Review - Last Film Show

 January 24, 2022

Last Film Show (Chhello Show) – India, 2021

Early on, in Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show, a father informs his son, Samay (Bhavin Rabari), that he and his family are going to the movies. He adds, however, “For you, it’s the first and the last.” Good luck with that. Soon, we see the family at a sold out showing of a religious film, a term that for some people likely conjures up images of priests or the converted giving long fiery speeches and glowing figures signaling the arrival of miracles. Yet the film is from India, and so, in addition to the aforementioned qualities, it also contains colorful dance numbers, songs with catchy lyrics, artistic close-ups, and, apparently, captivating action scenes. The boy is hooked. When he gets home, he tells his father, “I want to make movies.” His father’s response: “Shut up.”

The boy’s family is from Chalala, a small northwestern town in India whose population in 2011 was just under 17,000. If a town’s significance can be gaged by the size of its Wikipedia page, then take this into account: Chalala’s has nine sentences, covering geography, demographics (mostly the literacy rate), notable people (there’s 1), and transportation. The latter section is a one-sentence description of where the nearest airports are. In other words, this is not a place of economic prosperity, bustling night life, or world-renowned universities. Ironically, that would likely make it one of the final (and perhaps permanent) destinations for old-fashioned motion picture reels.

Samay begins ditching classes and sneaking (often unsuccessfully) into what looks to be the areas only movie theater, the Galaxy. The theater has a ground floor and a balcony. Its screen is wide, like the ones found in the singleplexes of the past. Most importantly, it has a projectionist named Fazal (Bhavesh Shrimali), who agrees to let Samay into the projection booth in exchange for his mother’s delectable lunches. In this way, Samay is exposed to every genre of film and the directors whose artistic visions made the films possible.

If this sounds familiar, it should, for Cinema Paradiso had a similar storyline. What separates these two films is the environments in which they take place. While Guiseppe Tornatore’s film dealt with such issues as censorship under fascism and young love, Nalin’s characters cope with less political issues, chief among them poverty. This is a family that earns just enough to survive by selling tea to train passengers during brief stops. They live in an undeveloped part of the town, and their home is hardly what you’d call modern. It’s no wonder then that the advice of Samay’s teacher is for him to “learn [English] and leave." 

And yet Samay’s storyline does not show him attending extra English classes or studying for the kind of exam that would have helped him punch his ticket out of his hometown. Rather, he embarks on a journey that reflects the history of film itself. Having experienced his first film and felt the warm glow of its projector reflecting on to his hand, he is filled with existential questions, such as just how as image can be captured and projected in the first place, and, with his friends, embarks on a quest for answers. Admittedly, this is not always the most exciting adventure for viewers, and you can see the timely revelations coming a mile away. What makes it special, though, are Samay’s wide-eyed, enthusiastic reactions to his discoveries. Here is a boy discovering the way to create his own form of miracles. Later in the film, in a scene that is masterfully shot, Samay adds another innovation which harkens all the way back to the Japanese benshi and the pianists and organists that used to play along with silent movies. In that moment, we realize that Samay has created his own version of film history, proving to himself that it can be done and reinforcing his feeling that he simply must do it.

Most movies would end here or jump forward in time to show Samay as a successful director, a la Cinema Paradiso. However, Nalin shuns this predictable route, instead choosing to move the film in a direction that is so unexpected that it shocks the senses and produces feelingss of both numbness and loss. I won’t reveal it here, other than to say that the film is set in 2010, a year that marked the arrival of something that has permanently changed cinema and the way we value it.

I found myself reminiscing on the fate of most of Melies’s film and on the number of films lost in Japan’s cinematic purge in the early 1950s. I couldn’t help wondering whether a physical copy of Kamal Tabrizi’s The Lizard even exists today and if the same fate had been met by other films that fell afoul of oppressive government censors. Are old, worn-down VHS tapes all that remain of these films?

I do not know how successive generations will discover films in the future, yet one of the things that Last Film Show makes clear is the power of their discovery – the memories they create, the imagination they inspire, the communities they form, and the fun and excitement that comes as that exploration continues. Can this experience be duplicated at home on a widescreen television or in your room on an even smaller screen? Time will tell. Last Film Show, though, is a reminder of the power of the flickering lights, the hum of the projector, and the experience of the big screen. And it is a reminder of the impermanence of this experience and of just how easy it is to reduce a dream to dust. (on DVD in Region 3)

3 and a half stars

*Last Film Show is in Gujarati with English subtitles.