Culture clash makes waves in a Bangladeshi village

Daniel Nelson

“You are going to shoot a first feature, in Bangladesh, during monsoon, on boats? May Allah be with you! Allahu Akbar!” 

That’s what US director Spike Lee told Rezwan Shahriar Sumit, after giving him a film-writing grant.

I laughed, recalls Sumit – “but he was right. This project, from development to post-production, tested me in ways I never imagined.”

Fortunately, the film he has written and directed, The Salt in Our Waters, passes the test.

It’s the tale of a sculptor, Rudro, who takes a break from life in crowded, polluted Dhaka to live in a remote fishing village in the Bay of Bengal. There’s wonderful joy in his face as disembarks from the ferry on the last leg of his journey and looks around at his new home. But minutes later comes a portent of trouble as the men helping him unpack his huge crate spot alcohol in a bag and, even more disturbingly, life-size statues – or, as they see them, idols.

The scene is set for a struggle between religion and science, tradition and modernity, authority and individuality, power and poverty, patriarchy and women, and, ultimately, between visitor and Chairman, who is also the imam

It’s a brew as heady as Rudro’s alcohol, and the differences are exacerbated by his thoughtlessness: he has to be told, “Try not to speak to the girls here – at least not openly”, and leaves nude sketches in his room. He is warm and open, but everything he does seems like a challenge to Chairman: even the toy fish he encourages the excited kids to make are destroyed as unholy. The Chairman is a particularly interesting: character. Initially, he seems to be a grasping feudal a overlord, with a gang enforcing his wishes. But he turns out to be more complex, with self-awareness, some sincerity and an understanding of his limitations.

Another ingredient in the brew comes from Rudro’s growing bond with a girl who glimpses in him a wider world beyond the village, beyond the sea that both sustains and threatens the village and which throws up the flashpoint in his rural adventure: the hilsha catch dwindles to scraps, for which he and his idols are blamed and which he tries to explain is an inevitable result of climate change.

The on-land storm created by the confrontation between Chairman and Rudro is paralleled by a storm thundering in from the sea.

It’s unbelievably good for a first feature. An interesting story, skilfully told and filmed, and well acted. It gives the viewer time to think as well as to enjoy.

Spike Lee judged well to back it; Rezwan Shahriar Sumit did well to make it.

* Next screening: at the London Indian Film Festival, 17 June-4 July