Afterglow tells the story of a woman coping with her husband's recent death and
having to deal with the pseudo condolences of relatives and neighbors.
It's a short film based on a short story. The original story is by Rohinton Mistry, titled "Condolence Visit". It is part of his collection of short stories "Tales From Firozsha Baag". It is a diploma film by Kaushal Oza (Film and Television Institue of India). It won the Best Indian Film award at 10th Kalpanirjhar International Short Fiction Film Festival.
The film is extremely well made and pregnant with symbolism packed into 19 very thoughtfully shot, tightly edited minutes. It explores a rejection of rituals to allow yourself a personal grieving process. The new widow keeps adding oil to a lamp even though tradition dictates that the diva must be put out for the soul to move on. The symbol of the burning lamp recurs as she moves closer to acceptance. She begin to move on and gives away her husband's paaghri (a groom's headgear), despite protests from well meaning visitors. These seemingly mundane objects and moments are focal points of some of the most expressive and poignant scenes in the film. A silent scene shows her pouring two cup of tea only to stop halfway realizing she is now alone.
It's very Parsi. I'll say that. The typical characterization, the costumes, the sets, the conversations. But what that allows the story to do is cut through some very hard themes with humor and eccentricity. I could see this being stretched into a fantastic play with its moments of hilarity resting on the very mature and universal theme of loss.
Watch the full film at http://vimeo.com/kaushaloza/afterglow
(pwd: after11glow)
It's a short film based on a short story. The original story is by Rohinton Mistry, titled "Condolence Visit". It is part of his collection of short stories "Tales From Firozsha Baag". It is a diploma film by Kaushal Oza (Film and Television Institue of India). It won the Best Indian Film award at 10th Kalpanirjhar International Short Fiction Film Festival.
The film is extremely well made and pregnant with symbolism packed into 19 very thoughtfully shot, tightly edited minutes. It explores a rejection of rituals to allow yourself a personal grieving process. The new widow keeps adding oil to a lamp even though tradition dictates that the diva must be put out for the soul to move on. The symbol of the burning lamp recurs as she moves closer to acceptance. She begin to move on and gives away her husband's paaghri (a groom's headgear), despite protests from well meaning visitors. These seemingly mundane objects and moments are focal points of some of the most expressive and poignant scenes in the film. A silent scene shows her pouring two cup of tea only to stop halfway realizing she is now alone.
It's very Parsi. I'll say that. The typical characterization, the costumes, the sets, the conversations. But what that allows the story to do is cut through some very hard themes with humor and eccentricity. I could see this being stretched into a fantastic play with its moments of hilarity resting on the very mature and universal theme of loss.
(pwd: after11glow)
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