Idea for Faraz Ali’s ‘Shoebox’ to be showcased at IFFK begins as a coffee-table book
Idea for Faraz Ali’s ‘Shoebox’ to be showcased at IFFK begins as a coffee-table book
The idea of, by filmmaker Faraz Ali’s own admission shoe box What began as a coffee-table book, before the idea was adapted into a documentary and eventually into the film it is now.
Yet, after seeing the film screened in the Indian Cinema Now category at the ongoing 26th International Film Festival (IFFK) in the capital, one cannot associate it with an impersonal, flashy coffee-table book, except its Some arresting frames of a city of presence.
shoe box Not only in its name, but what it means, it is set around the time of the city’s transformation. Ali started shooting for the film when Allahabad was being renamed as Prayagraj. What was presented as reclaiming the long lost past was in a sense erasing recent memories and even the living present. The film draws a parallel between this transformation and a more personal story of Madhav, a Bengali living in Allahabad, fighting to retain ownership of the Palace Cinema, an old single-screen theater in a prime land where A builder wants to build a multiplex.
It could be a coincidence that the film was being screened in one of the few single screen theaters in Thiruvananthapuram, though one owned by the state government. Giuseppe Tornatore’s classic . can draw considerable parallels with Cinema ParadisoEspecially in the opening parts which showcase the joys of single-screen theatre, where an old potboiler starring Amitabh Bachchan is being screened.
However, it is also the story of the emotional and often strained relationship between the theater owner and his daughter Mampu (Amrita Bagchi). The daughter, who fights her battles, has visions of defeating the demons standing in front of her, but these mostly remain as mental images.
Mampu’s childhood is a testament to what forced uprooting does to people. After a violent incident at the school, Mampu was shifted to a boarding school in faraway Pune. Remembering the trauma of those days much later in the film does not fill in the traces of that change.
Ali says that he relied on both actors as well as non-actors, most of them from Allahabad, to get an authentic feel for the film. He even got real-life professionals like lawyers and police to play his part. He didn’t even have the kind of production design he wanted due to budget constraints, but it doesn’t really look like it.
Although the camera seems distant and fair in its approach, there is a considerable investment feeling in the film. The filmmakers seem to have the same sentiment for the city’s fading synchronic culture as Madhav has for single-screen theatre. shoe box Full of a sense of loss for the time gone by and for the things that have been lost.