Amit Kumar © FDC / FL
MIDNIGHT SCREENING – Monsoon Shootout, to shoot or not to shoot
In 2003, Amit Kumar presented The Bypass, a short film made in the context of his film studies. It was an uncompromising perspective on the armed violence and the corruption that poison Indian society. The director returns with a more in-depth treatment of this theme in his first feature film, Monsoon Shootout, which raises questions about morality and indecisiveness. The film is in competition for the Caméra d’or.
Photo from the Film © RR
To pull the trigger or not. To shoot or not to shoot. Kill him or let him run. Adi, a young police officer who has just been posted to his first job, is paralysed with indecision. Drops of sweat trickle down his face with the monsoon rain that is falling that night in Bombay. He has learned the ropes in the slums of India’s economic capital and this is where he is sent to carry out his first mission. He is confronted with Shiva, one of the most wanted gangsters in the city. Holding him at gunpoint, the policeman is aware that the gangster’s life is in his hands. And Adi knows that his choice will carry a price.
Amit Kumar has long been fascinated by the idea of portraying in film these moments when, from one second to the next, a whole existence can be overturned, moments when time appears frozen in the face of a moral dilemma, ever since he saw the short film by Robert Enrico, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (La Rivière du Hibou, 1962). So much so that the 43-year old Indian director has made it the central theme of his first feature film, Monsoon Shootout.
So Amit Kumar extends the reasoning he initiated in The Bypass onto the moral level. “Where is the morality that we are supposed to carry within us as civilised animals? Does it exist, even for a fraction of a second, in the mind of one of the most notorious killers?” asks the director, adding that he himself is often prey to indecisiveness. There will be at least a partial answer tonight, in the Grand Théâtre Lumière.
Benoit Pavan
SCREENINGS
Saturday 18 May / Grand Théâtre Lumière / 12:30 am
