Dir. Asif Kapadia, 2001, UK, 86 mins, subtitles
Cast: Irfan Khan, Puru Chibber, Annupam Shyam, Mandakini Goswami
Review by Kirsty Walker
Eleven weeks of filming in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Rajasthan desert, where temperatures soared to 47 degrees and the cast and crew were plagued by scorpions, sunstroke, malaria, dehydration and wild dogs, is a fitting start to an epic film.
This is the story of a professional killer, Lafcadia (Irfan Khan), who has a crisis of conscience. He has carried out the bloodthirsty orders of the local laird, resident in a crumbling fortress, all his adult life, but when we meet him it is clear that his delight in murder, rape and pillage is waning.
During the burning and laying waste of a poor village, whose residents have failed to meet the Lord’s tax demands, he finds himself pointing his sword at a young girl, who earlier that day, had saved his son from local bullies. The warrior and the girl are suddenly transported to snow-covered mountains, where they stand outside a house. The vision is momentary, but when reality returns and Lafcadia looks at the parched desert earth, he sees snow under his shoes. He decides to head home to the hills to regain some balance in his life.
The story is based on a Japanese folk tale and, like so many things Oriental, remains largely inscrutable. Why Lafcadia downs sword so suddenly and embarks on this journey and what he hopes to achieve when he arrives is never explained. This is a visual, rather than verbal film. But it might have helped Lafcadia’s young son to have been given an explanation.
Perhaps then he would not have sneaked back to their home to retrieve his forgotten knife, while his father is praying for good fortune on the journey ahead. There the boy is captured by Lafcadia’s colleagues, who have been commanded by the Lord to kill their truant captain. The warrior follows his son to the village, where he witnesses his execution. It seems like he might break cover in his distress, but the local blacksmith takes pity on him and smuggles him out of town.
His journey is dogged by the chasing warriors, charging across the emptiness, like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, laying waste to man and beast, except, of course, their Indian horses, with the distinctive S-shaped ears. In between dodging the baddies, Lafcadia helps an old blind woman cross a river and meets up with a young thief, whose main line of defence is a pot of chilli pepper – the original pepper spray. Both these characters prove useful to him. Though physically blind, the woman has twenty-twenty second sight. The thief becomes a surrogate son and helps to save Lafcadia’s life during the final battle with the warriors.
The film is beautifully shot, contrasting the heat and squalor of desert life with the cool clarity of the mountains. Attention to detail is strong, with scorpions scuttling across hot sands and bejewelled Rajasthani women swathed in yellow and red like exotic flowers in the desert. The movie is high on stunning shots, but low on special effects, a bit disappointing for a piece described as “magical realism”. Nor is there any love interest, which seems a waste given that Irfan Khan is something of a sex god. Originality is also lacking. The audience is likely to be reminded of a number of other movies, such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Braveheart.
However, this is Asif Kapadia’s first full-length feature – his graduation film, The Sheep Thief, made at the Royal College of Art, won the Jury Prize at Cannes. A Western fan, his intention was to create an Eastern, and in this he has certainly succeeded.
