A human can be capable of seemingly impossible deeds when armed with great levels of conviction. A young man can kill with impunity; an old woman can perform astonishing feats of agility.
Pratiik Gupta’s Shantabai is the short story of the eponymous 85-year-old woman, who is determined to keep alive the legacy of her Dombari community by performing street circus acts like tightrope walking and juggling, well into her old age. It’s a film that asserts that age, really, is just a number.
You see this especially when the elderly Shantabai does acts that should be thought impossible for someone of her age. She balances herself on a bottle, she walks on a tightrope, she places a baby at the edge of a stick and holds it up for the world to see.
It’s all astonishing, and a reminder that we are hindered only by our fears. Her persistence with the Dombari tradition is born out of her conviction that such practices must not be forgotten. It’s dogged belief in the value of a tradition that’s dying a swift death. She understands that not everyone can do what she does.
Unreasonable amounts of conviction can also cause people to unleash undesirable acts, like extreme acts of violence, for example.
This can be seen in the Iraqi film, Haifa Street, which was screened in IFFI on Saturday. This is a film about the ruins of Baghdad, a film whose events occur in a two-mile lane called Haifa Street that is at the centre of much violence.
The film won the Best Film Award at the Busan International Film Festival. At the heart of this story is a disturbed man who uses his sniper to deadly effect and stops any potential rescuers from reaching the body of a man he has ruthlessly put down. This is a man possessed with cold conviction. Your conviction can serve both light and darkness. What do you choose?