THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Ganga in India and Bio Bio in Chile are the central characters here. The movie opens with a magnificent shot of the Gangotri glacier. It goes on to an icicle from which a water drop seeps down.
The movie 'Flow' was screened at the IDSFFK on Friday, the opening day of the six-day festival.
The documentary by Nicolás Molina begins at the mountain ranges of the two countries, where the viewers are invited to remote regions and the slow-paced lives the inhabitants lead. The idyllic landscapes bring an aesthetic beauty to the frames, as the movie starts off from the mountain tops of India and Chile, where the rivers Ganga and Bio Bio originate.
The movie is more of an anthropological study, where it chronicles the course of the rivers Ganga and Bio bio while also showing how the lives of the inhabitants change as the rivers course their way down. Different human lives are weaved together and we get micro stories, as snapshots of the lives portrayed in the most picturesque way. As the camera takes you through a journey from the mountain top, the frames flit past and lives change.
The frames are rich with scenic splendour as the river winds its way from the mountain tops to the coast. The inhabitants making do with the limited resources they have been shown. The stark contrast of the lives of the people on the mountainside and the coasts can be seen. The pristine, remote mountainscapes and the lives of those at the mountains soon give way to city lives.
As the river flows through, sometimes in the form of a waterfall and at times flowing gracefully, the lives connected to the river are also shown. As the frames change, the polarity of life in its myriad forms is surprisingly riveting. It is a hodge-podge of the everyday affairs of the people across a wide spectrum. Although the film offers no explanation to the locations in which the scenes were shot, it does open a panoramic view of their lives. So you listen to casual discussions about the disappearance of a farmer's cow, the grievances about the lack of pine nuts by a Chilean and the unique link between humans and the stray animals. Such random musings enliven the film which is in essence all about people.
A movie about people and their lives, it will be of interest to anyone keen on understanding the culture of the land. The parallels drawn between India and Chile in the backdrop of the rivers in these regions and the lives it sustains makes for an interesting watch.
Drop by drop
The documentary by Nicolás Molina begins at the mountain ranges of the two countries, where the viewers are invited to remote regions and the slow-paced lives the inhabitants lead. The idyllic landscapes bring an aesthetic beauty to the frames