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| Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) in Peepli Live. |
Caste away
By John Esther
Thanks to a lifetime of hardship resulting in hopelessness and a controversial government program, thousands of Indian farmers continue to commit suicide for money. The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at 182,936. That is about one suicide for every 31 minutes.
By John Esther
Thanks to a lifetime of hardship resulting in hopelessness and a controversial government program, thousands of Indian farmers continue to commit suicide for money. The number of farmers who have committed suicide in India between 1997 and 2007 now stands at 182,936. That is about one suicide for every 31 minutes.
A fictional account of the capitalist crisis met with government response, writer-director Anusha Rizvi's Peepli Live tells the tale of two brothers, Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav), who are about to lose their plot of rural land and want to take advantage of the government program.
After the brothers decide which one will die, the story breaks out with the media, government, politicains and entrepenuers descending on the small rural village to see if a suicide will take place. Sadly humorous, everybody has an agenda. Votes, ratings and money are at stake and nobody cares if a nobody sends back the gift of life.
A better writer than director, the strength of Rizvi's Peepli Live is the film's unsentimental portrayal of the poor. Far more Émile Zola and Shohei Imamura than John Steinbeck and Michael Moore, the films depicts India's lowest cast as ignorant and brutish, with adults and children prone to yelling, violence, excessive inebriation and self preservation at any cost. This honesty prevents sympathy for the self/society-doomed protagonist, which translates into a more complex look at the issues at hand.
India's Oscar submission for Best Foreign Language Film is about despair and doom. And while that may sound like a depressing time at the movies, consider that with its 104-minute running time, over three Indian farmers will have, on average, committed suicide during the film.
Recommended.
Recommended.
(Peepli Live screens Jan. 7, 1:30 p.m., Palm Springs Regal 9; Jan. 8. 10:30 a.m., Palm Springs Regal 9. For more information: http://www.psfilmfest.org/
