If an interest in realism is a bellwether for a film industry’s relationship with social conditions in a given country, it’s always instructive to see where notable examples of the genre crop up. After 2012’s Wadjda prefigured the opening up of Saudi Arabia, here is a fretful example from Nepal, resplendently shot in the vast mountainsides above the eastern city of Dharan, but which agonises about the country’s modernisation.
Weaver Maila (Dayahang Rai) finds himself on the wrong side of progress after a road is built connecting the Rai village of Balankha to the valley below. With plastic tarps on sale at a local store now bursting with hot new merch, no one wants his bamboo mats any more. His electricity is cut off, stopping his scallywag son Bindray (Prasan Rai) from studying, and driving the youngster to instead obsess over other modern distractions: the elixir of Coca-Cola, which he uses to bolster his playground credentials, and the neighbours’ new TV, which ups their standing. Under pressure from his wife Maili (Pashupati Rai), Maila accepts the store-owner’s proposal to bootleg millet wine for sale down in the city so he can use the money to match the neighbours’ home-entertainment setup.
