Obscured Brilliance

Saw a fairly recently released and immediately forgotten movie called Striker. I thought the movie was brilliant and generally after seeing a good piece of cinema, one would feel good. But seeing this movie saddened me, only because it did nothing to gain anything from the critics or the box-office while it ran, predictably, for a very short while.

I was surfing channels yesterday and came across this movie on Sahara One. It was about twenty minutes done. But just the sight and sound of the movie was so arresting that I was sucked into it. Soon, I was intrigued enough to stop watching it with the irritating commercial breaks and hired a DVD.

The movie is about a champion carrom player from the slums of Mumbai. Carrom itself is an obscure game in the larger scheme of things. It requires considerable skill and mental fortitude to master. But there definitely is no glamour in the game and serious passion for it is probably only seen in the lower strata of the urban society. And the movie is just the same - no glamour, all passion.

I loved the way the movie has been shot. Realism without pretension. The narrative is beautifully lucid and extremely well told. And so are the performances.

There's no point in going into the details of the storyline because that would only raise expectations or give away some of it. This is less of a review of the film and more a request to go watch Striker. I'm sure it will be time well-spent.