The Pool (2007)

User Rating:

7.4/10   

Director:

Chris Smith

Writers:

Chris Smith (screenplay) and
Randy Russell (writer)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Plot:

A boy working in a hotel becomes obsessed with a swimming pool in the opulent hills of Panjim, Goa in India. His life gets turned upside down when he attempts to meet the mysterious family that arrives at the house. |

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Jhangir Badshah
Venkatesh Chavan
Ayesha Mohan
Nana Patekar

Runtime:

USA:98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

Hindi | English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

SDDS | Dolby Digital | DTS

Certification:

USA:Unrated | Canada:PG (British Columbia/Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Goa, India

Company:

Bluemark Productions

Trivia:

Nana Patekar, who wasn't cast until three months into production, at first refused to star in the film as he was taking a year off. After being shown footage of the movie, he changed his mind.

Extraordinary, One of the Best Films of '08

Well-respected documentarian Chris Smith proves himself a master of narrative form with this incredibly subtle and moving Hindi-language drama, shot in India. Along with Elite Squad, Edge of Heaven, Reprise, and Let the Right One In, "The Pool" is easily one of the best films of the year.

As a New York-based Indian-American filmmaker who grew up in Wisconsin and has shot fiction films in India, I was nonetheless skeptical about a Wisconsin-based documentarian, even one of Smith's stature, working from a Midwestern-set fictional short story reset in India. Western filmmakers tend to miss the subtleties that make India unique and exciting, choosing instead to exoticize India's most superficial differences, condemn its shortcomings, or talk vaguely about its 'contradictions' (when they mean "contrasts," revealing their ignorance of the same contrasts in any big city).

Smith doesn't fall into any of these pitfalls, and has created a work of lasting honesty and beauty. Watching it, it's hard to believe Smith is not only not Indian, but does not speak Hindi. I have been recommending the film to everyone I know, even more so on second viewing (at the South Asian International Film Festival, where it won top honors), once I could worry less about what was going to happen next and focus more on the incredibly nuanced script and acting, lush sound design, delightful score, and masterful framing and camera movement.

"The Pool" has the lyricism and humanism of Satyajit Ray, the simple strength and beauty of the great Italian neo-realists, and a great documentarian's eye for telling detail and feeling of captured reality.

I hope the film wins some year-end nominations and awards, followed by a wider re-release, because everyone who loves great cinema deserves to see "The Pool."