This Wednesday Cinema Paradiso screened two extremely interesting Indian movies.
‘Turup’,
which, from its opening frames brings the flavor of cinema, and of
Indian’s love for movies. It is exciting, for a cinema lover such as me,
to be in a country that can come to a complete stop the day a new film
comes out. A country where potentially everyone is an actor – and a good
one! So in this extremely international festival, the opportunity to
bathe in Indian culture is very much appreciated.
‘Turup’
is a very subtle and clever drama where a chess tournament, probably
one of the most democratic games, becomes the pretext for talking about
the tensions between Muslims and Hindus, between casts, over the
emancipation of woman, social disparities, corruption in an India that
wants to grow, to change, and yet is blocked by the greed of those who
gain from such disparities.
Later that night, ‘Cry Humanity’ digs even deeper into this topic telling the story of a man who can’t bury his father, because a higher cast forbids him from using the road to the graveyard. This film is a marvelous Tamil, independent drama, and is beautifully filmed using a handheld camera, which brings the audience right into the very heart of the inhumanity, and shows how the Indian Constitution has been betrayed and ignored. Yet as much it angers me, I’m happy to see this on the screen, and I’m happy to hear it spoken out loud; to feel in the air the smell of change, or at least people fighting for it. Because, as the song that closes the film says: “we’re all humans”.