Little Zizou – Not a review, Just reactions.
If you haven’t heard of Sooni Taraporevala, you need to watch more movies. Salaam Bombay, Monsoon Wedding…you get the idea.
I just got back from watching her directorial debut “Little Zizou” at the Asian Festival of First Films in Singapore, and I really liked it. The title comes from footballer Zinedine Zidane’s nickname Zizou, and a young parsi boy in Bombay who yearns for his hero to visit the city.
the director has rounded up every Parsi actor in town, and what a talented bunch they are! Every character, regardless of the length of their role remains etched in your memory. They are all real people, lovable people.
Boman Irani was fantastic as always. Sohrab Ardeshir was perhaps a little over the top but I guess in a way it added to the humor. Shernaz Patel was superb! Zenobia Shroff was great!
As the story unfolded, I was confused as to whose story it was. It started as the young boy’s story, then moved to his brother, then moved to his neighbor until I didn’t really give a damn!
I didn’t give a damn that it was jumping all over the place because what Sooni Taraporevala was serving up was a slice of life out of an exuberant community. We get to know people, we feel what they feel, we laugh with them, at others or themselves. I was having fun. I didn’t care which direction the film was heading in because each scene is written and crafted with such affection for its characters. It’s like living amongst these people.
It’s cozily shot by Himman Dhamija. Captures the lazy charm of Parsi Bombay in lovely detail.
A movie that can be absorbed and felt instead of watched.
Tags: World Cinema
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Love the Poster design!!!
me too!
I was lucky enough to view this film at the MIAAC film festival in NYC. It’s so beautiful, poetic and atmospheric! I am glad that I found a positive review from you here on PFC. And I felt exactly as you did, transported to a great new place where I didn’t care whose story I was following or which character owned the film, just how much I enjoyed the film. I was surprised when an Indian member of the press asked me – a non-Indian – at the end of the screening “But how come you liked it? You couldn’t possibly understand what is going on!” Apart from his assumption that I do not know the culture – which was wrong – but it’s really a film that anyone who has a HEART can understand. What is there NOT to get about human bonds and caring people?!?!
This is my own review of the film: http://daily.chictoday.com/2008/11/18/little-zizou-is-a-treasure-of-a-film/
looks good from what i hear in these blog. will definitely watch it.
I have to fill in a few gaps in my 2008 movie viewing, but so far Little Zizou is my favorite of this year in any language. I am really eager for the rest of the world to see and love it, too.
But then again, I’ve loved Sooni’s writing in Salaam Bombay, Missippi Masala, The Namesake and Monsoon Wedding, so I knew in advance that this would be my kind of film.
When a friend and I met Sooni, Zenobia Shroff and Boman at the MIAAC festival, they were pleasantly surprised that we understood a Parsi story. Like Nina said, all it takes is a little heart and life experience to relate to the assortment of people in this little Mumbai community.