Lately I rarely indulge myself watching films. I am very accurate in my choices, my free time is very precious to me. Yesterday was that day – I have watched the film that I waited for a long time. It’s a film of my friends. A film about probably the most important and prominent thing, about something that we search for all our life, about how someone gets lucky to find it. Film about searching oneself, internal search, if you would, a spiritual search. A religious film without any obvious religious agenda.
It’s a film about India. As strange as it is, but it’s a feature film. For me all the films about India are divided into two categories: “vivid, saturated, bold” and “dirty, greedy, destructive”. This story didn’t fit any of these, not by its narrative, nor by its style. Hmm…it looks like new French cinéma nouveau – soft, with story unfolding in no rush, about a small part of our regular life, but full of feelings, excitement, despite the lack of dynamics. Such films are filled with inner action and leave impression for a long time.
It has many symbols of our life, lucky life, active life. We live amongst ideas, in a virtual world, by categories of the future, holding onto material values of now. But real life is not inside our phones and virtual projects, not in battles over our “personal space” and our Self. Life happens beyond it. Who are those other people? Should they be valued? Is it possible to see a personality in other person, vendor on the street, kid, beggar, cleaner? Should we get off our pedestal of labels and start communicating with them? To learn to trust others, start helping them. Become a bit more open, more tolerant. To learn to accept and let people in your internal circle. Value others. Learn to accept reality as it is – be it a gift from a stranger or destruction of your house. It’s frightening. Really. In such service you start seeing a path to your soul. To the Divine. And it doesn’t matter how your God is named. “It all starts only when the heart opens”.
It’s a soft and laconic film. Beautifully shot. For me – a fan of Indian tradition and color, it’s a continuous joy.
It was amazing seeing familiar faces. All of them are not actors at all. It’s a real film made by real people that aren’t related to film industry about real people and told by themselves.
— Natalya Shustova, December 1, 2016
On the picture: A coming of age story, the film about sacred Indian town of 5000 temples, “Reconnection” has been screened at 26 international film festivals and won 16 awards.