Last Film Show

10th June 2021 I was at home, in Delhi but not in the best headspace. I wake up one morning to see a still of Samay from this film and it said, "I want to study light, because light become stories. Stories becomes film".

From that moment, I wanted to watch this film. I saw the trailer, I was full of so many questions in my head and I only wanted to watch it more. It reminded me of Toto's sparkling eyes in Cinema Paradiso and my heart was warm.

I happened to watch this film yesterday, it was literally 2 hours before the screening was happening in Bombay and Pranati asked if I'll be able to make it. I was sure, my happiness had no bounds. I enter the hotel to see the Director. I passed a smile, not sure if I should have or no until he smiled back. I wanted to ask him so many questions but I wanted to wait till I saw the film only to ask more(in my head).

We managed to have a very brief interaction right before entering the screening, the film started and after that I only know 2 hours later I was smiling while tears rolled down my eyes. I had no questions to ask.

Samay wasn't Toto, Samay was no one else but a little boy brought up in a tiny village in Gujarat with sparkling eyes and intoxicated love for Cinema.

I stepped out of the screening, didn't have words that could express what I felt, I walked to him with teary eyes and a wide smile only to say, "it felt like I've meditated for 2 hours".

I know digitalisation is inevitable but I'm still envious of that time when films were exhibited with reels and for a brief moment I felt like Samay while I heard all the Veterans talk of their experiences dealing with reels right after the screening.

I hope to keep Samay alive, deep down within me and people I love all through the years they work to tell stories, make films, create cinema with the honesty it deserves.

I would have loved if I could only experience this film for the first time again.

Chhello Show (2021) : Brief Review -

What Giuseppe Tornatore's Italian classic "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" missed, Pan Nalin's Chhello Show brings to the screen. An unforgettable ode to real struggle and love for cinema. Tornatore's Cinema Paradiso will always remain in memory books, and why not? That film was just magic, especially for a true movie buff. I won't say Tornatore missed something considering the late 80s filmmaking, because Cinema Paradiso was way ahead of its time. But today, when I look at it as a modern classic and think that there was a scope for something, then I would have loved to change the personal angle of the protagonist from a regular working guy to someone who loves cinema more than anything in life. But that's life, you know. You have to sacrifice the most loved thing to achieve some mainstream goals, so I will give it a fair excuse. However, Pan Nalin's Chhello Show made my imagination come to the reel life in the best possible way. The love for cinema is the basic subject, as we know, but how far you can take it is the real challenge. Nalin just didn't take the challenge, but set a landmark for others. An absolute banger of a cinema into cinema. Cinema Paradiso, Cinema Bandi and Chhello Show - three films that show you the real passion of cinema and I'd like to watch on the last day of my life. Nalin's film is an ode to all the great filmmakers and actors who have filled out life with different colours on 35mm. That climax, the bangles, and the names.. Speechless. A pin-drop silence with an ultimate burn. I was remembering films by Georges Méliès, DW Griffith, Fritz Lang, Ozu, Wilder and many more of those filmmakers mentioned there. Swapnil Sonawane's frames would get a 10/10 from Leonardo Da Vinci. What stunning cinematography! Thank you, Mr. Genius Nalin and the entire team of the Chhello Show for the show of a lifetime. The Cinema and we cinema lovers will always owe you a salute for this memorable tribute.

RATING - 8.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

This is Gujarati cinema at it's peak. It really sets a new bar of expectations for me now as to how even the lowest of budgets can produce a film of this quality.

Gujarati films recently have just been narrowed down to either being romance dramas or comedies (the only exception being Raado (2022)). You really can't expect anything else from a Gujarati film and for a while, even I thought that this was good for a regional movie industry as almost every film that was produced was at the very least watchable and a good escape from the normal rush of life. I myself preferred to watch Gujarati film every once in a while to satisfy that inner urge to find escapism from my day-to-day routine. Now, after seeing this film, I am really starting to despise those films.

This film understands what films essentially are and what they mean to some people. The director knows not everyone in the state is going to like it and he simply does not cater to them. He just makes sure that the target audience he's going for gets the best experience they are going to get at the movies (and he succeeds at the task with flying colours).

I won't spoil anything about this beautiful film to you and I will just urge you to watch this beautiful piece of art in the biggest screen possible. Not just because this film is India's official entry for the 2022 Academy Awards but because it is a step up than the regular regional films we've been getting lately.

I personally connected with the film on a core level and was just crying in the climax with how beautifully it ends. The film ends with a shining ray of hope that if you like something, you've dedicated yourself to it, and you've understood everything there is to, you will get to it eventually. The road is not going to be easy, and there will be great hurdles in the way which will make you want to quit (even though you've come this far) but the stars eventually do line-up for you and give you that one chance which completely changes your life. Whether you take that chance or not is upto you because stars may not line-up for you again. I salute the makers of this film for making this and giving me the experience of a lifetime; of cinema.

One thing that I would like to point out is that the film is, at times, too similar to Cinema Paradiso (1999). If you've seen that film, you'll instantly start spotting the similarities it has with the film and that can drag you out a little bit from the film. However, it does have major changes near the end of the film where it manages to make an identity of it's own in realistic and brutal ways which, I thought were beautiful.

I watched this film with my whole filmmaking class. If you are a filmmaker you are gonna love this. I don't know why it got very less rating but it deserves more than you think. The director did a brilliant job. The cinematography of this Film was outstanding. And the story was just perfect. I think everyone should watch this. Seeing this gave me hope thats indian cinema can Still make good films. The acting and the dialogue was on point and the story was also well paced. If you love old Indian cinema then watching this film will be a trip down the memory lane. Overall a 9/10 movie and totally worth sending it to Oscar.

This is a very good film overall. I will therefore skip on already provided here delights of cinemas paradisos.... However, what other reviewers didn't notice is that this visual masterpiece balances our delights in films with several statements - produced by the local film "expert", namely Fazal, the operator of a film projector in cinema "Galaxy" - that the films prime service is in the service of lies. Appropriately, the movie main character, a child who want to connect light and stories, is a consistent and consummate liar in the service of lies-bearing films - which leads him even to the stay in the juvenile house. Yet Samay does not stop - he will be lying further. Since Fazal is a Muslim and Samay is a Hindu one cannot but see delicate polemics between two religions concerning lies and its embellishments too. Fazal does not want to see more films.

This beautifully shot movie has certain fantastic elements: for example, it is hard to believe that a working film projector can be built by an elementary school pupil just from scrap metal. On the other hand, the most moving scene, of the death of the old projector and of the old film reels, has clear apocalyptic undertones - by fire these artificial stories are destroyed, and then they are reborn/reincarnated as cutlery and plastic jewellery. It may sound comic as you read it, but believe me, in cinema it will be a truly apocalyptic experience, thanks not only to cinematography and editing but to music, appropriately framing those scenes. In the end, constant associations of "light" and stories/movies together with the closing journey of fire & apocalypse conveys some religious, gnostic, or perhaps occult, ideas - like of the fight of Light with Demiurge, the god of matter. But is the Light a lie...?! The Question stays.