Into the Labyrinth
A documentary on Alain Daniélou by Riccardo Biadene
This documentary tells the story of an adventurous musical journey that follows the life of Alain Daniélou, starting in Brittany and moving through India to Berlin, Venice and Rome.
It was at the Rewa mansion on the banks of the Ganges in Benares – now called Varanasi – that Daniélou and his life partner, Swiss photographer Raymond Burnier, settled for 15 years. Here, Daniélou studied Sanskrit, converted to Hinduism, studied Indian classical music and how to play the Veena professionally. He also wrote several books on Vedic studies, Hindu philosophy and Shaivism.
On his return to Europe in 1961, he founded and directed the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation in Berlin, where he recorded the first World Music Collection for UNESCO. Indian music, dance, religion and tradition confronting modernity, sculpture and philosophy are the themes explored in this documentary through the eyes and autobiography of Daniélou himself, focusing in particular on traditional Indian music.
Two Canon HD cameras reveal the brilliance, color and richness of pulsating, eternal India, where age-old rituals mingle with everyday life.
Concerts, dance performances and episodes of everyday life are mixed with archive footage and recordings from Daniélou’s own time.
The film’s itinerary in India takes in New Delhi, Khajuraho, Varanasi, Kolkata, Shantiniketan, Bhubaneshwar, Konarak, Puri, Gurgaon, Chennai, Mamallapuram, Puducherry, Chidambaram, including the Shantiniketan school, Varanasi and life on the Ganges, the Mishra family Music School, the traditional wedding ceremony between musical families, concerts and performances.
In Europe, significant places, friends: Venice, where he founded the International Institute of Comparative Music Studies (today part of the Giorgio Cini Foundation on San Giorgio Maggiore), at Zagarolo near Rome, where Daniélou created the Harsharan Foundation in 1969, now the Alain Daniélou Foundation, which also financed this documentary. And other film shoots in Berlin, Paris, Lausanne, Brittany and New York.
The HD material is enriched by the extensive photographic material of the Fondation Alain Daniélou, approximately 9,000 original photographs taken in India between 1935 and 1955 by Alain Daniélou and Raymond Burnier.
Travelling in a caravan sent from California – for many years the only caravan on Indian territory – Daniélou and Burnier were the first Westerners to photograph Indian temples, virtually unknown in the West. These photographs were subsequently shown at major international exhibitions in Paris (1948), Rome (1949) and New York (Metropolitan Museum, 1949).
In addition, several interviews with Alain Daniélou’s friends, acquaintances, musicians, dancers, musicologists and international experts on India:
Sophie Bassouls, Bettina Baumer, Nicola Biondi, Abani Biswas, Carla Bonò, C.V. Chandrasekhar, Debu Chaudury, Subroto Roy Chowdury, Jacques Cloarec, Jean Paul Cluzel, Werner Durand, Giovanni Giuriati, Lars Koch, Yamini Krishnamurti, André Kudelski, Raghunath Manet, Maria Grazia Marchianò, Gabriel Matzneff, Amarnath Mishra, Neeraj Mishra, Ravi Shankar Mishra, Dominique Nabokov, Savitry Nair, Jean Pierre Pastori, Marie-Claude Pietragalla, Ritwik Sanyal, Malavika Sarukkai, MallikaSarabhai Dance Company, Shantala Shivalingappa, Reba Som, Padma Subramanyam, Shubdal Tinkari, Emanuele Trevi, Ivan Vandor, Kapila Vatsyayan, Roman Vlad, Eric Vu An, Albrecht Wiedmann.
Other interviews:
Taru Kanti Basu, Samuel Berthet, Ugo Bonessi, Radha Burnier, Silvano Bussotti, Francesca Cassio, Claude Cellier, Jean Clausel, Amelia Cuni, Kenneth Hurry, Swaminathan Kalidas, Krishan Kannah, Anand Krishna, Stefan Kudelski, André Larquié, Giorgio Milanetti, Bernard Mueller, Peter Pannke, Roberto Perinu, Guillaume Pires, Anne Prunet, Harihara Raghavan, Bodhirupa Sinha, Alberto Sorbelli, Raffaele Torella, Anne Tual.
Most of these recordings will be released on a Bonus DVD and added to the Fondation Alain Daniélou archives.