Speaking through Manbhum films: between song, dance and peripheral video industries

ABSTRACT This paper grows from the research conducted on the video industry located in Purulia District, West Bengal, India, namely ‘Manbhum videos’. ‘Manbhum’ signifies both place and idiom, and the videos are imagined and produced in relation as well as in opposition to its big Other(s), which include Bollywood, and reputable Bengali language cinema. Manbhum feature-lenghth videos, comprise discreet episodes, which are intercepted by songs and dances; working within popular narrative strategies and modes of address, some of these videos use unique voices, of both singers and dubbing artists, to tell the story. Such application of music and voice do not only re-present specific conditions of production, but also inform us about the ways in which the actor’s ‘body’ and ‘voice’ may be used within parallel industrial practices. Therefore, besides addressing the industrial contexts and proliferation of video industries across Global South in the era of the digital, this paper considers subjects of language, community, culture, geography, politics and the problem of Jhumur (songs) transfiguring into a so-called ‘vulgar’ form, and thereby, examines particular videos to study the characteristics of production, and the question of narration and recounting, in such intermittent videos.