Sri Aurobindo and The Earth’s Future

For all those interested in India’s history in the beginning of the 20th century, and for the devotees of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, this film is a ‘must see’. Not only because it is very beautiful, but also because it highlights a period in the history of India’s freedom struggle which is not sufficiently known. “Sri Aurobindo is ‘The Great Unknown’,” says Olivier Barot, who wrote the screenplay and realized the film. “Many people in India know only his name – in the best of cases – but have no idea about his work and achievements.”

The film depicts the period from Sri Aurobindo’s birth in 1872 to his arrival in Pondicherry in 1910. It contains many photographic images from this time in chronological order: from Calcutta, Manchester and London, Bombay and Baroda and again from Calcutta, the Alipore Jail, the French enclave of Chandernagore and, finally, French Pondicherry. The film is beautiful because of the many water colour illustrations of Sri Aurobindo made by 18-year old Aurovilian India Letizia; the paintings of more than 20 famous and lesser-known artists – including Aurovilians Nathalie Nuber, Milo and Jyoti Khare; and, last but certainly not least, the stunning photographs by Olivier himself.

After posting the movie on YouTube, Olivier plans bringing out a second and perhaps even a third part in the years to come. “These parts will be very different from this one,” he says. “I will continue the movie in chronological order, but after Sri Aurobindo settled in Pondicherry there aren’t so many external events. I hope I can show the continuing evolution of Sri Aurobindo in his thought and vision. And there will be flashbacks, such as on the life of The Mother. I plan to show who she is and why she came to Pondicherry and what she contributed to Sri Aurobindo’s yoga. Another part of the film will focus on their joint yoga and on their work on bringing down the Supermind in matter.”

Olivier had been dreaming about making this film for many years. But the time was never ripe. “I first thought about it when I did the exhibition Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, the Advent of a New World at the Visitors’ Centre in 2012, which was sponsored by Mr. Koolesh Shah of Sri Aurobindo Trust, London. Then, on the occasion of Auroville’s 50th anniversary, I made the coffee table book on Auroville. When the book was finished, I had no work, and the old idea of making the film strongly resurfaced. Koolesh and I had brainstormed about making the film many years ago. I contacted him. He still supported the plan and agreed to sponsor it.”

Olivier started writing the screenplay, consulting books such as Purani’s The Life of Sri Aurobindo, Rishabhchand’s Sri Aurobindo - His Life Unique, Satprem’s Sri Aurobindo or The Adventure of Consciousness, and Sujata’s Mother’s Chronicles, and reading many of Sri Aurobindo’s own writings. Making the draft took him more than six months. “Then I consulted the specialists of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives. They were very helpful. Bob Zwicker meticulously went through the draft and proposed many changes and corrections, while Kiran Kakad provided numerous photographs and documents, including some photos which I had never seen before.”

In the meantime he put a note in Auroville’s News and Notes that he was looking for artists who would be interested to contribute. “Three or four people responded. I finally settled on India Letizia, a talented young Aurovilian from Italy who finished Last School last year. I wanted Auroville youth to be part of this project and she suited admirably. She is passionate about painting and I was touched how she was able to portray Sri Aurobindo. I wanted to have something impressionistic, not too precise, and she managed quite accurately.” Another young contributor was Shrishti Dangi, who narrated the introduction of the film. “It wasn’t easy to find the voices I wanted,” he reflects. “I chanced on Hamish Boyd when I heard him speaking in a public meeting at Kalabhumi. I realized his was the voice I needed! He agreed to participate. Aravinda Maheshwari became the third narrator, voicing Sri Aurobindo.”

All in all, making the film took him three years. “I did it all alone and that was really too much for me,” he says. “More than half of the time I was on the internet looking for documentation. I saw thousands of photos from the 19th and early 20th century and had to work on the ones I selected as many were in a very poor state. I included the pictures of those young freedom fighters who were imprisoned together with Sri Aurobindo, of whom The Mother had said that she was able to see their psychic beings. I also included some scenes from a few Indian films. For example, from the 1971 Bengali film Mahabiplabi Aurobindo by Dipak Gupta, I took the scene of these people singing and dancing in the Alipore jail courthouse and not paying any attention to the proceedings. There were some scenes from movies by Satyajit Ray, such as a train passing by, to show the times. And I included a very touching scene from the 1951 Bengali film Anandamath by Satish Dasgupta, where a young boy passionately sings Bande Mataram, which later became India’s National Song.”

Does the film give a correct exposure of India’s history in the beginning of the previous century? “The information provided is correct, but of course it is incomplete as I had to make many cuts,” he says. “The importance of this film is to show that long before Mahatma Gandhi there was a movement towards self-government and independence. The ideas of swaraj [self rule] and swadeshi [boycotting foreign goods and encouraging the use of domestic products] came from Sri Aurobindo and from people such as the Maharashtrian Bal Gangadhar Tilak, the first leader of the Indian independence movement who was called by the British ‘The father of the Indian unrest’ and later by Mahatma Gandhi ‘The Maker of Modern India’; the Punjabi Lala Lajpat Rai whose fierce brand of patriotism and potent vocalism against the British rule earned him the title of Punjab Kesari [the Lion of the Punjab]; and the Bengali Bipin Chandra Pal, who had started the English language weekly newspaper Bande Mataram to which Sri Aurobindo contributed so much. Many of these people and their followers have been forgotten; this section of the film pays homage to the early freedom fighters of India.”

After a three-year ‘Sri Aurobindo intensive’, Olivier is exhausted. “My eyes are tired,” he says. “There was such a massive amount of material to go through! It became a work of distillation. I wanted to have a minimum of text, going to the essence, and with very powerful imagery. Of course, I had to cut – two hours and twenty minutes of the final version is already very long – and I was not pleased about that. But that’s the process. However, I won’t be able to go on like this. I’ll need an assistant for the next movies.”

There is also gratefulness. “It’s always good to be with Sri Aurobindo. I learned a lot. The final movie has nothing to do with what I envisaged at the beginning. It was kind of a revelation; I discovered the film while doing it. I learned that if you have an idea and follow it with patience and persistence, something will come out of it.”

The ‘immediate next’ will be to subtitle the film in Hindi, Tamil, French and perhaps other languages, and make these versions also available on YouTube. Then the work on part 2 will start, which, says Olivier, will have a large section on Mother India and the importance of India to the Future of the Earth, as conceived by Sri Aurobindo.

To find the movie go to YouTube channel ´Olivier Barot’