Little Terrorist

Jamal is a young Muslin living on the border between Pakistan and India. Venturing into the mine field in no man's land to recover a ball from his cricket match, Jamal is fired upon and, panicking, mistakenly flees across the wrong fence and finds himself pursued by soldiers believing him to be a terrorist. This little terrorist seems to be done for but an unlikely friend takes pity on him in the shape of school teacher Bhola.

A fairly simple film this one but one that has benefited from being topical in the west since all "our" focus is now very much in the Middle East. The film deals with the common ground between two sets of people and the human kindness that ultimately is bigger than the armed men who keep them apart. The message is simple enough and maybe some viewers will find it a bit too obvious but for me it did enough with the top level narrative to keep the subtext from being too clunky in the background. That said though, don't be coming to this expecting anything too insightful or intelligent.

As director though, Kumar is good, capturing rich colours of the locations and giving the film a good motion. The cast are fairly good but, as already said, Mehtaa's performance is the most memorable thanks to a lively character. Nothing brilliant here then but nothing that bad either. To a certain extent it did feel like it could have done more and, with a stronger script, could perhaps have built on its strengths to produce a more intelligent and meaningful message than the one it did.

I write this review only to counteract the unjustly poorly-rated featured review from sherlock-14.

This short film deals with a Pakistani Muslim boy who, while playing cricket in his home village, goes to collect a stray ball on the Indian side. He's spotted by Indian soldiers who wrongly identify him as a terrorist and take chase, forcing him to seek refuge with a Hindu family on the Indian side. The family, with some reservations, shelter the boy.

A tender and understated film. The location photography intimately and believably depicts the flimsy boundary between what is, in effect, one community. The boy, despite speaking the same language as his neighbours, cannot speak freely amongst them, and the surrogate family struggle to him accept him when authority dictates otherwise.

A boy and his friends playing cricket. The ball is out of Pakistan border. The boy decides to take it. But it is not so simple.

The help of a school teacher saves him by Indian border guards looking for a presumed terrorist. The care for boy from venerable man and his niece are the axis of this admirable crafted short film, wise in each aspect, reminding a not so comfortabe reaity, provocative for references to the situation behind apparitian of Pakistan and ended with the most moving scenes to can imagine.

A manifesto ? No doubts, indeed. But the tone defines it because it has the precious gift to create, after its final credits, profound gratitude about director and actors.

I'm often apprehensive when viewing films that have won the accolades that this one has, but for once I truly believe the awards have been well deserved.

This short has an air of grace and authenticity about it which is unusual in shorts (and I've seen hundreds of them!); the protagonist, Jamal, acts as naturally as a child of his age can, (the terror on his face seems real), the beautiful Rani seems more awkward yet nonetheless charming...

It is not without faults; the filmmakers could have dwelled longer on some of the fabulous landscapes presented, and the pacing drops a bit in the middle, but the film had me close to tears at the end, and was such a refreshing change from the usual 10min introspective one sees.

This film, unfortunately, has the lowest IMDb rating of all the 2005 nominated live action shorts. "Little Terrorist" was infinitely better than the winner, "Wasp", and falls second only to "7:35 in the Morning" for a well paced plot, interesting and engaging characters, and a great final message. Having lived in Pakistan before and having stood on the Kashmir border, I was tremendously impressed with the realistic portrayal of the area. Watching this film made me feel as if I was back there again (as the film is shot entirely on location) and, this time, involved in a very real, very exciting day in the life of a young boy. This film is wonderfully atmospheric and moving. A great watch!