Nation Building and Identity through Cinema

Themes of loyalty, friendship and endurance that embellish the narrative of the film Gallipoli, is more often that not difficult to be identified as part of efforts in the name of nation building or awareness of identity. It is rare, especially for the mass audience, to associate a certain government’s or filmmaker’s agenda to promote national identity or nation building with a particular film that is being watched. There are two main issues that mark the mentioned problem. Firstly, all films have a narrative and characters that preferably can be identified with, and as a result of this basic story-telling practice, there lies a difficulty in distinguishing whether a character’s attributes are representative of the populous or just his own. The same could be said for the film’s narrative – does it tell the story of an isolated individual, a small fraction of a particular society, or the entire nation? Secondly, film genres, unique styles and narratives in films and audience expectations of what a film or an anticipated film is/would be about, inadvertently subdue their awareness of the details that may have been included for that ‘nation building through cinema’ propaganda, or in some cases for better government funding.

Gallipoli was a film that, for Australians, not only reminded them of that historical event, but also of what it means to be Australian, or the familiar attributes and practices that make them uniquely Australian. It was a film not just about Gallipoli and not so much about warfare, but more importantly it was about the Australian spirit and identity shown through and represented by the character Archie. But for the international audience, which I count myself a part of, there were only few uniquely Australian elements and details, and one of those few was the unique event of Gallipoli itself. It is not true to say that it wasn’t a film that tried to showcase Australian culture and identity. But access to a proper awareness of that culture and identity through this and many other films seem to be reserved only for those who are already familiar with the said culture and national identity. It is difficult to point out, the bits in this film that truly define Australian identity, the details and attributes that isolate Australian culture as specially and uniquely one of its kind. Similarly in most western cinema and films, it is difficult to recognize or identify the unique cultural and national identity that the people in those countries have. This is due to either a lack of investment in the said propaganda or to the fact that the screen is just too limited an avenue to showcase national identity. In the case of cultures that are deemed ‘exotic’ by international audiences, one could be forgiven for thinking that they have it easier when it comes to nation building through cinema/screen. Films like Slumdog Millionaire give one the immediate awareness of not only what the culture of the natives in the slums of Mumbai is like but also how unique it is, how different their culture is as compared to that of the majority of its international audiences. It may be true that they have it easier and filmmakers count on and use this exoticness at times specifically for international appeal. But as a result of that, the portrayal of a culture’s or nation’s identity may be and could be easily tainted, exaggerated or even exploited.

Nation building through cinema is in most cases ineffective and burdensome. It offers too narrow a platform for the demonstration of national identity and leaves attempts to showcase it short of either clarity or accuracy. But this is not to say that there is no hope and that there have not been successful attempts at all in the past.  Government funding should not only be allocated to films still riding on the ‘national cinema’ bandwagon. Growth of cinema as an industry should be encouraged and more creative output and artistic talent fostered so as to pave the way to a more influential and efficient national cinema. For now, there should be a quota system by which a specified amount of films from both the nation building and more independent camps would receive government funding.  This is probably the only way to attract filmmakers to produce films without the fears of being limited to certain ‘nation building’ content.  If one good film is but a narrow platform for nation building, mathematically and maybe logically, the longer run would produce more good films that could become a collective effort or joint-base for a potentially better and more effective form of that construction.