The Pool
When my friend Seema invited me to the pre-release screening of The Pool, naturally, I went to check the website and watch the trailer. And automatically I can hear myself thinking with my usual snide attitude: ”ow, I guess being a poor boy in India is the new exotic film genre.” Seeing that ‘Slumdog chic’ was simply unavoidable, and I can imagine film crits calling it the “new Slumdog” easily. In fact, I think they already did.
But I did go to the screening because it looked like a pretty good film, won many awards and praises from Sundance and other festivals, plus my work-at-home profession doesn’t really get me free movie screenings much, so it was a good opportunity. (Thanks, Seema!)
And I loved it. Besides the whole poor-boy-in-India point, The Pool is completely different from Slumdog Millionaire. It has a slower artsy pace, pretty scenography without a lot of eye candy. The story and characters seem deceptively simple and loosely crafted, but the actors were so real and convincing that it feels as if you’re actually following someone’s life.
Vantakesh and Jhangir are two boys from a village working in Goa (picture above). They clean hotel and restaurants, and make side money peddling plastic bags in the market. During his spare times Vantakesh sits on a mango tree overlooking a house with a shiny pretty pool and wonders why no one ever swims in it. Eventually his curiosity leads him into the garden. Offering his help to the owner of the house, Vantakesh and his obsession with the pool would determine his future.
But the writer and director (both Americans) don’t make it that easy. Poor boys with enough aspiration who eventually become a someone is largely a movie fairy tale. The characters in The Pool are closer to real life, which are much more complicated than a conventional heroic journey.
Anyway, it’s a great film. The two boys playing Vantakesh and Jhangir were using their real names and this was their first time acting in a film. Chris Smith, the director, did a wonderful job of unfolding the characters from illiterate peasants to someone in charge of their destinies, no matter how humble.
The Pool is now playing at Cumberland Cinema 4 in Toronto.