‘HomeBound’ Review: One of the Year’s Best Indian Films Is A Martin Scorsese-Powcedated Drama of Friendship Amid Systemic Injustice

At the heart of neraj ghaywan’s Homebound is the Image of One Young Man Carrying Another. Early in the Film, We Seie the Piggyback As A Moment of Laughter and Joy. By the end of the Film, It’s A Desperate Attempt to Defy Death.

The man shouldering the Burden is Shoaib. He is carrying his childhood friend, chandan (Vishal Jethwa). Both are attempting to travel the last few Hundred Miles to their Village in the Midst of the Covid Pandemic. One is Muslim, The Other Dalit. Both have spent their lives Fighting Bigotry and Poverty, Only to be Further Marginalized by Disease and A Lockdown. CHANDAN IS SNIC BUT Shoaib Doesn’t Give Up on HIM. He Hauls Him Up on His Back and Keeps Walking. IT’s A Powerful, Searing Symbol of Humanity.

Executive Produced by Martin Scorsese, Homebound is bassed on an Op-ed written by baratten peer in The New York TimesTitled “A Friendship, A Pandemic and A Death Beside the Highway.” From that 2020 article, ghaywan has built out a narrative that Hurls US, with Both Urgency and Restraint, Into The Fault Lines of India.

The Film Begins With Both Boys Attempting to Join The Police Force. Their reasoning is that about you’re wearing a uniform, faith and caste no longer matter. But It is an Uphill Battle, Because there are Approximately 714 Candidates for Each Seat. Chandan Doesn’t Want to Be Identified As Someone From and Oppressed Caste. Shoaib Eventuelly Gets A Job Where He is Valuened for His Street Smarts But Also Routinely Reminded that He Doesn’t Belong. Eventually, Both End Up in Surat, in State of Gujarat. But WHEN The Pandemic Hits, Work Is Shut Down, and They Must Find A Way Back Across Thousands of Miles to Their Village.

Since His Award-Winning 2015 DEBUT MasaanGhaywan Has Become Hindi Cinema’s Foremost Chronicler of Marginalized Men and Women. His Stories – Consider His Short Films Juice (2017) and Geeli Pucchi (2021) – Aren’t Didactic or Shrill. With Control and Craft, Ghaywan Reveals the Cruelty Built Into Our Social Fabric and Asks US to Consider Whatr WEPART WE PLAY, CONSCIUSLY or UNCONSCiosly, In Furthering IT.

Homebound Continues this theme. Shoaib and Chandan Are Reminded Again and Again that are, by Virtue of Their Birtls, Perceived As Lesser. There is a gut-wrenching sequence in a kind of chandan’s Mother (A Superb Shalini Vatsa), Who Works in a Village School, Is Forbidden from COPING FOR THE CHILDRON BECASE. WHEN The PROTESTING PARARANTS ARE REMINDED THAT ARE DOING IS UNCONSTITATIONAL, A FATHER Angrily Replies, “You Can Keep Your Constitation.”

The Noisy Aggression Cuts to Silence. The Woman Is Sitting Aloming at a Photograph of the Great Br Ambedkar, Who Was The Chief Architect of the Indian Constitution. Adepted in 1949, The Document Explicitly Promises “Justice, Social, Economic and Political” as a Core Guiding Principle. And Yet, More Than 70 Years Later, Discrimation Remains Deep and Abiding.

The precision, Beauty and Emotion in the Film is Built on Strong Writing (The Screenplay Is by Ghaywan and the Story Is By Peer, Ghaywan and Sumit Roy) and Superb PERFORANCESSESS. Khatter and Jethwa Shed Their Bollywood Baggage, As Does Costar Janhvi Kapoor As Chandan’s Love Interest, Demonstrating Authenticity and The Austivity to Deliver Complex Emotion. Khatter, Who Started His Career With Majid Majidi’s 2017 Film Beyond the Cloudsis especialyly brilliant in his retirns to his roots.

Homebound Is The Story of Ordinary People Who Find the Courage and Compassion to Resist Systemic Cruelty. On the Long Road Home, Shoaib and Chandan Come to A Tiny Village. Shoaib Begs for Water But Is Met with Hostity. Men, Standing on A Terrace, Start to Throw Stones to Drive Them Out – They AFRAID THAT THAT TWO Bring Disease. But a Woman, Her Face Covered by Her ghoonghat (veil), defies them. She brings out a bucket, pours water into their cupped Hands and quenches their Thirsst.

WHICH DOOK ME BACK TO THE END OF RAJ KAPOR’S SUPERB 1956 FILM Jagte raho (Stay awake), in WHICH HE PLAYS A POOR Man Wanders Into An Apartment Building Looking for Water But Sports The Night Hiding and Running Because they take him for a Thief. WHEN MORNING COMES, HE HEARS A Bhajan (Religious Song) and Follows the Sound, Which Leads Him to Nargis, Resplendent in White. She Comes Forte with a pot and pours Water for HIM. TheSE SMALL ACTS OF Kindness, These Films Seem to Say, Can Save the World.

Be warned that Homebound is a Three-hankie weeper. There is a Scene Between Shoaib and Chandan’s Mother That Destroyed Me. This is the best hindi film of the year so far. Don’t miss it.