Last Film Show is an independent movie from regional India. Geographically, Gujarat is actually quite close to Mumbai and the multi-billion dollar Bollywood film industry, but in real terms it’s a million miles away.
The director Pan Nalin made a splash on the Festival circuit some years ago with an art-film called Samsara.
I don’t know why so many film-makers have to tell the story of how they fell in love with the movies.
This year alone we saw Spielberg’s The Fabelmans and Sam Mendes’ Empire of Light, but other precursors to Nalin’s Last Film Show include Cinema Paradiso and of course the 1970s classic, The Last Picture Show.
Well let’s meet the 10-year-old hero of Last Film Show - Samay, dirt-poor, working for his father selling cups of tea to commuters at the local railway station.
Photo: Supplied
One day, conservative Dad surprises the family by taking them to the local cinema. He usually disapproves, but this one, he says, is alright. It’s a religious film.
But it’s a religious Bollywood film, so before the final moral is spelled out, there are three hours of song, dance, thrills, drama, colour and light. And Samay is hopelessly smitten. He wants more.
Well there’s unlikely to be more, what with Dad’s attitude and the fact the family is permanently broke.
Samay tries to sneak in without paying, but he’s soon spotted, tossed out, and more painfully, ratted on to Dad. Dad is old school. You know, spare the rod and spoil the child.
But somehow Mum manages to find a way to make Samay a delicious lunch every day.
In fact, we only ever see her cooking in Last Film Show, but what she loses in character development, she gains in providing a plot point.
Samay’s delicious lunch attracts the attention of cinema projectionist Fazal. You mean you get that every day, he asks?
Samay offers a deal. He’ll help out up in the projection room and get to see the movies. In exchange he’ll share Mum’s cooking.
And then, after seeing the film, Samay gathers his buddies around and regales them with the stories he’s seen. His love of movies proves to be infectious.
But soon he’s not satisfied with just telling these stories. He wants to find a way to share the pictures too.
A story as slight as this – Samay is clearly the on-screen avatar of writer-director Nalin himself, so we have a pretty good idea where it might be heading – depends on how well it’s told.
Last Film Show had enough charm to be India’s nomination for Best International Film at the Oscars this year.
Certainly, the clash between Samay and his father - struggling give his son the education he never had - is appealing, if a bit predictable.
But the major attraction is the frustratingly fleeting glimpses of the films that initially seduced Nalin – all those colourful Bollywood epics. And frankly, after a while I’d prefer to see a movie like those rather than yet another movie about someone falling in love with them.
Last Film Show is sweet enough, I suppose, if not a patch on its many predecessors. Though frankly I had similar feeling about those films too.
Don’t make a film about how great the movies are. Make a great movie.
