A Place Called Neverland
/A Film Commentary on SIDDHARTH
Canadian Filmmaker Richie Mehta
From India • 96 minutes • In Hindi, English subtitles • Non-Rated
By Mountain Shadow Director, John Bennison
In Hermann Hesse’s 1922 novel, Siddhartha, the protagonist undertakes a journey in search of self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment. In fact, the name Siddhartha derives from two Sanskrit words that together mean “he who has found what was sought, that is, meaningful existence.”
The story takes place in ancient India. Siddhartha leaves home, renouncing worldly ambition, possessions and fortune. In his wanderings he meets and woos a beautiful woman named Kamala, employing his considerable talents to provide her a luxurious lifestyle; only to reject it all again in pursuit of more esoteric ideals.
Only much later in life does he meet her again, and recognize the son he never knew he had. When Kamala dies, the boy flees, and Siddhartha initially searches in vain for his runaway son. That is, until he is urged by a wise and simple elder to allow the boy to find his own way, much as Siddhartha had done himself.
Sitting beside a river, pondering its flow, Siddhartha comes to realize that there is an underlying wholeness to the nature of all things; despite the seeming pain and disharmony.
If filmmaker Richie Mehta’s film SIDDHARTH is intended to be a modern-day adaptation of Hesse’s novel, its own conclusion may suggest something akin to the earlier tale; but it certainly has its contrasts, as well.
Siddharth, the boy, only appears in the first few fleeting frames of a sweeping saga that takes his father, Mehendra, on a journey that could hardly be described as a spiritual quest. He merely wants to find his son who has disappeared, and feared abducted; after violating India’s child labor laws and sending the boy off to work in a trolley factory to supplement his own inability to earn enough money to care for his family.
Mehendra is a chain-wallah, who wanders the streets repairing zippers on anything that has a zipper, amidst the gritty reality of bare subsistence. Like chapter headings, this episodic film is routinely interspersed with the milling, crushing crowd of humanity that fills Delhi.
Living in the barest conditions, his family has one modern luxury. It’s a cell phone, which the young daughter handles with ease, but her parents typically can’t understand how to use. The juxtaposition of modern technology with the abject poverty that persists seems almost ludicrous.
When Mehendra reports his missing child to the authorities, he realizes he has no photo, or even an adequate description of the boy with which one could identify his son. Left on his own with few resources, he heads off on one futile trek after another.
When a smooth talker offers to help solve his problem for him, Mehendra replies, “Sometimes a real man has to travel alone.”
“You’re absolutely right,” the other replies, then pauses and poses the question, “But how many real men are left in this world?”
A runaway on the street tells him, “Maybe your son got lucky and left this world.”
When another boy in the factory where his son was last seen tells him there is a place where runaways end up called Dongri he redoubles his efforts. He travels to alien lands on a journey filled with hopelessness and futility.
Once the husband and wife overcome their separate slings of guilt and recrimination, together they continue asking anyone they meet, writing letters to nameless officials, offering prayers.
Finally, he asks yet another stranger on the street, “Where are you from?”
“Nowhere,” the man replies, “I’m like a free-flowing river.”
“So you’ve travelled a lot,” Mehendra says with a hint of hopefulness still left in his voice. “Ever been to a place called Dongri?”
The simple man replies with a single word, “No.”
Then, while fixing the zipper on a young, upscale woman’s purse, he asks her if she’s ever heard of a place called Dongri. She doesn’t know, but she knows how to find out. A quick Google search on her smart phone identifies a location in South Mumbai with such a name.
Dongri, in fact, turns out to be a place for runaways; a refuge and escape from the brutal reality of the child trafficking that plagues that country. But the boy is not to be found there either.
In the end, for Mehendra, Dongri is a place that only exists in rumor and legend. It is a place where lost boys go. The man from nowhere who is like the free-flowing river, and who doesn’t know where Dongri is, may have been right. Dongri is a place called Neverland.
Like the Hesse novel, Mehendra ends up at the waters edge. With tears streaming down his face, he tries to sketch an image of his son’s face in the dust of the earth. In the end, it’s all dust.
When he finally places a phone call to his own father, to tell him he has lost his own son, Mehendra’s father first alludes to some inexplicable providential design with which a post-modern Western viewer might object. But then he tells Mehendra to go home to his wife and daughter. And life goes on.
