Last Film Show (2021) – 4/5

Lights, camera, reaction

„Last Film Show“ is an Indian film from 2021 that runs for under two hours, approximately 110 minutes, and the writer and director here is Pan Nalin. He has worked on many projects since the late 1980s, including short films, documentaries, but this is his first work in over five years and actually it could really give him a breakthrough. Also internationally. I am not familiar with the filmmaker at all otherwise, like most of you I guess, but what I saw here I definitely liked, so I hope this can propel his career a bit and also propel the careers of the people working on this film in other positions, no matter if we are talking the cast or other crew members. As for the cast, I see Bhavin Rabari, the one who plays the central character, has never been in another film. No surprise though given his age. Very charismatic though. Reminded me a bit of Mowgli. The ones who play his mother and father (Dipen Raval) have acted in the past, but Bhavesh Shrimali hasn’t either (according to imdb) and he is the one who plays the projectionist that sparkled the protagonist’s interest in film for the most part. I believe all cast members did a pretty good job here, but Richa Meena is definitely really stunning, to an extent where I was a bit surprised that she and her man got together in the past. Oh well, maybe that was still when the man owned some cows and before his demise. Not that I think there is something wrong with selling tea. It is an amazing beverage and if we had folks like him here, I would maybe buy tea more often. Anyway, I dug a bit into the story already, so let’s keep going. Most of all, I must of course say that this is a film really for movie lovers. There is an incredibly high amount of references to the world of cinema, not only those names that the director mentions and to whom it is a bit of a tribute. At the very start, but also near the end really. You will know the names.

Other than that, there is constant inclusion of light effects and the boy loves playing around with those. I could probably write 10,000 words only mentioning and elaborating on all of these, but I will just give you two or three for now. One example is when he blinds his mother a bit, another would be when colors come into play and the boy looks through a bottle. Or another, still relatively early on, when he build this thingey on the rails, but is not happy and destroys it immediately afterwards. Or of course, these sunglasses the boys are wearing on one occasion when riding their bikes it was I think. This was also a memorable moment when the boy near the end throws his shades away and it is the typical traditional film structure that near the end everything seems doomed pretty much, but then they still somehow find their way to a happy ending. Of course, it was memorable when we see all the colors vanish from the tape and how they are used for other items and also with how the boy thinks about certain filmmakers when he sees these items on girls eventually. Spoken as a grown-up perhaps. Okay, this is not the most subtle film, but still (or maybe because of that) a joy to watch. How he jumps down there in his imagination only, which means he indirectly would have been buried with all the empty celluloid, but reality is he stays up there and his dream is not officially gone. Just a little backlash. Of course, it is still a bit tragic. Just like the moment when we see the projectionist being fired because all the old technical equipment got replaced. This sterile white room was quite haunting indeed. But it was not just that, the key criticism there or mention was that he cannot keep working there because he is not able to speak English. Or understand English. So this is surely a progressive and international movie as well that emphasizes how important it is to speak English in order to move forward in life. With your dreams.

I have almost more to say about the father than about the boy here. How he is the one who starts it all by taking his son to a film about an Indian goddess is pretty ironic and had he known the consequences, he maybe never would have brought him. At least not for the most part of the film. Maybe in the end when he understands and accepts his son’s passion for film and lets him go and at the same time realizes that the kid may have a much brighter future than himself. The moment when the dad arrives at the ghost village or whatever they call it and see the magic these boy constructed and that his son was the one leading them, he knows there is no way back. Violence is not gonna change it. He is ready to give the kid another beating, but in the end throws away his rod (literally) and surrenders. I mean even his wife by then was already fully on the boy’s side and watching with everybody else, so it could have been only a matter of time until his father would find out about all this too. With the violence towards his son, the man is initially depicted as a bit of an antagonist (surely as the biggest obstacle between the boy and his dream), but eventually his shades come into play too and he makes a good man’s decision in the end, even if the boy finally proves very helpful too with the tea business. You cannot ignore daddy’s smile there on one occasion. Again, as for the father, we find out he also has his own struggles. New technology does not only show up at the theater, but there is also a new railroad experience and that means the trains will no longer stop there, so no chance for the boy to sell something. Or the man. Plus, we hear on a very brief occasion that the man’s brothers tricked him and scammed him out of all his fortune. So he is not a vile character or anything. As for the mother, we know almost nothing about her. Maybe she is just there for the eye candy. Surely not a prime example of how to write a strong female character. Then again, it is fully okay because they were not going for it either and this just felt realistic and exactly what things are like in India in terms of family traditions and values.

Another thing I totally have to mention here is the food. These Indian films are always sublime when it comes to depicting food in a way where you get really hungry in the audience and where it just all looks so delicious, also how they prepare it, that you want to go to the nearest Indian restaurant after the film (if you haven’t forgotten already) and order a nice meal. But this is really just a side effect and side story here. The key is everything linked to film, all the lights, all the enthusiasm, all the dedication. How lucky the boy is that he ran into the projectionist right after being thrown out of the theater the first time. And that at that point the projectionist was not fired already. He also gets a new job in the end with the help of the boy. Oh there is also a physics teacher, who of course teaches the kids about light effects as well. What a coincidence! He is also one of the good guys, not happy about the father’s violence, but not really anything else to the character otherwise. You still see him in this farewell scene when we see the main character leave his home village with the train. Oh, two minor criticisms in addition, but maybe it was just me: I wondered if for some of the films the boy was maybe not old enough. Like no serious adult stuff or anything, but still. And also when the kid stays away for a long time from school that nobody really recognizes or cares anymore for quite a while until he mentions something towards his dad about school fees. The film reel scene of course in which it ends up rolling right in front of the investigators was surely a massive coincidence too and another example for how this is not the most subtle movie you will ever watch.

But it is a good film and I read others comparing it partially to Cinema Paradiso. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it (the filmmaker) was surely smart with some of its attention to detail. Like the black-and-white stuff the girls are wearing in the end is a reference to Chaplin. Or also the industry/metal aspect how they turn all this film equipment (projectors etc.) into spoons, forks etc. Really nice film visually too and it does not need many special effects to deliver in that department. It’s all about the light here as well. That’s it then. No hesitation for me at all to give this one a thumbs-up and I really, really enjoyed the watch at times even, so I can definitely hand out a very positive recommendation here and also say that it is among the best I have seen in 2022 so far. I think this film has not gotten a really wide release yet in most countries, but I encourage everybody who has the chance to distribute this little gem to take said chance and go for it. And at the same time I want to encourage everybody outside the film industry to give this film a chance and visit a theater where it is playing. It definitely deserves it. There’s movie magic to it. Highly recommended. Also nice to see some of the smaller moments like how a sign is simply turned round when all tickets are sold etc. Or what movie theaters look like in poorer countries. Or of course the very basic, yet effective movie theater from the kids and the bond it created between them. So yeah, there’s no turning back. This needs to be seen!