Cox’s The Bengali Detective is an utter delight

A high point of the Berlin Film Festival was Asghar Farhadi’s Iranian film Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader and Simin, A Separation).

Other memorable, though very different, films were Bela Tarr’s The Turin Horse as well as the delightful British documentary The Bengali Detective by Phillip Cox.

Farhadi had earlier won the Silver Bear in Berlin for his superb film About Elly in 2009.

Starring Leila Hatami and Peyman Moadi, Nader and Simin is about a middle-class Iranian couple who struggle with divorce, ageing parents, and deeper moral issues.

It also examines how an ordinary family that was running fine simply collapses when the woman leaves. Simin files for a divorce when her husband Nader, who had earlier agreed to settle abroad, refuses to do so as it means leaving his old father, who has Alzheimer’s, alone.

As Simin moves to her mother’s, her ex-husband hires a pregnant maid who has not told her husband of the new job. Following an altercation, accusations fly fast between Nader and the maid in court. Both tell lies to cover their tracks, but in the end both are too decent and concerned about the other’s welfare.

In the end, the couple’s daughter must choose with which parent she must live. The strong screenplay becomes increasingly complex and delicately observes morality and deceit, while highlighting the fundamental integrity of ordinary citizens. Great performances make for a real winner.

Tarr’s The Turin Horse is a magnificent if deeply enigmatic film shot in black and white. It refers to an incident in Turin when the
philosopher Nietzsche witnessed a horse being whipped, and
subsequently retreated into silence and madness. But the film itself records the routine, repetitive life of a farmer and his daughter over five days.

The magnificent cinematography by Fred Kelemen of the horse, the farmhouse, the fog-wrapped landscape — make for a film of
Biblical resonances. The film is indelibly etched in your soul, even
if you can’t make sense of it. Recommended for hard-core
cinephiles.

As if making up for Tarr’s gravity is Cox’s utterly delightful The Bengali Detective, on a private detective, Rajeshji, in Kolkata. Rajesh is a documaker’s dream come true — he runs a successful business as a detective, he is a dancer, and he makes his entire detective team goofily enter the Dance Bangla Dance contest and himself does terrific Rajinikanth-style gyrations on his terrace in shades and a silver jacket.

There’s tragedy, too, as his wife Minnie dies in the course of the film, leaving him to fend alone for their young son. A film with a big heart, it is funny, insightful and poignant — everything a good documentary should be. Don’t miss this film, brilliantly shot by
Lisa Cazzato-Vieyra. The film was picked up by Fox Searchlight.

Meenakshi Shedde is India Consultant to the Berlin, Locarno and
Amsterdam film festivals and curator to international festivals
worldwide. She can be contacted at meenakshishedde@gmail.com