CITY OF JOY (the film)

a film that deals with etching out a living in a calcutta slum is a heavy depressing subject but nice picturisation that blends with very good character portrayal elevates it 2 a very high std. at no part of time do u ever feel like u r watching an art movie. its similar 2 'life is beautiful' without all that humor of roberto benigni.

hasari pal (played by om puri), that poor bihari farmer coming 2 calcutta with his family for survival, his wife (played by shabana azmi) who turns out 2 b a helping nurse, their 3 chidren, the american doc max dada, the god father, his villanous son (think he's the one who played the terrorist villain in arnold's "true lies"), the white lady helping out in the slums and the rickshaw-wallas/other slum dwellers make anand nagar come alive bfo' ur very eyes. there r people other than mother teresa & her missionary nuns helping it out in the slums of calcutta.

a slight itch was that the dialogues were in english. but what 2 do, the film's meant for the western audience. the best thing i liked was the sound coming from the gilugilupai sorta thing that the rickshaw pullers' always hold between their fingers. hmm, its sad that rickshaws were banned from main thoroughfares of calcutta few years ago :-(

(March 18, 2003)