An Indian trilogy

The first of a trilogy of films by Amar Kanwar begins with a shot of dust-covered feet executing a complicated choreography. From each side of the screen, a pair step up to a line, shifting weight before turning away, like the footwork of struggling sumo wrestlers or awkward teens at their first dance. As he pans out, Kanwar reveals the importance of the line: it's the border between India and Pakistan, and the feet belong to the men passing goods across it.

This is a fitting introduction to Kanwar's work: the Indian film-maker deftly weaves traditional mythology with contemporary events to create works that are half-dream sequence, half-documentary. 'Even in my images, what I do is oscillate between something intimate and something more political,' he says. 'Moving between the personal and the public allows different levels of understanding.'

Showing at the Whitechapel Gallery as part of the India Now season, Kanwar's trilogy pulls off the tricky balance without veering too far into either narrative-as-diary or detached record. So in the 30-minute film A Season Outside, he uses the India-Pakistan border and a military ceremony that accompanies its closing at sundown each day, to reflect on his own understanding of nonviolence. His own recollections combine with the collective memories of a nation divided 60 years ago.

The second part of the trilogy - To Remember - is a short silent film, showing visitors at a museum in Birla House, New Delhi - where Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in 1948. Made in 2003, just after a series of attacks against Muslims in Gandhi's home state of Gujarat, it is a disturbing memorial. Subtitles flash up, possibly alluding to the reactions of the tourists, each a few short lines like a haiku of grief.

'I made To Remember just after Bush won [the US elections] on a rationale that it was necessary to attack. And the state government had just won elections after arguing the massacres in Gujarat were necessary,' says Kanwar. 'I was asked to mark Gandhi's martyrdom and felt it needed to be different. Sometimes you can confront by not talking. It was like a curse.'

He also felt his method related to Gandhi's. 'Gandhi fasted for inner cleansing and as a weapon. He also fasted silently - it was an abstinence from food and from speaking.'

The third film, A Night Of Prophecy, travels through troubled regions in India capturing the voices of poets (including Waman Dada Kardak, pictured) telling stories of oppression and injustice. While A Season Outside documents the trauma of division, the trilogy as a whole highlights the faultlines in an imposed unity.

Today until Sep 14, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Whitechapel High Street E1 (entrance on Angel Alley), Wed to Sun 11am to 6pm (Thu until 9pm), free.

Tel: 020 7522 7888. www.whitechapel.org Tube Aldgate East