Educational Media Reviews Online

Gone to Pat is a documentary film exploring the daily life of the Patuas (also known as Chitrakers), group of people who live in Noya, Midnapore in the Western Bengal region of India. The Patuas define themselves through their art form, which includes vividly drawn scrolls accompanied by storytelling.

While the Patuas define themselves by their art and storytelling skills, with each segment of the documentary exploring an aspect of the culture, the most striking effect of the film is showing how this particular culture is adapting to changing times and values. In the past, the Patuas catered to the belief systems of the Muslims and the Hindus, claiming to be either Muslim or Hindi, depending on their audience. They did this in order to survive. The stories they illustrated and told reflected the religious values of the audience. Today, due to the influence of modern media, they have changed from traditional epic tales and myths to relating stories based on current social issues, such as abused women.

The film is broken into several segments, each one dealing with a particular topic, such as how their art form is passed down to the next generation, how they create their dyes and paints, how they lived in the past and how they live now. For each segment, a Patua explains the topic, with subtitles in English. There are lots of beautiful scenic pans, along with scenes of daily life amongst the Patuas, providing a glimpse of life in rural India. The sound quality is excellent. The subtitles are concise. Although the interviews are subtitled, the storytelling is not, so there are several scenes focusing on the storyteller that exclude both the artwork and an explanation of the story.

This documentary will be valuable to anyone interested in Indian sociology, anthropology, cultural change or ethnic art forms.