Review: 'Chhello Show' is a requiem for cinema in its purest form while being a love letter to films

The Last Film Show

Raw and pure love. It is a factor that is probably missing in majority of modern relationships but it is probably a bigger miss in the art and execution of filmmaking. Going back to the roots with the most adequate of means and being awestruck with moving images and the ability it possesses - is what The Last Film Show (Chhello Show) is all about and much more.

The film, as we know is India's official entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards. Having had the opportunity to see it before hand, here is what I thought of it-

Capturing the art & serenity in the mundane

As Chhello Show goes on, you get more and more caught up in the sheer beauty of nature, really! Set in the fictional village of Chalala Junction, director Pan Nalin and cinematographer Swapnil S. Sonawane are willing to be immersed in the serenity of mother nature. Wide-angle shots of open skies, open fields and a railway track as little Samay (Bhavin Rabari) pirouettes from one place to another are just divine. The immediate feeling you get is the classic one - as to how, inspite of a comforted life in the urban, we are nowhere near as peaceful and in-sync with the nature like so many others. What the makers also do incredibly well is capture the art in the mundane - be it Samay's attempts to play with small things which aren't traditional toys or his shenanigans with his gang of friends as they are gallivanting around the village, Samay is finding entertainment in the smallest of means, until....

Enamoured by the movies

It becomes only a matter of time till Samay gets bit by the movie bug. And it isn't about the story, the screenplay or the performances in a film - Samay is just occupied in the idea of being able to tell a story with moving images, colors and evoke an emotion in him. Soon, the little guy is just finding ways to be able to see as many movies as he can and in as many ways as he can. Quite a given now but that is what director and writer Pan Nalin intends to do and which is evoking the same emotion in us. Trying to have us remember the time when we probably saw our first film - where the technical aspects might have made sense to us much later but it was the idea of watching moving images on the big screen and be immersed in that experience with sincerity and purity. This becomes the crux of the entire film and makes for incredible viewing.

The Nuances & Food

Nalin doesn't shy away from presenting the nuances of everything - right from the process of filmmaking to excellent sound design. A team of fine sound artists led by Gilles Benardeau and Mikaël Barre go on to capture the most authentic sounds in everything instead of resorting to overpowering background score that takes away from the experience. It is fitting that a company called Jugaad Motion Picture is one of the producers of the film as the film is all about 'jugaad' and how little guys make these movies. When Samay and his group of friends are racking their brains in order to come up with all the ways possible to create their own movie, you are also taken through the hacks and processes of films work even today. The scene where these little boys are doing their assigned jobs from moving the reels with a sewing machine, the other taking in natural light and converting it into a source for motion picture and a couple of them doing what foley artists do even today, which is replicating the sounds - it is all intricately and masterfully done.

And of course, food! I love movies that highlight and enhance food as pretty much a character than anything else. Here, food becomes extremely important where that is the deal between Samay and Fazal (Bhavesh Shrimali), who is the projectionist at a theatre. Samay brings him delicious home-cooked food and in return, Fazal lets him watch movies for free. Every scene where it's shown how food is cooked and presented is so finely shot that you would definitely feel hungry by the end of it.

Multiple Movie References

In a movie about movies, you cannot not have a plethora of movie references, isn't it? From plenty of obvious ones like the continual usage of Jodha Akbar's footage to even the smaller films from the 70s, and 80s and a lot more, the film is filled with easter eggs. The one that had me feel like a kid at a candy store was the use of the iconic tune of 2001: A Space Odyssey in the film itself. Oh boy! Still gives me the chills!

The Verdict

In the end, Chhello Show (The Last Film Show) is an ode to the magic of cinema, filmmaking and a love letter to the authenticity and purity that it. It helps that the core story presented to write and present this love letter is intriguing and investing in itself.

Rating - ****1/2 (4.5/5)