Glimpses of India provides a geographical study of the sub-continent. The film’s credentials are laid out in an early credit, which states that the footage has been ‘Approved by Professor L. W. Lyde, M.A., Emeritus Professor of Geography, London University’. Its remit is indicated by the first title card, which states that ‘India is a great country – great in size, history and buildings – great in her peoples and their religions – great in the wonderful possibilities of her future’.

The span of India laid out in the opening scenes, which begin by showing India’s southernmost point at Cape Comorin and then head 1,900 miles north to the Khyber Pass. The film provides facts and figures. Basic, but effective, graphics illustrate the size of the country by superimposing a map of India onto a map of Europe. Population numbers are represented by means of a pair of scales, which balance the figures for India against the combined population totals of Africa and the Americas (minus Peru, which is added to the Indian side). The film does not dwell upon the buildings and religions of India. These subjects are combined swiftly in successive scenes, which depict the Golden Temple at Amritsar, the Taj Mahal, and the Maharajah’s Palaceat Mysore. The ‘wonderful possibilities of her future’ are not fully outlined either. Unsurprisingly, the film does not refer to the political climate in India; nor does it address the advances in transport, urbanisation, education and media (of which it forms a part). Instead the film focuses on agriculture. We are shown various methods that have beenemployed to overcome the ‘serious difficulty of irrigation’, there is an outlining of various types of wheat, and there is an unresolved scene which ponders ‘Two of India’s conflicting problems – fuel and manure’.

Rather than addressing the future, Glimpses of India looks back to the past. Midway through the film we witness the ‘scene in a lane’, which claims to show ‘India of a thousand years ago’. What actually follows is documentary footage of Indians in a roadway, some of whom are carrying pots upon their heads. Three British men wearing western clothing walk into view, but no mention is made of them. The latter half of the film is concerned solely with the ancient nature of the sub-continent. This section is prefigured with a title card that reads ‘THE UNCHANGING EAST. Some characteristic scenes of Indian life’. Glimpses of India then turns to rural India to gather its evidence. There is an emphasis on folk culture, including the dances of Lambadi women – ‘the gypsies of India’ – and of the Oraons of Bihar – ‘simple folk, often animists in religion, living on the land’. We are shown an array of ancient practices whose backward nature is emphasised by exclamation marks in the title cards: ‘The dhobies still wash clothes by beating them on stones!’; ‘The barber’s is an open air occupation!’. Elsewhere these cards stress that the potter plies his ‘ancient’ trade and that the water carrier is ‘old’. Unsurprisingly, all of the camerawork takes place outdoors. This nevertheless furthers the portrayal of the basic nature of Indian life. At the same time the camera’s intrusion into these people’s lives is apparent. As it lingers over teaming crowds – another feature of the film – the people stare back at it, registering its presence.

Despite its display of academic credentials and its use of devices that intimate it will incorporate the full span of the country, the film’s glimpses of India take the place of a more diverse representation of the sub-continent.

Richard Osborne (June 2009)