UNVEILING THE THEMES COMPLEXITIES OF ALPHA

Alpha (2019) is a Bangladeshi fantasy crime film directed by the theatre specialist Nasiruddin Yousuff

which explores different problems that the country faces through a story revolving around an

unprivileged painter named Alpha. This film is not just about an individual character but it captures all

the realistic societal issues of Bangladesh. This Bangladeshi cinema dives into many themes throughout

the story such as poverty, discrimination against third gender, religious intolerance and conflicts,

identity crisis, and terrorism. The viewers also witness the protagonist’s exploration of his identity

through societal expectations and challenges. Even though the film tries to include various societal

issues as themes, it does not focus solely on one particular theme to give the audience an idea of what

the film is trying to convey. Hence, as Alpha delves into numerous themes such as personal growth,

religious conflict, identity crisis, and family dynamics, the film fails to effectively ground itself to

one particular theme which results in a disconnected narrative leaving the audience confused.

The incoherence of the story can be seen through the narrative structure, mise-en-scène, and

sound as viewers struggle to grasp the central storyline amidst all the ideas. All the techniques of

the film reveal a particular theme.

The movie shifts between flashbacks throughout the whole time. This non-linear film sets up a goal to

illustrate the struggle of the unprivileged lower-class people through various societal issues in

Bangladesh. There is no dominant theme in this movie as it focuses on many themes throughout the

film. Yet, Alpha tries quite well to show the themes through a certain class of people. However, the

themes jump from one to another which is visible through the narrative style. The movie begins by

showing the audience the past of the main character Alpha and how he was lost and adopted by a

painter. The narrative opens with a religious event, a large Tajia rally that is a part of the Muslim

Ashura celebration. In the present, Alpha is a forty-year-old painter who paints movie posters and
rickshaw art for a living while living in a slum area. The film shows us how Alpha’s subjects of the

paintings are religious drawings mostly of Hindu gods but it is not revealed to us what religion the main

character follows. The narrative also shows us how the characters around the main character struggle

because of poverty as we see them working in the garments, and making a living by selling lunches.

Moreover, the main character is also seen struggling as an artist as well and we see that digital posters

are being taken over which will hinder his career as an artist. At this point, the theme of the film seems

like the struggle of an unprivileged artist and how poverty affects the people of Bangladeshi society

who are trying to make a living. However, we also see how often the theme of religion comes into

focus. As the artist visits to submit his rickshaw artwork, Patreon asks him to be more familiar with

what is going on in the world and asks the artist to draw subjects like the Mosque. Furthermore, we also

hear a piece of news about radical Islamic fundamentalists killing atheist bloggers hinting at the theme

of religious conflict in the film. This is where the confusion may start as to what message the film is

trying to convey. However, it does not end here as we see that Alpha has started going through an

identity crisis. Alpha starts to become obsessed with genderlessness and imagines himself as an

androgynous person. He starts to make paintings of half man and half woman to bring his imagination

into reality. Besides, he daydreams about dancing freely and adorning himself in makeup and a white

dress, free from the constraints and expectations of society. Additionally, the film also includes a third-

gender character named Kali who deviates from the stereotypical representation of Hijras in the media.

As rare as it is to include such topics of gender in Bangladeshi media, the inclusion of such a theme

may again surprise the audience as to where this film is going. Furthermore, we see how the artist is

also having an affair with a married woman who has a broken relationship with her husband. She

becomes pregnant with Alpha’s child and even though her husband does not usually treat her well, he

still accepts her and decides to raise the child as his own because he is infertile. Yet the main character

remains nonchalant about the news of her pregnancy and this shows another dramatic aspect of the
film. At some point in the story, we see the mental deterioration of the artist as he sees the killings of

the working people around him through accidents. However, the climax reaches when he finds a dead

body under his little hut that he keeps sending away but it keeps coming back at night under his house.

Again we see the theme of religion when Alpha reveals his wish to leave the corpse in the river because

one cannot tell if the corpse was a Hindu or a Muslim to decide if he should be cremated or buried. This

reveals to the audience the message of how everyone is equal regardless of religion. It is visible how

numerous themes are presented in the narrative which shifts from time to time and does not explore any

one particular theme in depth leaving the audience confused about what to focus on and making them

unable to connect with the story or the characters.

