines, poverty and nature for survival. It’s based on a 2011 real-life decision to raze their make-shift huts on floating biomass, and has all the angst that one can expect from a helpless community under threat of becoming rootless. At one point, the villagers roar in defiance — “we will die for the lake”.
Watch: Independent film 'Lady of the Lake' captures the struggles of villagers in the Loktak Lake region of Northern India. Community Interactivity Editor Rabab Khan reviews. More on gulfnews.com.
At the start of the movie, Tomba (a brilliant Ningthoujam Sanatomba), a fisherman, is sick and frightened and it seems like his mind is unravelling — he keeps saying he can see an old woman on the lake. His wife is dismissive of this claim, but he’s adamant. You can see the change in Tomba, however — from a sulky, isolated, beaten man who will only look at the floor and say few words to an aggressive alpha male ready for a fight. One day, he discovers a gun while fishing.
Power over life and death. Power that puts him on equal footing with the authorities that came to his village and used their weapons to drill fear and hopelessness into its people. It is a heady change, and while it gives him his joie de vivre back, it also makes him arrogant.
Perhaps that’s why the old woman appears before him. Director Haobam Paban Kumar, in his debut film, doesn’t tell us if Tomba is hallucinating and that’s why he tries to shoot her, or if he is dreaming, which would explain his wife’s silence during the act.
This incident leads to sweeping shots of the lake — which are mesmerising — first following the view from a boat, then under water, on a fish-like trajectory. We are led to the gun and a damp, muffled chorus of agony.
The ease with the actors handled their boats, the fishing and the sea give the movie a documentary flair — watch it for a peek into the tough lives of those who call a lake home.
