Machan - La vera storia di una falsa squadra

Funny, poignant and eye opening. The amazing true story of a motley group of illegal economic migrants is sensitively directed by Uberto Pasolini with Prasanna Vithanage, brilliantly acted by some of Sri Lanka's finest stage and screen actors, beautifully shot along with an engaging score, makes this one of the best Sri Lankan movies out there.

It was raining today and a friend and I wandered into this film (by mistake!! We looked at the wrong day and thought this was a Slovak documentary) at the Trencin Film Fest in Slovakia. It was one of the most fortunate mistakes I've ever made. I am not a movie fan, but with no knowledge of the plot, etc, watching this unfold was magical. Many others have commented on the acting, the authenticity, the story. . . I concur; all converged perfectly. I felt I was there in SL, and that it wasn't a script. Truly one of the best films I've ever seen (admittedly, I see few films). So human, so true, and in the way perhaps art does best, it shined a light on a situation (economics, politics, immigration) that often fails to consider people-- individuals with dignity who bear the brunt of the economic machine's brutality. I hope this movie goes further and I will recommend it to all of my friends. Wow.

I realize the words "foreign movie" and "Sri Lanka" are enough to scare away some Western audiences, let alone the very idea of watching a movie with subtitles. But if you miss Machan, you'll miss one of the best movie experiences you'll ever have.

I use the words "best movie experience" rather than "best movie" because this is no Apocalypse Now, no Vertigo. But it'll evoke feelings in you that you forgot you ever had. This is heartwarming without being cliché, very funny without being a comedy, very sad without being sentimental. It feels very real, and the fact that this was a real story helps enormously.

The story is simple yet unbelievable, even more so when you think it actually happened: A group of poor people in the slums of Sri Lanka, loving their families but financially desperate, are trying every way they can to go abroad. Then one of them has an idea: To go to an international handball tournament in Germany, disguised as the national Sri Lanka handball team.

I had the pleasure of watching this when it first came out, when the migrant situation around the world wasn't yet in the shape it is today. This movie should act as a beacon for the westerners who, rightfully or wrongfully, are puzzled about the whole phenomenon. These aren't people who want to go and pillage the western countries. They aren't after their women. They aren't even after making lots of money. All they want to do is get by. Their dream is not to go to the West and make it big: their dream is simply to be a janitor, a factory worker, a driver, a cleaner somewhere in the West, solely for the purpose of sending home some money. Because no matter how much effort they make, there's no money to be made home.

This is a very sad existence, and certainly extremely hard to grasp for anyone who has never faced poverty. But for these people, it's not something they notice on news bulletins and then move on. It's not a nasty feeling that goes away when you give 5 bucks to a homeless person. It's a daily, stark reality. And all their thoughts, their dreams, all their talk revolves around the only option they can see: going abroad. Knowing very well that they will be ridiculed, cold-shouldered, and shun, they still want to do it to send some real money to their families, who they won't be seeing for years.

But don't misunderstand me: This isn't a preaching movie, or a demoralizing documentary about how people in less fortunate countries live. Quite the contrary: It's very upbeat, very hopeful. And although it's not an out-and-out comedy, it'll make you laugh out loud many times. You'll know and care for each and every character. By the end, you'll feel more happiness than all the Disney movies you've seen have given you combined, and without all the fake sentimentality. Everything works so well, from the smallest bit players to editing, from the dialogue to the musical score, that it'll catch you off-guard.

Kudos to Mr. Pasolini who wrote and directed Machan, but I was surprised to see that he's directed only one movie since. Also kudos to all the cast and everyone involved. But I have to give a special hats off to Mahendra Perera, who plays Ruan. This guy is so funny you won't believe it. He looks very much like (and even sounds exactly like) American comedian Tim Allen, except Perera is a lot funnier. He steals every scene, and proves he's a very fine actor.

In short: do not miss Machan. Seek it out, and see it.

The trade of cinema revolves around its commercial as well as artistic aspects.This is the reason why most of the filmmakers try to achieve both artistic as well as commercial success.Machan is a film which has managed to taste both kinds of joys as it is a true entertaining film directed by Uberto Pasolini who produced "The Full Monty" which revived the fortunes of the almost dead British film industry in 1997. Humanity is evident in full force in Machan as it is one of those rare films in which tears of happiness and laughter of wisdom will flow at the same time.In Machan,Uberto Pasolini depicts a serious subject in a light manner to provide an answer to the often repeated question :why do poor people become desperate to go abroad to make money ? This is shown through a very tragic depiction of despicable poverty.Sri Lankan crew's participation makes the whole film appear a genuine exercise in realist cinema as it is based on a true story which happened in 2004.Film critic Lalit Rao saw this film at 13th IFFK 2008 in Kerala and spoke to Italian producer director Uberto Pasolini about his kind of cinema.This interview can be found on cinema-poet website.

I noticed almost all the comments on the movie come from Sri Lanka. I can understand how much this movie has been loved in his own country. Cause the story, the interpreters, everything involved in the movie belongs to Sri Lanka. But after the movie is over, editing and post production done, especially after you watch it and the lights turn on, this "Machan" belongs to the world, to everyone: it's a true story, and it's the truth about sad and unfair differences in the world, about the cruelty and necessity of a lot of people (men, women, husbands, wives, sons and daughters, father and mothers) to emigrate to survive and to help their families, about the cruelty and stupidity of a lot of European laws about immigration, about the surviving instinct all the men have, about life's meaning, in general, if we can all admit life is "the" right for everybody, and not only life\survive, but life\pursuit for happiness (just to use another Italian director\world citizen's -G. Muccino- words). And the movie reaches this big and high target using humor and levity. The hardest way. I want to thank personally Pasolini for the richness watching this movie gave me. To finish it costed only 2 euros millions. Imagine... and compare with all the expensive garbage we're forced to watch from the industry...just to make them richer, and produce more expensive garbage. I really hope this movie will be loved. It deserves it.