Mrigendrah

Mrigendrah was shot entirely in central and south India in the summer of 2004. This film began as an attempt to create a documentary on the culture of Kathakali, a form of traditional dance-drama native to the southwestern state of Kerala. However, due to political and financial obstacles, I was unable to shoot the footage necessary to make the documentary I had envisioned. Instead, I began pointing my camera at the everyday world around me, attempting to bridge the gap between the elitist and otherworldly nature of Indian classical arts and the most common surface elements of modern India.

The word "mrigendrah" is a very obscure Sanskrit term used in poetry to refer to tigers or lions. Literally, it means "killer of beasts." The structure of this film is centered on a quasi-literal search for tigers, India's most famed and notorious predators. In the figure of the tiger, we see embodied an esoteric and inscrutable godforce that permeates existence, acting violently and mysteriously to unfold world events in continuous cycles of being and non-being. Those who travel to India from the west are often in search of a primeval spirituality, a sense of intuition that originated and predates contemporary society. Whether they find it there or not is often a question of perception and interpretation. Likewise, whether or not you find tigers in this film is quite likely a question of how you view it. I put it to you that they are there; see if you can spot them!

-- Zane J. S. Johnson