Story based on a play by Selim Al-din
Director : Morshedul Islam
Winner : Grand Prix in 1994.
Chaka, the word means wheel. Film starts at very early in the morning with two Characters, one man (Amirul Haque Chowdhury) with his companion (Ashish Khandakar) driving an ox cart. Driving the cart he comes across a police station. Here, one man from the police station urges him to take one dead body. The dead body belongs to a distant village. At first, the ox cart driver refuses to take the dead body. After a hard talk by the police officer he decides to take the dead body in his cart and drive it to the village where it belongs. The journey begins; actually the film starts to evolve around some philosophical aspects of human existence. Long shots and shots of remote village areas, the beautiful sceneries of green fields around the small aisle, through which the ox-cart runs like a snail, takes one closer to nature. Only one problem exists….the dead body of an unknown person in the cart. After, passing through several villages, the ox-cart finally reaches to the destination village, where the dead body actually belongs. Ox-cart puller takes his cart to the village market and unveils the body that was wrapped by chatai (carpet made of jute). All the villagers gather around the body. But, no one recognizes the body. The ox-cart puller gets astonished. As, dead body comes to the village, many people gathered as their loved ones use to live in the city far from the villages, and communication in remote location is as abandoned as one could imagine, so, it is very important for the villagers to come and have a view of the dead body, if it belonged to their loved one? After the denial of the villagers, the ox-cart puller decides to take the body with him, and hover around until he reaches his own destination. There are more villages around, those can be one of this expired man’s destination. But, no villagers along the road, recognizes the body of this man. By this time night falls, and the ox-cart puller put his cart to a roadside and decides to rest for the night. Suddenly in his dreams, he sees a man, coming towards him. The man demands a cigarette from him. Then after lighting the cigarette the man says, this is a huge world. Where will you find my home? Is it so easy to find ones own home? One’s real identity! The man vanishes. In the morning the ox-cart puller starts his journey with the dead body. Else where, along the villages he fails to find the real village of the dead man. Then, he decides to get to a mosque and tell the imam to engrave the body. The imam refuses as he doesn’t know about the religious identity of the body. Same thing happens while the ox-cart puller takes the body to the Mandir (prayer hall for Hindus). Here, the director doesn’t flash this denial incident through the mouth of the purohit (leader of a mandir). Mean while camera focuses on the dead body’s legs, and flies are seen. It indicates that the body is slowly decomposing. Having no other options in hand, the ox-cart puller decides to engrave the body himself. He sites one deserted place along the shoreline of a river. He starts digging by his bare hands. Then he puts the body inside the small whole, and let the mud into the body. He prays in vain, and then he sits beneath a tree, starts to cry. This is actually the last scene of the movie. The ox-cart puller took this dead body and roamed village after village. He kind of built a soft corner for the dead man. The reason for his crying doesn’t really explain anything, except a strong sense of emotion related to man kind. The film visualizes the aspects of life after death…yes! Kind of a life that is not alive but, circles around human existence with its essence of care and belongingness.
