Poor Boy, he won’t survive this Game

Talking of DVDs, this one just fell into my hands. In the most literal sense. I was shifting through the stacks of my local DVD library. Mine, situated deep inside a winding lane that opens into one of the busiest crossings in old North Calcutta, stocks an interesting collection. You will get X-rated movies (hard-core and softcore), Hitchcock and Chaplin classics, Hollywood blockbusters with an odd Godard or Renoir all together, with an equal share of reckless reluctance. All stacked one on top of the other in flimsy plastic covers, equally dust-ridden.

Of these, the X-rated ones have the appearance of well-thumbed paperbacks. So much for English movies in a good old North Calcutta. But that’s beside the point.

So how did this one fall? It fell as I was thumbing through the titles. The title read— ‘Poor Boy’s Game’. I had heard about it. This one was making rounds in the film festivals last year. And it was released just this year in the US, last month. That above all, was the primary reason to borrow the DVD. After all, I will be one-up among my peers, having seen at least one movie – an English one at that, made by a Canadian director with a Canadian cast, yet to be released in India— before any one of them.

But it was a pleasant surprise. Because I haven’t seen a more violent and yet so sensitive a movie in years. And I also haven’t seen a better made sports movie recently, which has so much to say in such undertones.

This, despite a ‘Chak De India’—which was supposed to be a watershed of sorts among recent sports films. At least that’s what the Indian media would have us believe. Because at the end of it all, this one had the courage to deal with a racial issue—something that Chak De and Kabir Khan had harped on right from the beginning—and yet bring about a reconciliation between the warring individuals, without the dream of a win. And under-acting as an art form—that was an added. Also the fact that despite the large screen format, the huge close ups and close shots– alomost giv-ing the sense of a TV camera at work, gave added impetus to the theme of claustrophobia, that’s central to the theme.

Hope Mr Shimit Amin has also seen this movie. Next time he makes a Chak De-like movie, he would think twice, whether he should make a sports movie at all.

Because there is no point in making a sports movie, once you see this Clément Virgo piece and feel you can’t or won’t be able to, better it.

Because, if you better it, nobody will go to see your movie in India, becuase nobody goes to multiplexes to see relentless violence and hear swearwords. They go there to laugh and cry, and if they have that extra money, cuddle into a blanket on limo-like convertible chairs at the Gold Lounge and enjoy a sump-tuous meal.

Because, ‘Poor Boy’s Game’ won’t even survive a week in India. May even not get the Censor nod.
Because, my DVD librarywallah had decided this was a good X-movie without the X-rating. That was the reason he ever stocked it. He is the typical Indian viewer.