Twelve may be on the young side for coming-of-age/sentimental education tales, especially with sex not much of a factor, but in 1999 young Sivanaindhan (M. Ponvel) must grow up awfully fast after his boyhood adventures with BFF Sekar suddenly end when village tragedy strikes in this fact-based film from Mari Selvaraj. (NOTE: The film posts the usual fictional disclaimer, but if anything, seems closer to being true than usual for these things.) We’re in a rural Indian village where plantain & banana groves offer the main employment opportunities, even for Sivanaindhan when he’s not excelling at school and sharing a crush with Sekar for the pretty, young teacher down the hall. Hitching a ride on her motorcycle perhaps his top life experience till he realizes he’s lost the family cow while out riding. These sorts of crises and his constant lying to squirm his way out of trouble & backbreaking field work his main goals within the long unchanged societal standards of 1999 India. 1999 but it might as well be decades earlier, giving this story a tone not so far from a Booth Tarkington PENROD book. (Penrod at times quite the juvenile delinquent!) But there’s little to prepare us for the real life U-turn from childhood pastorale (even one blinkered by rural poverty) into devastating personal loss. Writing & directing as if it were his own story (was it, perhaps peripherally?) Selvaraj keeps a bustling tempo to match the resiliency of his leads, switching over to a metallic b&w for heightened intensity in non-linear flash-forwards, yet not ashamed to show us brilliant colors favored for even the humblest of garments. The jumps in tone & use of Indian ‘pop’ songs give off a distinct vibe you may have to adjust to, but is both effective and affective in a very specific manner.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Mira Nair’s debut, SALAAM BOMBAY/’88 brings us an urban-India childhood experience from nearly the same period. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2018/02/salaam-bombay-1988.html
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