Pyre
Drama Hindi
In the Himalayan Mountain range, a rural village loses its inhabitants to the city’s allure while an elderly couple, Padam Singh and Tulsi, live in desolate isolation. Their days are filled with routine and occasional humour as they mask their loneliness. Their son’s absence gnaws at them, and when a letter arrives promising his return, it reignites their hearts with joy and anticipation. However, the reunion does not unfold as expected, shattering their hopes. As the film climaxes, the spectator is confronted with a more rueful plight, deeply engaging the audience’s empathy.
| Cast: | Padam Singh, Hira Devi Mishra, Subhash Chandra, Shubham Chaudhary, Sadab Khan, Sadab Khan, Alok Verma, Jaya Shah, Gopa Nayal, Deewan Kanwal, Pushpa Pandey |
|---|---|
| Director: | Vinod Kapri |
| Writer: | Vinod Kapri |
| Editor: | Patricia Rommel |
All Guild Reviews of "Pyre"
Life and Death in a Himalayan Ghost Village
Old age can be brutal, and we can never be prepared enough to face it. On one hand, we console ourselves with labels like ‘sixty is the new forty’. On the other, we’re constantly checking our health insurance coverage and retirement plans. Director Vinod Kapri’s Kumaoni film Pyre (Chita) is not about a generation that is ready to age. It is about an octogenarian shepherd couple, Padam Singh and Tulsi, living at the farthest reaches of civilisation, with their days numbered and no heir in sight. Pyre is a more difficult concept to digest than it is to understand as a film. Two lonely elders, with plenty of time to pass and precious little time left to live, find themselves surrounded by uncertainty in their dilapidated hilltop home. Medical care is a long trek away, and monetary transactions often take the form of goats. As much as the village admires the couple, the younger generation dreams of leaving for better prospects, while the elders wait for their turn to come.
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