Beyond the Clouds
Beyond the Clouds is a two-hour-long Hindi film, shot in Mumbai and Rajasthan, written and directed by Majid Majidi. The cast is Ishaan Khatter, Malavika Mohanan, Urvasi Shrada, Dhwani Rajesh, Amruta Santosh Thakur, Shivam Pujari, and Tannishtha Chatterji.
The movie starts with cars running on a highway at high speeds and under the highway bridge, there is a completely different life, which is very slow and dirty. Some people are cooking food in an open, dirty area.
The story of the film demonstrates how our actions are interlinked with others around us and how one act of anyone can have a ripple effect on various people. Collateral damage happens to many near and dear ones.
Tara leaves her abusive husband after years of abuse but she protects her brother who deals with drugs. One man named Akshi tries to rape her. In an attempt to save herself, she badly injures him with a stone. Tara ends up in jail for no fault of her own. She is scared of lifelong imprisonment and the chances of dying in jail. She desperately wants to go out of jail and for this to happen survival of Akshi and his statement are crucial. In an effort to get Tara out of jail Amir takes care of Akshi in hospital. He brings all f his medicines and as a guardian signs all medical forms.
Akshi’s mother and daughters arrive from South India. They are very poor but honest people. Circumstances take such a turn that they end up living with Amir in Tara’s house. Amir takes care of Akshi at the hospital, Akshi's family at home, and supports Tara in jail.
While in jail, Tara develops an emotional relationship with a child named Chotu and after his mother’s death in jail takes his responsibility.
Amir takes care of Akshi’s mother and daughters. One day, frustrated Amir reveals the truth to Akshi’s family. Learning this, Akshi’s mother takes a statement from Akshi in favor of Tara and then apparently kills her son.
Chotu has never seen stars and moon. The film ends with tara and Chotu looking at a storm from partially open jail door and hoping for the storm to stop so that they can see the moon.
It is a very captivating and gripping movie dealing with human emotions and interactions. Good people do goodness even to their enemies. Poverty and struggle for survival do not stop them from doing kind acts and showing affection, love, humanity, and empathy. All artists gave outstanding performances.
Many critics have given 2 to 3.5 stars but I think it is a 5-star film. The story touches both the heart and antaratma. I have not watched a film like this for a very long time. One of the best movies I have ever seen.
It brought back my memories from the early 2000s when I was assigned to give medical treatment to female prisoners. I witnessed similar conditions. There was a woman who told me that she was in jail as her daughter in law died in a fire at home. Her grandson was with her in jail as there was no one to take care of him outside the jail.
Many people are in jail for acting in self-defense. They wait for years for the trial to begin and then for judgment. If their children are little, they end up in prison too. These children are not criminals but they still end up in confinement. They do not get a chance to see the sky, moon, sun, rain, etc. They do not know the outside world at all.
Movie: Song of Sparrow by Majid Majidi:
Wonderful movie showing how we get entangled in the material world and forget what is more natural i.e. sympathy, empathy, caring, sharing, relations, and non-hoarding.
Movie: Color of Paradise by Majid Majidi
How one can get confused between fulfilling one’s own needs and caring for others. No matter what we choose, we suffer from neglecting the other part. There is no easy way to live other than just keep understanding the needs to make a balance between the two and do whatever is in our capacity to have a peace of heart and mind.
Bum Bum Bole by Majid Majidi
The story revolves around a struggling, poor family. Good people do good no matter what comes in their way. They may believe in God at some point in life, they may not believe in God in some other phases of their life but irrespective of faith, they just keep doing good. Family ties and relations are not dependent on money. In spite of the disparity in financial status, good people are everywhere.
The Willow Tree by Majid Majidi
This is a wonderful movie. There is a blind man who is dependent on others for a living. His friend arranges for his treatment in another country. After getting his eyesight back after 38 years, he becomes very self-oriented. He thinks that now he deserves everything as during the first 38 yrs. of his life he did not do what he wanted. He forgets the support, care, and love his family and others gave him during those long years. His wife leaves him as he acts in a very selfish way. His body slowly rejects the eye transplant and he becomes blind again. He realizes his mistake and asks for one more chance from God. It is a very touching, emotional, and simple movie.
Sound of Silence- Hindi movie:
A 12 yrs. old boy old, who cannot speak, is persistently neglected and abused by his father who believes that boy is the cause of his mother’s death. The father constantly reminds his son that he is a curse and as soon as he was born his mother left this world. In spite of all the abuse, the boy takes care of his alcoholic father.
The boy often sees a Buddhist monk who teaches him meditation. The monk shows sympathy and compassion towards him.
Boy’s father while under the influence of alcohol kills his friend and gets incarcerated. Now, the boy is all alone. Monk tells him that sometimes we feel like we are alone but we are never alone as air, water, wind, earth, sky, animals, plants, birds, etc. are always with us. Everything in nature talks to us. Human relations often break but our relationship with nature is unbreakable.
The monk gets him admission to the monastery. He convinces the chief monk that the boy deserves admission in spite of being mute as monastery responsibility is to give knowledge. What the student takes from that knowledge and what he uses it for totally depends on the student taking it.
Some kids in the monastery tease the boy but he never loses his patience and puts hard work in his learning. He is very compassionate and does not leave friends alone even if it means putting himself in endangered conditions.
He writes a letter to his father asking whether his father ever accepted him as his son and whether he ever loved him for even for a second. The movie ends with the boy holding that letter in his hand, outside the jail where his father is incarcerated.
Who wants to live forever, wisdom of aging:
This movie discusses the impact of longer lives and aging. Long life and aging have many issues e.g. health, economic, social, interference with nature, relationships, etc. How long one will like to live? Is aging a disease? Is not the beauty of life in its impermanent nature? Life is beautiful and precious because it is short and mortal. What makes your life precious and meaningful is the fact that you are not going to be here.
Dear Dad:
This movie is based on the father-son relation. Father, Nitin, is gay and decides to divorce his wife. They have two kids, 14 yrs. old Shivam and a little daughter.
Nitin discloses this news to Shivam while going to drop him to his boarding school, which is seven hrs. away. Both go through different types of emotions. Shivam finally accepts the fact that his father is gay and his parents are divorced. Shivam develops a very strong bond with his father and no longer feels ashamed of his father’s choices.
Only me generation:
It is a compilation of personal stories of children born between 1978 and 1979. At this time China implemented the one-child policy. Single children are narrating how it affected them, their parents, their marriages, their kids, and interpersonal relations.
Stand by me:
This is a nice movie showing friendship, caring, compassion, and the reality of friendship after growing up.
Gordie is intelligent and from a well-to-do family but his parents are not paying attention to him. They do not shower love and affection on him. They give him the impression of an unwanted son whom they hate.
Chris is from a not so reputed family but he is nice, compassionate, peacemaker, and a true friend who does not care for his own life when it comes to taking a stand for his friends.
Teddy has some psychological issues and people harass him because of his psychotic father.
Vern is a chubby person who is just innocent and accompanies his friends.
Lard As or Davis is a bully.
Everyone is vulnerable and dealing with some personal issues.
There is some show off by gangs, violence (breaking mailboxes), bullying and threatening, even physically hitting young boys, use of knife and pistol, bad language, derogatory sentences for girls, smoking, name-calling, etc.
It has a display of various emotions—scared, tired, hungry, united, fighting with each other, uniting again, saving each other, united against outsiders, commitment, obsession, sharing, and effect of death in a family on family members, etc.
The movie kept me glued until the end.
Bharti Raizada
