Dark Shades
Such a Morning by Amar Kanwar, which was first shown at Documenta 14 at Athens and Kassel in 2017, is the story of an old mathematics teacher, who—fearing that he was losing his eyesight—withdraws from life, into the zone of darkness, inside a train. The film, edited by Sameera Jain, with cinematography by Dilip Varma, is also a modern parable about two people’s quiet engagement with truth. During the recent screening of the film at the Cellar in the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, it was accompanied by an installation by Kanwar. Excerpts of an interview with Kanwar:
Q. Why do you call the film Such a Morning?
It felt right; finding a title is often difficult. It can also be a morning that belongs to the present, the past and future.
Q. Why this tryst with darkness?
Darkness can open other senses, put you in a position of ‘unknowing’, allow you to reconfigure. I am interested in the ‘vision from the heart of non-vision’. There is no darkness without light. You need a bit of light to see the darkness. In the times we are living, humans have a desire for violence. I have continuously explored methods and routes to comprehend/ resist/ respond to violence. This time I was interested in another way—to find a hallucinatory, perhaps metaphysical, response to violence.
Q. There are 49 types of darkness, according to the protagonist? Why 49?
I like the number.
Q. Why did you choose a mathematics teacher as the protagonist?
A mathematician comprehends and continuously deals with the complexity and beauty of abstraction and poetry. A mathematician is often misunderstood. People find it hard to relate to a mathematician’s mind. Perhaps that’s why.