The film is about a 12-year-old street boy, Chipau, played by an actual street child, Shahiq Syed, who through some appalling circumstances comes to Bombay and finds himself among the street children eking out a meagre existence on the filthy, squalid streets of the city.
Writer/Director Mira Nair, in her movie debut, did the extraordinary in preparing for this film. For one, she held workshops for street children so they could "unlearn" the Bollywood type acting they had learned at the cinema and she taught them to just be themselves.
The viewer is left totally engrossed, repelled, appalled and sympathetic, all in turn, repeatedly. The film has the feel and rawness of a documentary. We are "in" the brothel, we are "with" one of the characters when he spins out when withdrawing from his drug. We are with the mother who loses her child to the orphanage - a far more soulless place than the brothel from which the child was removed.
There are many stories intertwining in this film even as the characters' lives entwine. The emotions of the viewer are engaged at all times. Some of the scenes come close to unbearable.
All the children have dreams and develop a companionship with each other, the human spirit wins out, even at the very end when the gutsy and creative Chipau is left alone, just like we saw him in the beginning. A complete cycle of life lived before he reaches another birthday. Desperate, hopeless and desolated. One can only hope that Chipau triumphs in the end. A movie that haunts long after other movies have come and gone. 9 out of 10. An absolute must-see.
Writer/Director Mira Nair, in her movie debut, did the extraordinary in preparing for this film. For one, she held workshops for street children so they could "unlearn" the Bollywood type acting they had learned at the cinema and she taught them to just be themselves.
The viewer is left totally engrossed, repelled, appalled and sympathetic, all in turn, repeatedly. The film has the feel and rawness of a documentary. We are "in" the brothel, we are "with" one of the characters when he spins out when withdrawing from his drug. We are with the mother who loses her child to the orphanage - a far more soulless place than the brothel from which the child was removed.
There are many stories intertwining in this film even as the characters' lives entwine. The emotions of the viewer are engaged at all times. Some of the scenes come close to unbearable.
All the children have dreams and develop a companionship with each other, the human spirit wins out, even at the very end when the gutsy and creative Chipau is left alone, just like we saw him in the beginning. A complete cycle of life lived before he reaches another birthday. Desperate, hopeless and desolated. One can only hope that Chipau triumphs in the end. A movie that haunts long after other movies have come and gone. 9 out of 10. An absolute must-see.