Audience Member

I can only be frustrated and annoyed when a film fails to reward my patience. "Anhe Ghore Da Daan" is the second Punjabi film I've seen that has any value in context of serious cinema, the other is Deepa Mehta's "Heaven on Earth." The title in English translates to: "Alms for a Blind Horse," the story (if it has any) shows the problems concerning people living in a village among who have gone to the city to make more money, kind of like how immigrants move to the United States to have a better living. The reason I decided to watch it was because I was born in Punjab, India so discovering that this film had gotten much acclaim as a serious work made me excited, I speak the language everyday at home. Gurvinder Singh is the director, the film actually made me recall "The Tree of Wooden Clogs," I have the same problems with both. The director gives us several actors who should be characters, but he never explores them. He establishes splendid shots, moves at a slow pace, shows us how life is in Punjab, specifically in the small towns. I actually come from a small town or village also, although we were not as poor as the people in the film are. All of this was wasted. I did not learn anything from this film and I was surprised how few young characters were there, a lot of the villagers shown were very old men. This film is a "masterpiece" compared to the other Punjabi films because its intentions are serious, it tries to reach artistic status. It's incredibly different when compared to popular Punjabi or Hindi films. If people think Bollywood is inferior, they haven't seen films from Punjab. And looking at India as a whole, I've seen other films from Bollywood that try to break the norm, but I don't think any one of them comes even close competing with the very best films of the world. I applaud them for trying achieve their individual vision, but so far it's largely been fruitless. Rather than the film itself, what I find more interesting is how Gurvinder Singh actually made this film because everyone who appears in the film are not professional actors, if I am not mistaken. P.S. Even though the film lacks energy and enthusiasm, I loved the part when one of the rickshaw drivers was singing various songs of Amar Singh Chamkila, a famous Punjabi singer who was shot and killed.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/02/23

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Gurvinder Singh

Director

Samuel John

Melu

Mal Singh

Father

Serbjeet Kaur

Dayalo

Dharminder Kaur

Mother

Emmanuel Singh

Bhupi

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Shubhra Gupta

The Indian Express

First time director Gurvinder Singh, a student of Mani Kaul, has wrought a film that's not so much a film but a slow-moving painting, which captures life so realistically that you can smell the mustard in the fields, and the roti off the chulha.

Rated: 4/5

Mar 25, 2019

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Rachel Saltz

New York Times

It shows us unhurried bits of daily life and lived-in faces but remains firmly on the outside, carefully making its slow study.

Rated: 2.5/5

Aug 21, 2012

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Siddhant Adlakha

The Juggernaut

A portrait of what poverty, and the accompanying specter of death, can do to a human being.

Dec 19, 2019

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Synopsis

A family living in a Punjab village deals with social and labor inequities until a fight breaks out during a lunar eclipse.

Director: Gurvinder Singh
Producer: Neena Gupta, Vikramjit Roy
Screenwriter: Gurvinder Singh
Genre: Drama
Original Language: Hindi
Release Date (Streaming): May 22, 2017
Runtime: 1h 52m

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