Shadows of Time

Tumpa Das loses her love in Shadows of Time.

Herald rating: * * 

German director Gallenberger won an Oscar in 2001 for a short film about two Mexican street kids, which presumably helped him get this old-fashioned romantic melodrama made.

Set in India and spanning six decades, it's the story of lifelong love that is almost entirely unfulfilled, which, although probably not uncommon in real life, makes for a frustrating movie.

Ravi and Masha (Agarwal and Das) are children slave-labourers in a rural carpet factory who are separated when Masha is sold to a brothel-keeper.

They vow to meet again but a series of misunderstandings and missed opportunities keep them apart.

The early sequences with the child actors are the film's best, unforced and fresh. But when Chatterjee and Narayanan take over the roles the film becomes weighed down by their lack of chemistry.

The film has an aloof, antiseptic feel. Despite being shot on location the production design seems clean and sanitary, and it's hard to get any sense of the characters' suffering.

The dramatically risky ending tries to draw on emotional capital the film simply hasn't built up.

It's tempting to think that Shadows of Time doesn't work because it was made across a cultural divide - an all-German production crew and an Indian cast - but it may be simply that the talent is thin.

Either way, it's a movie of much greater ambition than achievement.

CAST: Tannishtha Chatterjee, Prashant Narayanan, Tillotama Shome, Irrfan Khan, Tumpa Das, Sikander Agarwal
DIRECTOR: Florian Gallenberger
RUNNING TIME: 108 minutes
RATING: M
SCREENING: Rialto