Lucky

Wow.... I loved this movie. It's been a while since I saw such a compelling movie which makes you think deeply about life's unfortunate turns and opportunities it offers. Although this film is only 20 minutes long, it seemed like a full length feature. Whatever the director Avie Luthra wanted to portray was done in a short time. You can see Joy Mwandla "Lucky" at the beginning of the film excited about going to town for school and better life, burying his favorite toy airplane and soon finding his dream washed up by his uncle's comment who says he did not expect him until next week and if he wants to study, here are the books and Lucky realizing he is on his own, making friendship with the Indian Lady who is a vicious old... What a beautiful portray of real life living in a society who is being discriminated and do discriminate as well. The Indian woman did a great job so did Lucky. Bravo

This is a funny name for a film---"Lucky". That's because the title character is a very pitiful young man of only about 7 and his mother recently died. To make things worse, he's sent to live with an uncle who is scum and shows no regard for the kid. It's really rather heart-breaking seeing the film, as the kid is so cute and you just want to hug him and take care of him. But the best chance he has for anyone to care about him is a seemingly crazy Indian lady who lives nearby--and she threatens him and hits him in the face with a large stick! Despite being so depressing, this is still a very good film and well worth watching. The acting is very good (particularly for the kid) and the characters actually have some depth to them (except the uncle--who remains scum throughout the film). Well done but tough to watch.

By the way, one thing confuses me. Although the summary says the mother died of AIDS, this isn't said in the film and you might assume she died of TB or some other common killer in South Africa.