In (silent) praise of inarticulacy

I doubt if a film like Manakamana will be seen by more than 50 people.

And that is just fine, going by the core philosophy of makers Pachao Velez and Stephanie Spray's Documentary. The philosophy seems to be that the best of thoughts may go unexpressed and thus unheard; the best of things may go unseen and the best of sounds may go unheard.

The film is about the journey pilgrims make to Manakamana, a Hindu temple in a small mountain village in Nepal. Inside the temple resides the goddess Bhagavati.

The temple is in a remote location; over time pilgrims have endured, happily so, the arduous journey to the site. Recently, they have been riding a cable car to and from the temple. The cable car is a technological insertion into nature, but the regular pilgrims are not mesmerized by the cable car. Some mumble the fact that this is the first time in their life that they are aboard a cable car. 

That's it.

The Documentary is not a homage to technology or to many aspects of modernity that we have taken for granted and feel deep lacunae when they go missing from our surrounding.

The Documentary is one that somebody like philosopher and art critic Susan Sontag would have liked: a no-frills-attached registering on our consciousness of a fleeting experience that quietly leaves its imprint on us.

Sontag had cringed at the thought of over-articulation of experiences, at the sight of tourists taking pictures of things they visit and see, at the cultural proclivity to record and note every sensation one experiences when one is in the presence of, let's say, a "wonder", man-made or natural.

The temple of Manakamana is a wonder to its pilgrims. But the pilgrims generally remain inarticulate about the wonder. Because of the cable car and other conveniences, the temple is now visited by outsiders as well. Tourists, the nemesis of a Sontagian universe, take pictures and jot down notes; there is a rock musician who jokes around and expresses cynicism. They are not looking at the temple; in essence with the noise they create, they are looking at themselves. The jokes they sprout, the cynicism they express, the notes and the photographs they take are silent echoes of themselves.

The traditional pilgrims approach the shrine with awe and ardor and leave in awe and ardor. The wonder they experience is left at that, not translated into words or into a narrative.