Kaliya Mardan

The context: This is one of the first stil extant Indian film, although it's partially lost. Shot by the father of Indian cinema, Mandakini Phalke.

The content: The film tells several well-known stories from the life of the Hindu god Krishna, showing him a mischievous but righteous child. The "Kaliya Mardan" is the last story, in which the snake called Kaliya keeps the villagers in fear, so Krishna fights it. This is quite hard to decipher, because either the director thought it's common knowledge or because about third of the film is lost. Similarly, because of this the story is not particularly deep and there's not much character drama going on.

Realization: I don't recall much camera movements or playing with the lights, editing is sometimes rough. The fantasy scene of the snake-fight gives us some neat effects, but the star of the movie is the child playing Krishna, who acts naturally and cute (she is the daughter of the director).

Summary: I don't want to sound unjust, but I am not familiar with the Indian movies of that era. So this might be quite a feat for Indian cinema, but I can only compare it to other films of 1919, and in comparison with those, it seems outdated. It reminds me of early Jesus-films, which were rather illustrations than movies. Technically it does not even get near the much earlier Melies-films.