‘Whispers of Fire & Water’ Review: A Man-Made Hell On Earth Is The Setting For An Eerie Indian Tale – Locarno Film Festival
deadline.comThe mystical and the industrial cross paths in this haunting debut from India, screening at this year’s Locarno Film Festival in the event’s parallel competition for first and second movies.
It begins in an almost documentary style, showing the harsh, eerie beauty of Jharia, a once-proud mining community that’s now an apocalyptic ruin of a city, where toxic waste is dumped 24/7 and noxious fires burn just as endlessly.
Midway through, however, Lubdhak Chatterjee’s film begins to change direction, as its passive hero becomes attuned to the natural mysteries lurking in the adjacent woods.
The set-up is a clear-cut juxtaposition of ancient and modern, as sound artist Shiva (Sagnik Mukherjee) arrives in Jharia with a boom mic and recording apparatus to find material for use in an art installation back home in Kolkata.
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