FN Souza's life and art captured in an 11-minute award-winning film

Soon after Pablo Picasso passed away in 1973 a Goan artist quipped ldquoNow that Picasso is dead I am the greatestrdquo The man who challenged Picassorsquos repute with what can only be understood as either arrogance or foolhardiness was Francis Newton Souza who was once expelled from St Xavierrsquos College in Mumbai for scribbling graffiti on its toilet walls On another occasion he confessed how watching his mother bathe through a hole he had bored in the bathroom door had inspired his drawingsSouzarsquos paintings are like sting operations where he strips his figures of embellishment His jaunty words then are a bit like his works if his figures seem comical it is only because Souza is trying to soften the blow His art is neither pretty nor easily lovableA still from the film showing a nude painted by SouzaIn An Old Dogrsquos Diary that bagged the best short film award at the 2015 BFI London Film Festival LFF last week the sardonic Souza who once described his life as ldquojust one big orgasmrdquo sounds exhausted The 11minute film leaves behind his obsession with spreadeagled nudes and unabashed selfpraise to bring out a ponderous artist who asks ldquoDoes man need art when he has no breadrdquoAn Old Dogs Diary a film on Goan artist FN Souza above with a self portrait won the best short film award at the 2015 BFI London Film Festival last weekFor filmmakers Shumona Goel and Shai Heredia this win is an affirmation of their cinematic language at once associative and evocative An Old Dogrsquos Diary is less biography and more a string of fragments Drawings from his series Six Gentlemen of Our Times 1907 and lines from his autobiography Words and Lines 1959 are interspersed among visuals of mangroves sunlit marshes and furniture in empty Goan homes Over email Bengalurubased Heredia 41 says ldquoWe used our own aesthetic to say something about FN Souza but everything about him cannot be said in a film We were interested in his inner world We tried to craft the film in an associative and painterly way and were consciously experimenting with creating a new language for making a biopicrdquoLondonbased charity Xandev Foundation commissioned Shai Heredia Right and Shumona Goel Left for the filmThe film was shot by Avijit Mukul Kishore in Goarsquos Rachol Seminary the Salim Ali Sanctuary and Divar an island on the Mandovi River which looks today much the same as it would have in 1924 the year Souza was born There is nothing touristy or rustic here however the marshes even as they sparkle are haunting ldquoThe spirit of the forest is always mysterious just as itrsquos mysterious to make a film about someone you didnrsquot know or someone who is deadrdquo says Goel 40 who also practises as an installation artistShooting for two weeks and sifting through archival material letters and essays at a private archive in London the filmmakers chanced upon a few words scribbled on a scrap of paper mdash an old dogrsquos diary There isnrsquot a better way to describe Souza affectionately and intimately Goel based in Mumbai says ldquoAs a collection of impressions it is perhaps more than just a film about Souza With this film we have tried to create poetry through very simple moments We chose to look at everyday details and explore the diaristic quality of recording impressionsrdquoThe film was originally commissioned by the Xandev Foundation a charity based in London in 2012 ldquoWhile this is how we came to the subject in the first place on encountering his writings our process changed dramatically the film began to take on several layers and became more complexrdquo says Heredia The duorsquos previous film I Am Micro 2012 won prestigious awards including a National Award Experimental and essayistic it portrayed a filmmaker struggling to work outside industry economicsAn Old Dogrsquos Diaryrsquos central preoccupation is Souzarsquos curriculum on suffering Scenes from Catholic life abound mdash a roadside dramatisation of Christ bearing the cross and children in crisp churchwear looking about distractedly These scenes are mixed with Souzarsquos lines describing himself as ldquoa rickety child with a running nose and scared of everyonerdquo Catching the deadly smallpox soon after he was born the pockmarked artist turned his scars into a metaphor for human suffering On the faces of his eerilysmiling figures these appear like stars at times connected to make constellations Crucifixion 1959 at Londonrsquos Tate Britain shows a dark Christ stretched out like the skin of a drumSouza was a number of things mdash a founding member of the Bombay Progressives figurative painter sometimesunsuccessful husband castaway communist lover and rebel mdash but a hotselling artist in India during his lifetime he was not As it was Souzarsquos exhibitions in India were illattended despite the fame he had acquired in London and New York where he lived In 1976 only one of his canvases had sold at Dhoomimal Gallery New Delhi Souza is the buzzword in international art markets now ironically because he passed away in 2002 Just last month his Birth 1955 sold for approximately R27 crore making it the highest selling work by an Indian painter One canrsquot help but think that Souza would respond with his characteristic snigger Too little too lateAn Old Dogrsquos Diary does not miss its chance to size him upAs you meditate on a nude by Souza you wonder What is the going price of an ldquoartistrsquos tormented soulrdquo And not just any torment but that borne of as Souza wrote in Words and Lines the lack of recognition in the country he belonged toThe LFFrsquos jury president Daisy Jacobs said ldquoAn Old Dogrsquos Diary is as poetic and soulful as its subject It offers a fresh and original way of documenting the life of an artistrdquo If you are looking for a chronology of Souzarsquos life then this is notthe place it attempts to bring to film what Souza confidently wrought on canvases mdash discomfort and unconventionality