‘Ray’ Of Hope….Pink Director Is Back With A Tender Film On Water Scarcity: Baiju Bulli Movie Review

Short Film by: Aniruddha Roychowdhury

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A famine-stricken village where the poorest of the poor have to subsist  on diseased water…It takes a Satyajit Ray to  find joy in the midst of  such despair. Like Ray’s Pather Panchali  the famine-stricken village in Aniruddha Roychowdhury’s short-film is metaphor for the aridity that we humanize in times of dire  distress in order to survive.

The  tender yet brutal film—one  of the two Apu-esque creatures will die before the film is through—draws a  distinction between tolerating despair and working one’s way through it with hope and compassion. Ailing Bulli(Prakash Takre) stares out the window next to  the bed where he  lies  sick. From where he lies,  he looks out into a world of no great promise but nonetheless , some hope of redemption.

Bulli’s access to the outside world is his precious and buoyant friend Baiju(Aditya Pawar) who brings to Bulli stories anecdotes and incidents of hope and fortitude.Bulli dreams of his dead Naani and how she would return as a  bird to drink the pure crystal-clear water stolen from the Brahmanical well.

Oh,well.

Swimming in aridity(to use  mixed metaphor) the film charts a bitter-sweet bonding between the two boys.The two young actors Aditya Pawar and Prakash Thakre,take us through a magical  journey into the world of incipient yearnings lit up by a false sense  of  protectiveness belied by the truth of mortality.

Throughout the short film the  director keeps it simple and direct.Even when  the imagination soars beyond the parched reality, it never gets out of hand.

“You can fly even when you can’t fly” seems to be dictum that drives this elegantly told story of poverty that won’t despair.It  sings a distant tune heard on a parched pathway filled with the sounds of chirpy children who don’t know what death is.

But Death knows.