Introduction to Ship of Theseus
Ship of Theseus (2012) was screened at Epsilon Spires in Brattleboro, Vermont on August 21, 2021. Below is my cultural preview of the film.
A thought experiment
The title ‘Ship of Theseus’ is a direct reference to an ancient thought puzzle, prominently articulated by 6th Century BCE. Greek philosopher Plutarch. According to mythological history, the ship of the Greek hero Theseus was placed in a museum in Athens. Slowly as parts of the ship began to rot, they were replaced by new ones. Plutarch questioned the authenticity of the restored ship, since it eventually had none of its original parts: does the Ship of Theseus retain its legendary identity even with its components replaced? The film uses this thought experiment to explore the subject of organ donation.
The film, Ship of Theseus, directed by Anand Gandhi, tells the story of three different protagonists whose commonality is revealed throughout the film: a blind photographer, a Jain monk and a stockbroker. All three protagonists are unusual for Indian cinema and had never been explored in any other film at the time its release in 2012.
Vision of the mind
The first story is of a blind photographer named Aaliya who finds expression in an art form dominated by vision. She has fine-tuned her skills to take pictures by listening to her subjects. In the scene where she is leafing through her photographs, you will be able to notice that the pictures are as much aural as they are visual.
A lot of technology was used in the film to show Aaliya’s creative process: a tiny speaker attached to her camera tells her the focal length and exposure of the scene in front of her, and a gradient printer helps her feel the photograph. The contours on the picture are of varying levels based on the darkness of the colors. Assistance for this technology was provided to the makers of the film by the Helen Keller Institute for the Deaf and Deafblind.
Moral dilemma
The second story is that of a Jain monk named Maitreya – which is likely his religious name – and it means the compassionate one. Maitreya is a monk of Jainism, a religion that is rooted in non-violence and even penance or self-sacrifice to ensure no harm to other living beings is committed. I would like to offer some examples to elaborate this point: Jain monks walk barefoot so that they don’t accidentally trample on little critters under their feet. People following the Jain religion are vegetarians and even within that, they do not consume root vegetables. According to Jains, the harvesting of root vegetables such as potatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, carrots or beets involves uprooting the entire plant leading to much destruction. Jain monks live off alms collected from people’s homes. They accept only a small amount so that the householders do not have to cook again which according to them is another destructive process involving fire, chopping, and water consumption. Maitreya’s character is that of an articulate monk who is fundamentally against animal-tested medicine. He is fighting a public interest litigation to improve the living conditions of animals used in scientific testing. His ideologies are put to test when he is diagnosed with liver cirrhosis and the only way for him to survive is by receiving a liver transplant and consuming medication that was tested on animals.
Missing parts
The third story is of a stockbroker who receives a kidney transplant. He’s very business-like, doesn’t spend time doing anything for other people. His conscience is poked by his grandmother who is an activist and social worker. The stockbroker subconsciously shares his mother’s dissonance with the grandmother’s idealistic devotion to social causes. It’s hinted at in the story that in order to serve society, the grandmother abandoned her motherly duties towards her daughter because of which the latter always begrudged her.
Organ theft is very common in India, especially in smaller hospitals where people with limited means get treated. The stockbroker finds out during his own hospitalization that a poor bricklayer’s kidney was stolen and feels compelled to do something about it.
Unadulterated filmmaking
Ship of Theseus is an independent film that was made on a small budget, shot on real locations (even stealthily) and a majority of the cast were non-actors; either friends or family of the crew members. It was a small film that created big ripples in India and globally. A major portion of all three stories was filmed in Mumbai city. The crew was small and so invisible that in a scene, the actor playing the monk is seen walking on the streets and people passing by are bowing to him, not aware that a film is being shot.
Ship of Theseus is a moving anthology of ordinary people and their life-changing experiences. It is available for streaming on YouTube and you can also buy a DVD.
Pankaj Kumar’s message to live audiences
Pankaj Kumar, the cinematographer of the film, gave the idea for the story of the blind photographer. He also addressed the audiences of the film screening at Epsilon Spires with a special message:
“It’s been more than 10 years since we made ‘Ship of Theseus’. To this day it remains the film closest to my heart. It was a debut film for all of us: writer, director, producer, actors and cinematographer. None of us had worked on a feature film before. We had very little money and all the freedom in the world to make the kind of film we wanted to make. We were full of lofty ides with nothing to lose. To keep the budget in control we decided to shoot the entire film on a DSLR camera (Canon EOS 1D Mark IV). That decision allowed us to keep the crew size very small. At maximum we were a crew of 12 people. We shot on real locations. The very small foot print of our filming equipment meant, we didn’t have to acquire location permissions to shoot in public places.
We took full advantage of that and shot in a great variety of locations without worrying about the cost, we would otherwise incur if we filmed with professional equipment and crew. We took help of everyone we knew personally. Family, friends, neighbours – no one was spared. All the characters, other than the protagonists are played by real people. Doctors are played by real doctors, lawyers played by real lawyers and so on. People from real life became a part of this fictional world of our film.
I have forever cherished the joy of unadulterated, pure filmmaking that we enjoyed while making our first film.
I do hope you enjoy watching it.”