‘The Last Film Show’ movie review: A dreamy, moving tribute to cinema
India’s entry to the Oscars is filmmaker Pan Nalin’s love letter to cinema, which earnestly captures the evolution of the art form and the magic of dreams
(Originally published in The Hindu on October 14, 2022)
Chhello Show (or The Last Film Show in English) is India’s official entry to the 95th Academy Awards. Now, despite the makers rightfully using this as a marketing tool, this is a film that deserves to be seen without such overarching pressures. A personal, compelling film, Chhello Show is filmmaker Pan Nalin’s love letter to cinema.
With tender frames, the film pulls us into the world of Samay (Bhavin Rabari), a young boy from Chalala village in Gujarat, who lives with his father (Dipen Raval), mother (Richa Meena) and younger sister. One day, his father takes the family to a movie called ‘Goddess Mahakali’. The year is 2010 when movies were still shot using film cameras and played through a film projector. The light from the projector, and the experience of watching the film give birth to a germ of curiosity in the mind of our young protagonist. After some very amusing events, he befriends a film projectionist named Fazal (Bhavesh Shrimali), and celluloid dreams begin to take shape in him.
But Chhello Show isn’t just a coming-of-age drama driven by Samay’s obsession with cinema; it’s also a film with a narrative that encapsulates the evolution of cinema and cinema theatres. Samay’s curiosity about the films takes him on a quest to ‘capture’ light. After stealing a piece of film from the theatre, Samay ….