India: Matri Bhumi

Not an easy movie, and certainly it is not going to get a "blue sticker" from the pundits of post-colonial thought... but "Born into Brothels"? Ple-ease! A washed-out late night Hollywood-esquire expose' good for Anderson Cooper, maybe. Rossellini spent a year in India shooting a ten-hour documentary, and this little fiction film "India Matri Bhumi". The need for restoration is obvious, but the process of de-spectacularization is in full effect: a full frontal attack on the society of the spectacle at its incepts, by making an imperfect film, where ends don't meet, and birds sing freely. I take Rossellini over any postcolonial melancholic!