Resolution in this world, it seems, doesn’t always come with the happiest of endings.
The story takes place in ancient India. Siddhartha leaves home, renouncing worldly ambition, possessions and fortune. In his wanderings he meets and woos a beautiful woman named Kamala, employing his considerable talents to provide her a luxurious lifestyle; only to reject it all again in pursuit of more esoteric ideals.
Only much later in life does he meet her again, and recognize the son he never knew he had. When Kamala dies, the boy flees, and Siddhartha initially searches in vain for his runaway son. That is, until he is urged by a wise and simple elder to allow the boy to find his own way, much as Siddhartha had done himself.
Sitting beside a river, pondering its flow, Siddhartha comes to realize that there is an underlying wholeness to the nature of all things; despite the seeming pain and disharmony.
If filmmaker Richie Mehta’s film SIDDHARTH is intended to be a modern-day adaptation of Hesse’s novel, its own conclusion may suggest something akin to the earlier tale; but it certainly has its contrasts, as well.
Siddharth, the boy, only appears in the first few fleeting frames of a sweeping saga that takes his father, Mehendra, on a journey that could hardly be described as a spiritual quest. He merely wants to find his son who has disappeared, and feared abducted; after violating India’s child labor laws and sending the boy off to work in a trolley factory to supplement his own inability to earn enough money to care for his family.
Mehendra is a chain-wallah, who wanders the streets repairing zippers on anything that has a zipper, amidst the gritty reality of bare subsistence. Like chapter headings, this episodic film is routinely interspersed with the milling, crushing crowd of humanity that fills Delhi.
Living in the barest conditions, his family has one modern luxury. It’s a cell phone, which the young daughter handles with ease, but her parents typically can’t understand how to use. The juxtaposition of modern technology with the abject poverty that persists seems almost ludicrous.
When Mehendra reports his missing child to the authorities, he realizes he has no photo, or even an adequate description of the boy with which one could identify his son. Left on his own with few resources, he heads off on one futile trek after another.
When a smooth talker offers to help solve his problem for him, Mehendra replies, “Sometimes a real man has to travel alone.”
“You’re absolutely right,” the other replies, then pauses and poses the question, “But how many real men are left in this world?”
A runaway on the street tells him, “Maybe your son got lucky and left this world.”
When another boy in the factory where his son was last seen tells him there is a place where runaways end up called Dongri he redoubles his efforts. He travels to alien lands on a journey filled with hopelessness and futility.
Once the husband and wife overcome their separate slings of guilt and recrimination, together they continue asking anyone they meet, writing letters to nameless officials, offering prayers.
Finally, he asks yet another stranger on the street, “Where are you from?”
“Nowhere,” the man replies, “I’m like a free-flowing river.”
“So you’ve travelled a lot,” Mehendra says with a hint of hopefulness still left in his voice. “Ever been to a place called Dongri?”
The simple man replies with a single word, “No.”
Then, while fixing the zipper on a young, upscale woman’s purse, he asks her if she’s ever heard of a place called Dongri. She doesn’t know, but she knows how to find out. A quick Google search on her smart phone identifies a location in South Mumbai with such a name.
Dongri, in fact, turns out to be a place for runaways; a refuge and escape from the brutal reality of the child trafficking that plagues that country. But the boy is not to be found there either.
In the end, for Mehendra, Dongri is a place that only exists in rumor and legend. It is a place where lost boys go. The man from nowhere who is like the free-flowing river, and who doesn’t know where Dongri is, may have been right. Dongri is a place called Neverland.
Like the Hesse novel, Mehendra ends up at the waters edge. With tears streaming down his face, he tries to sketch an image of his son’s face in the dust of the earth. In the end, it’s all dust.
When he finally places a phone call to his own father, to tell him he has lost his own son, Mehendra’s father first alludes to some inexplicable providential design with which a post-modern Western viewer might object. But then he tells Mehendra to go home to his wife and daughter. And life goes on.
Resolution in this world, it seems, doesn’t always come with the happiest of endings.
When he finally places a phone call to his own father, to tell him he has lost his own son, Mehendra’s father first alludes to some inexplicable providential design with which a post-modern Western viewer might object. But then he tells Mehendra to go home to his wife and daughter. And life goes on.
Resolution in this world, it seems, doesn’t always come with the happiest of endings.
