Cast: Danny Denzongpa, Yashpal Sharma, Raj Zutshi, Aamir Bashir, Gauri

Director: Shivajee Chandrabhushan

The only good thing that came out of the film industry strike was the sporadic release of the kind of film which almost never manages to reach mainstream theatres. Shivajee Chandrabhushan’s unusual first feature ‘Frozen’ is determinedly arthouse (it’s done the rounds of several Indian and international festivals, and comes to Delhi after Mumbai and Pune), but it is also riveting, compelling cinema.

The film’s been shot entirely on location in the upper reaches of Ladakh. It’s black and white, perfectly appropriate for a landscape that’s covered in snow almost all around the year. The stark colours also match the sombre mood of Chandrabhushan’s story, about a family—father, daughter and son—struggling to eke an existence, against mountainous odds.

Karma (Danny), Lasya (Gauri) and Chomo make a fragile unit: their home, an isolated hut close to the border, is a spot conducive to inimical border crossings. An army captain (Aamir) stakes it out with his troops, leaving the family under observation around the clock.

A venal trader (Yashpal) has his eye on the budding beauty of the school- going Lasya, and if the father cannot pay off the debt, he means to have her. So does another greedy plainsman (Raj).

The layers of snow in ‘Frozen’ work on both the physical and metaphoric plane: the stoic simplicity of the hills-people pitted against the wily shrewdness of the outsiders, whose only motif is profit.

The camerawork, by Shankar Raman, is stunning, drawing you in close, till you can feel the icy breath of its characters around you. The director gets the best out of his actors, too: it’s wonderful to see what Danny can still get up to, and Gauri is heart-breakingly vulnerable.

... contd.