Frozen

I've just seen this film at the London Film Festival and found it truly astonishing. Shot in winter high up in Ladakh (northern India), this black and white film from a first time director and cinematographer engages the eyes and the mind. The story concerns a family living at high altitude and heavily in debt. The father is old and the daughter a little wild. The army moves in to the area and everything shifts. Against this background a series of events unfold until a tragedy is triggered.

The cinematography is outstanding and the landscape revealed in a fashion I have never seen before. It looks unlike any other film of this region and is the better for it.

The music is an integral part of the experience and wisely sidesteps traditional choices for a contemporary soundtrack. Go see it. If you cannot see it on the big screen try to get a DVD!!!

I had the chance to watch this film at DIFF, and it turned out to be a bad chance. Be it a Black and white film doesn't make it look great or add any value when the script is so vague and boring. The philosophy behind it isn't interesting at all. The director, who turned out to have a hobby in photography and knows the place where the shot it very well, included in his first feature film a whole lot of childhood memories without even having a clear narrative story, a well built character or a good premise. It's crystal clear that he wanted to communicate all his feelings, which I totally understand, but it turned out to be a complete beautifully done disaster. I personally don't invite anyone to watch it, but maybe 20 minutes will be enough to watch some stunning B&W photography, and beautiful cast.

A stark black and white film about an odd little family living high in the Himalayas, this "first everything" effort (except for having a star who'd been in dozens of films) is more memorable for its exotic, contrasty images than its somewhat detached portrait of marginal people.

Shivajee Chandrabhushan is a mountaineer. He actually chose to shoot this, his first film, in the rugged Indian region of Ladakh in the wintertime. Black and white was another choice to emphasize the relentlessness of the place and the difficulty of life for poor old Karma (Danny Denzongpa), whose karma doesn't seem too good. His only talent is for making apricot jam, in small quantities, on a hand-cranked machine which it strains his arms and back to work. When he takes this year's production to local customers he's too late and they've stocked up on manufactured commercial products. He's soon in deep financial trouble because a nasty moneylender, who leers at his pretty daughter Lasya (Gauri), is demanding a large payment. Lasya is a bit wild and crazy and has been kicked out of school. She mostly hangs out with her little brother Chomo (Angchuk), and they spar and chase each other around in a spirited manner that belies the harsh conditions of their life in the wind-torn old shack Karma regards as his ancestral home.

Lasya almost seems autistic. When she and Karma travel around the area, which includes a visit to a fair where there are clowns, Chandrabhushan is closer to the world of Fellini's La Strada than to either Bollywood or Apu.

Another threatening element in the environment is a military unit that moves into the surrounding area. The ranking officer gives Karma some sort of satellite phone system to use in case of trouble, and then later wants to requisition his house and relocate him. Eventually there will be no one left but Lasya, though at first this seems Chomo's tale, if only because of the presence of his voice-over narration. After various meanderings, there appears a young man with earrings called Romeo (Shakeel Khan), almost like a gypsy, who says he's in love with Lasya and madly chases her around.

This is a world of the imagination, however intense its seeming physicality, and the whole narrative shows a weak grasp of the actual that may be natural to high altitudes: everyone's a little light headed. What remains after the film ends are not events, not even specific images however rich these are in local color, but an impression of intense contrastiness and graininess, scatterings of dark rocks in big patches of snow. It's like an acid trip vision of some of the greatest work of twentieth-century black and white still photography, Edward Weston and Lee Friedlander collaged by Fellini.

Danny Denzongpa had played in over 150 films; all the rest were beginners, including the filmmakers. Chandrabhushan certainly shows great determination and independence of vision. But like his heroine Lasya, he seems a little erratic and emotionally remote.

Seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival 2008.

This is the first film from director Shivajee Chandrabhushan, but you wouldn't know it was his first film. According to the Q&A at the London Film Festival, most of his crew were first-timers as well. But the film is jaw-droppingly beautiful, shot in stark black and white, which perfectly captures the cold, unrelenting hostility of the Himalayas (the film is set in Ladakh, which is in the frozen north east of India, on the border with China).

It's not a particularly plot-driven film, so I needn't go into details, but the film basically revolves around a small family living an almost hand-to-mouth existence up in the mountains. Their lives are changed when the army sets up camp next door.

I thought the film was as good as the similarly brilliant "Kekexili: Mountain Patrol" in its depiction of the bleak cruelty of life in the mountains. I really can't imagine anyone not enjoying "Frozen", it's truly wonderful.

AMAZING film. The B&W cinematography alone makes the film worth seeing, but the bleak yet beautiful depiction of a life and terrain few people ever lay eyes on just sweeten the pot. And the story, with its sparse dialog and intense narrative, provides a very compelling background to the magnificent shots that one after another steal the show. And the acting, down to the smallest roles, was spot on perfect. Amazing. Simply amazing. It was the best film I saw at Hawaii Intl. Film Festival 2007 (and I watched a lot), and easily one of the most beautiful films I've seen in recent years. The film compelled me enough to write my first review of any film on any site ever. Yes, it's really that good!