This Hindi movie is a pretty straightforward slice-of-life story that tries to give a modern look at what it's like to be a single, professional gay man. It dives into how he understands who he is, the chances he missed out on, and the personal choices he’s made along the way. The director used three parallel timelines to tell the story, which honestly didn't make much sense to me. While the core idea was actually pretty interesting, I really feel like this would have worked way better as a short film considering the point it was trying to make. Still, it wasn't a bad watch. The plot centers on Rachit, a city professional, and his friend Shikhar as they hang out for an evening. Rachit is a polished, urban guy, while Shikhar has more of a "small-town" rustic vibe, and you can really see the contrast between them when they talk. As the night goes on, Rachit starts thinking back to some old memories from a long time ago. He remembers being an intern after college in ...
We meet 4 individuals who have secretly been living in Chile with the stigma of being HIV positive and have stayed silent about the issue. An 18 year old fine arts student, A president of a wellbeing group for HIV people, a wanna young poet working in a stationary shop, and finally a 45 year old teacher and a gay activist. Using autobiographical photography and reflexive techniques through cinematic storytelling, the maker takes us through the journey of these individuals. The photographic portraits represent their painful memories and feelings, a process which helps them challenge years of silence, shame, and misrepresentation. It's a different form of story telling to be honest where practice-led research can produce emotionally moving and politically relevant films that are accessible to a discerning audience. The pictures are supposed to educate us about the impactful stories and ‘statements’ produced by the men through their photographic projects without us being sentimental about it. Unfortunately, personally for me, this form of story telling didn't work for me. I was unable to really connect and empathize with these individuals.
The story is powerful and a very very important documentary to be told. People, not just in Chile, but everywhere need to be educated on what HIV is, what people living wit it go through because of it. Good as a documentary, if you can keep yourself invested, but just not interesting enough to want to stay on watching it and get to know more. (3.5/10)
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