Workaday India Reflected In ‘The Pool’
Posted April 3, 2009 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
In the days leading up to his shoot, The Pool director Chris Smith (American Movie) lost three of his four main actors – one deciding she couldn’t take time off school, another leaving for Mumbai to buy karate uniforms and never coming back.
He used a translator to communicate with two boys he wound up casting – non-professional actors who could neither speak English nor read the script. And the American documentarian chose to film his first dramatic feature in Hindi, a language he does not understand.
For this, we can cut him some slack.
Still, the story of Venkatesh, an 18-year-old “room boy” obsessed with a wealthy man’s swimming pool in Panjim, Goa, seems half-baked. As Venkatesh befriends the owner, played with ease by Bollywood veteran Nana Patekar, we learn the man’s son drowned in the pool and that may be the reason for his fondness for the teen.
But that’s almost as far as the plot goes, relying heavily on realism and the documentary technique of letting the environment shape the story.
Venkatesh plays a dirt poor, illiterate hotel janitor living in Panjim. In real life, he is a dirt poor, illiterate scrap metal collector living in Panjim. Jhangir plays a plucky child labourer in the film. In real life, the boy is a plucky child labourer named Jhangir.
The only problem is real life is often dull. Our daily routines, utilitarian conversation, and idle pursuits would hardly hold the attention of a cinema audience for 10 minutes. The Pool runs for 95.
The film is beautifully shot, though. And as a travelogue – revealing the poetry of a man bicycling on a quiet, early-morning thoroughfare – it works well.
The Pool opens in Toronto Friday.