Dhanak, one of the very few
Indian films shown at this year´s Berlin Film Festival is a
wonderful mixture of Road Movie and Fairy Tale. It is not only a film
for and about children but has also the lightness but incredible
inspired kind of a child´s play.
Tow orphans are on the move to meet in
a far distant city in Rajastan Sha Rukh Khan. Pari, the girl is ten,
her little brother Chotu is blind. On a poster, Pari saw that Sha
Rukh Khan promised to recover eyesight for blind children.
The journey goes through the real
desert landscape and they encounter a lot of curious, funny, sad and
often very dangerous people like kidnapper. Kukunoor´s approach to
make a film for children is one thing. On another level this film
offers a correspondence between reality and play, the harsh reality
of social and geographic environment and fairy tale between the
children´s struggle for surviving and their fairy tale -like
inspiration. If there is any Indian cinematic pendant to Grimm´s
famous fairy tale Hansel and Grete, we have got it with this film, in
Cinema Scope and in colours which are always stronger than in
reality. Sha Rukh Khan as a Bollywood myth is only a hint. The film
celebrate itself literally as a cinematic rainbow. And the film
offers two option to enjoy it: the first is to enjoy it like you
enjoy the first film you saw on the big screen in your life. The
second option is to reflect about this everlasting relationship
between cinema and reality.
One of the most unforgettable and
moving character, the children encounter is a former truck driver who
has lost his wife and his children during a car accident. After that
he became crazy and now he walks with a steering wheel and a horn
like “driving a truck”. That reminds me at the same time in the
crazy boy who imitates a tram in Akira Kurosawa´s heartbreaking
sad Dodeskaden and in
the incredible beauty and poetry of a film by Hiroshi Shimizu.
This
dynamic between sadness and comedy, between drama and fun is
extremely well balanced and reflected very well in this “elder
sister-Little brother” -constellation. The film is moving on a very
thin line between playfulness and earnestness of two very poor
children. Deeply rooted in the geographic and social reality of this
part of the world with several hints to the problems the children are
confronted with. Dhanak remains
at the same time cinema embedded in
the poetry of a fairy tale-like storytelling.
From
time to time a film like Dhanak
is really an essential healing after seeing so much film and after
knowing so much about film. For children, Dhanak
might be another introduction into the wonder of cinema, for us aging
ones it should be welcomed as a rediscovery of where our love to
cinema really comes from.
Rüdiger
Tomczak
Great job !!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you.
ReplyDelete