Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Hayat


The International Children's Film Festival. The spectacular but widely underrated movie festival evokes a nostalgia in me. My first memory of the film festival is that of a movie which I watched in a theatre close to my home. That film was about a guy fighting to study in school. It offered me a respite from the run of mill love stories that come on TV. However, one particular movie comes to my mind when I think of children's films. The name of movie is Hayat.
        I came to know about the movie in my ninth grade. I was non-chalantly looking at the newspaper. The newspaper contained an article written by a famous telugu movie director whose name I cannot recollect now. I avidly remember the content of the article. The story is about a smart girl who wants to go for higher studies. However, her village doesn't have a high school. She needs to clear an entrance exam to secure admission in high school in nearby town. She prepares very hard for the exam. However, fate has other devious plans for her. Her father falls sick on the day of her exam. So her mother leaves Hayat at home with a toddler and her brother to join her father in the hospital. The responsibility of the house falls on Hayat. She tries to attend the exam but the toddler won't stay quiet. She keeps crying. She requests a old lady to take care of the kid. The orthodox old lady doesn't like Hayat taking the exam. She believes that woman's rightful place is kitchen and doesn't let Hayat go. I remember the comparison the author brings in the article. The kids in the theatre are so agitated with the old woman that if she had kept Hayat any longer with her, the children would run to the projector and tear the screen. He says that it was the first time in several years that he has seen audience so much involved in the movie. The only other time when he saw such a scene was when he was watching the movie Bhasha where the goons beat up the hero. However, the hero in the movie is Rajnikant, the Indian Chuck Norris with die hard fan following. The main characters in this movie are foreign actors and they speak in persian. He makes a case that you don't need star heroes to make a great movie. A poignant tale of a girl fighting for studies is enough. Years later I watched the movie on my laptop. The movie didn't disappoint me


1 comment:

  1. The point that you wish to convey through this blog post still remains opaque to me. Maybe , a title would help :-/

    ReplyDelete