Additionally, the setting plays an important role in any film or fiction to set the mood and tone. It tells

the audience the atmosphere, the genre, and the time of the story without explicitly saying anything.

The physical environment of Alpha includes a slum area on the outskirts of Dhaka. The audience can

also see how the main character of the story lives in a house built in the middle of a dirty lake with a

constant view of Dhaka city in the distance. Moreover, the physical environment also includes

communal spaces such as local markets and shared spaces where local people gather to socialise. The

main character’s little hut is decorated aesthetically with various paintings and artistic ornaments which

reflects the fact that he is a painter or an artist. As we see how the painter is surrounded by labourers

and the impoverished, who share a bond to make ends meet, the physical surroundings symbolize the

motivations of the characters and their everyday challenges brought on by poverty. The setting can

indeed explicitly say that the film is centred around the impoverished people of the society. We also get

to see and find out about the societal issues in the communal spaces used in the film. Therefore, this

setting gives the impression that the movie will solely focus on unprivileged class people and the theme

of poverty. The costumes of the characters were also able to enhance the setting as they are shown to
wear worn-out clothes, especially women. Women are shown to wear blouses stitched up from different

layers of various clothes and worn-out sarees. The woman whom Alpha was having an affair with was

shown to have messed up rough hair without any sign of adornment on her face which reflects her

struggle and draining relationship with the two men in her life. Three garment workers dress

realistically like lower working class women wearing salwar kameez which shows that they are

unmarried young adults working to get through poverty.

Besides, Alpha who is obsessed with genderlessness is also shown wearing what a Bengali man would

wear, however, he does not look too manly wearing his clothes. This proves how even through the

costumes, different themes are present in the film. The props in the film are also symbolic of the themes

presented to the audience such as the everyday object all characters are seen to use is the boat. Even the

female character who was having an affair with the artist was seen using it clearly showcasing how

natural it is for these poverty-stricken people to use the boat. Moreover, the painting of the body of a

half-man and half-woman drawn by Alpha also symbolizes the identity conflict he was going through.

The more important prop which was the dead body that Alpha found also plays an important part in the

movie portraying the theme of equality of humans regardless of their religion and the corpse also helps

the main character in having this epiphany. This again exposes how different techniques were used to

illustrate various themes altogether.

Lightening and colour play a significant role in displaying the mood of a media. In the scenes of the

dead body, the atmosphere is always dark and gloomy and there is a bluish colour used in the scenes to

show the eeriness of the environment. It gives the audience a feeling of a spooky atmosphere as they

are using a corpse to convey a message. However, the lightning always does not stay the same bright
when it is daytime. There is also a shift whenever there is a flashback of the artist’s father and his

childhood which are shown in black and white clearly displaying that the incidents are from the past.

There was also a greenish effect when the artist was receiving help from the tribal people in a forest.

This effect was used to enhance the surroundings of the tribal people who helped Alpha without caring

about his religion. Another notable part of the film is the casting as there was no renowned actor in the

film proving that the movie was not aimed for commercial purposes. Instead, they decided to give the

roles to the actors who fit the roles realistically because the actor for Alpha did not appear too manly

nor too feminine illustrating the character’s obsession with being androgynous. They also hired a third-

gender person to realistically portray a Hijra character instead of an actor to dress up as such. The

sound used in any media gives it much more life and makes the media more enjoyable for the audience.

Dialogues used in a film can say a lot about the setting and the characters as seen in Alpha, it is very

telling of the background of the characters by their speech and the way they speak. The mortician who

is of Hindu religion seems to speak in a different manner and frequently uses Hindi vocabulary. On the

other hand, the old Muslim man who prophesied the bad speaks in a different manner. The distinction is

clear even through the songs used in the film.

To conclude, throughout all three techniques used in the film, it is evident that the film has tried to

include a lot of serious themes into the play which shifts throughout the whole movie resulting in a lack

of coherence. There is no unified narrative direction resulting in the intended message being unclear to

the audience and the viewers losing focus. It may have shown the complexity of life, however, using a

dominant theme may have engaged the audience on a deeper level.