Leaving behind many good films, including the likes of The Lunchbox, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, English Vinglish, Vishwaroopam, Malayalam film Celluloid and Bengali film Shabdo, Gujarati film The Good Road is selected as India’s official entry to Oscars for the best foreign film category (for the year 2013). So, here is what I have so far heard and read about the movie.
First-time feature film director Gyan Correa’s The Good Road is about two children who got lost in the Kutch desert, a mother and father who are in a race against time to find their only son, and a truck driver, who is struggling to support his family, and who is on his last drive.
The Good Road – Movie Synopsis & Trailer
Pappu is a truck driver. Supporting his parents and extended family is beyond his means. Now, he has been presented with a plan. An accident will be staged. Pappu will “die”. Insurance payments are substantial. David and Kiran, a middle-class urban couple, with their son Aditya, are on a holiday. Aditya will be accidentally separated from them during a brief halt at a Dhaba. And his loss will only be discovered several hours, and several hundred kilometers later. They must double back to find him.
Poonam is an 11-year old-year-old child from the city. She is looking for her grandmother, living in a town at the end of this highway. Tired and hungry, Poonam unwisely stops at the Topaz, which seems to be a small garment-dying unit. Aditya will be found by a local dhaba (a roadside food stall) owner and put onto Pappu’s truck. Has Aditya found a new and unlikely home on this truck? Later, when it is too late, Poonam will discover that the Topaz is not quite the place for her. She will be confronted, forcefully, with the same choices she is running away from. Which way will this young girl turn? And Pappu, looking for answers to balance his need with those of this little boy, will find new strength and conviction within.
The Good Road is a very unusual small-budget film, but the point here is it won the National Award earlier this year. Whether it can actually catch the attention of the international audience is a different thing, as to date no Indian film has ever won the best foreign film at the Oscars. And there are very few – Lagaan, Salaam Bombay, and Mother India – that had managed to reach the last round of selection at the Academy Awards.
