Meet the director of the first western feature film in Bangladesh

Léon Desclozeaux, born in 1951, is a Paris-based film director and producer, who has been active for nearly four decades. He had come to Bangladesh in the early nineties, as the producer of a documentary on the 'Flood Action Plan', conceived by the then-French Government, under François Mitterrand.

The documentary was supposed to support the French presidential master plan to make big digs—like those in Holland—in the flood-affected areas of Bangladesh. However, after talking to the children of the soil living in the chars of Jamuna, Léon as well as his team realised that the 'Flood Action Plan' would be a disaster in the long run. This realisation was reflected in the documentary, "Jamuna, the water of deluge".

Two years later, in 1992, when Léon's team revisited Bangladesh for a second documentary, Léon caught sight of a beautiful village woman breaking stones with a hammer, during shooting. A few days later, on his way back to Dhaka by train, Léon saw ships waiting to be demolished in the ship-breaking yard along the coastal line of Chattogram.

The two photographs hanging on the walls of the Zeaux Productions' office in Paris, one of the stone-breaking beauty and the other of a half-broken ship, inspired Léon for six long years, resulting in him making a feature film on Bangladesh.

Finally, in the monsoon of 1998, Léon took a high-interest loan from a French bank, came to Dhaka with a big film crew, and started to shoot his film "Chittagong: The Last Stopover". The film received recognition around the globe and claimed numerous prizes. Unfortunately, the film was never released in Bangladesh.

A young Léon was chased out of his parental home, because he wanted to be a filmmaker rather than an English teacher. This brave and innovative young man finished his education in theatre and cinema at the best schools in Paris, by working part-time as a locomotive driver. He made his first full-length feature film "Mora" in the eighties. Apart from his three feature films, Leon produced and directed hundreds of short films and documentaries all around the world.

Recently, Léon was back in Bangladesh, as a member of the jury board of the Liberation Docfest, held at the Liberation War Museum, between March 9-13.  

On behalf of The Daily Star, Shishir Bhattacharja, who was the executive producer of "Chittagong: The Last Stopover" interviewed Léon Desclozeaux during his visit.

You are back in Bangladesh after almost twenty-five years. What are the differences that you noticed on first sight? 

The grand traffic jam, of course. It took me almost four hours to get from the airport to Gulshan. However, traffic jam is a part of every city now, even in Bangkok and Paris. In Bangkok, despite the fact that there are underground metros, monorails, and also good bus services, traffic jam knows no bounds.

Unless the authorities provide enough commuter trains between the city and the suburb, and everyone nourishes this stupid dream of owning a personal car, the problem of traffic jams will continue to haunt these cities forever.

You have been quite familiar with Bangladesh for over thirty years. What impression do you have about the country and its people?

It's a beautiful country with wonderful people. They know how to smile at you, and it is not a fake one. They have a lot of kindness in their heart for others living around them.  They must have a strong family bonding that has provided them with such extraordinary qualities.

To date, you are the only producer-director from the west, who made a feature film in Bangladesh. What were the reasons to have chosen Bangladesh as your location?

This country has an extraordinary natural beauty, that remains unexplored to date. I saw this beauty when I had been producing documentaries here in the nineties. I thought I must keep a record of this beauty on celluloid and expose it to the outside world.

Could you tell us more about your film, "Chittagong: The Last Stopover"?

The film narrates the story of a ship captain, Paul, who brought his cargo vessel to the ship (grave)yard in Chattogram, to be broken into pieces. While traveling through Bangladesh by train and launch, he meets a village woman Alima and her son Moti. He accompanies them to their village and soon the conflict starts. Both Alima and the foreigner get banned by the village tribunal. Meanwhile, the flood starts and captain Paul saves Alima from drowning. Moti gets lost, but finally, Paul and Alima are able to find him. The three of them then take a boat towards Dhaka.

No other cinematographer in France or in the west has ever dared to follow your path.

This is really unfortunate. Bangladesh is a wonderful location for cinema. We shot in Rulipara—a Jamuna char near Bhuapur, in the ship-breaking yard in Chattogram and in Sadarghat, Dhaka, among other extraordinary places. You will see wonderful images of the then Bangladesh in our film, which no studio will be able to recreate. Unfortunately, cinematographers in the West are not yet ready to recognise the superiority of such extraordinary natural décor, that we can only find in a county like Bangladesh. If other made cinema here, it would be a good source of foreign currency and employment for Bangladeshis.

Did the shooting go smoothly? Do you have any bad memories?

Oh, a lot! The Bangladeshi actress acting as Alima got angry, because we were shooting without make-up and with the normal people of the country, instead of professional actors. Out of a whim, she wrote a letter to the authorities, blaming us for secretly shooting an adult film, out in the deep sea with our digital cameras.

We were at once asked to stop shooting for a month or two. The principal French actor left us, after shooting for a few days. Hence, we had to change both the actor and the actress. The shooting which was supposed to finish within a month, continued for over five months in a village, that was about to submerged in Jamuna during the 1998 flood. You can imagine the cost incurred to keep an entire team of French crew here.

Otherwise, the whole Bangladeshi team worked with zeal and we could finally finish our shooting successfully. Bangladesh, as I said, is an extraordinary land where people often say: 'No problem', and indeed, there is a solution for each and every problem in this country, sooner or later.

Would you like to say anything to the new generation of cinematographers in Bangladesh?

I heard that good feature films are being made these days, by young Bangladeshi filmmakers. I am quite eager to see their work. Meanwhile, I will ask them to make films about their extraordinarily rich society and beautiful country, with authenticity and courage.

The interview was taken in French and translated into English by Shishir Bhattacharja.