This article written by Manohla Dargis introduces the movie - The Fourth Direction - based on The Director, Gulvinder Singh’s memories of the political crisis and assaults faced by The Sikhs before Indira Gandhi’s assassination, in India. The Fourth Director is Gulvinder Singh’s second film, but first feature at The Cannes. His mentor was Mani Kaul. In an interview, he talks about how he discovered Bresson.
Read an excerpt of the article written by Manohla Dargis:
This year’s cinematic menagerie at the 68th Cannes Film Festival includes a monstrously large flea in ‘‘Tale of Tales,’’ bloody bunnies in ‘‘The Lobster’’ and flocks of sheep in ‘‘Rams.’’ No animal, though, has held the screen as proudly as the Himalayan sheepdog Tommy in ‘‘The Fourth Direction’’ (‘‘Chauthi Koot’’), a movie about ordinary people whose lives are shaped by violence in Punjab, the predominantly Sikh state in northern India. Directed by Gurvinder Singh, the movie takes place in 1984, the year Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by two Sikh bodyguards. ‘‘The Fourth Direction’’ doesn’t directly address the political crises surrounding that assassination, including, before Gandhi’s death, the Indian military’s assault on Sikh separatists who had taken over the Golden Temple of Amritsar (Sikhism’s holiest shrine), or the anti-Sikh riots after her death that led to the slaughter of thousands. Instead, Mr. Singh tells a fictional tale that opens with two Hindu men running and closes with them walking together with several newfound Sikh confederates in a quietly moving assertion of Indian unity. ...read more