Last Film Show (2022)
7.8
A boy spends a summer on movies in this stunning semi-autobiographical coming-of-age drama
Movie
France, India
Gujarati
Drama
2022
PAN NALIN
Bhavesh Shrimali, Bhavin Rabari, Dipen Raval
110 min
TLDR
Pan Nalin was truly meant to be a filmmaker.
What it's about
Chalala, a remote village in Gujarat, India, 2007. Nine-year-old Samay discovers the wonders of cinema and spends his entire summer watching films.
The take
Like many coming-of-age films about films, it’s easy to assume that Last Film Show would be a derivative of all-time film classic Cinema Paradiso. Both films from opposite corners of the world, separated by more than three decades, do share that awe of cinema from a projection booth. However, unlike Paradiso, the awe of Last Film Show is also tempered by the rural poverty its young protagonist faces. Samay learns projection from a film booth, and learns community is formed through the screen, but he also learns it through snatching the few reels that passes through their village, manually experimenting with scrap material, and recreating the same light and shadows through its fundamentals. These scenes are precocious because of the children, but it makes for a more interesting take, because Samay’s journey proves that cinema truly is worth saving, even without the money. It’s undeniably awe-inducing with Pan Nalin’s stunning shots and semi-autobiographical story.
What stands out
The ending.
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