Review of In Search of Famine

1st watched 12/27/2009 – 8 out of 10(Dir-Mrinal Sen) Fascinating portrayal of a film crew coming into an area to film a movie about a famine 40 years earlier in the same area and disrupting the villages around them. This movie is an obvious documentary but there is so much drama behind the scenes that this becomes a story all to it's own. The crew enters the area with good intentions of portraying the suffering that occurred as a reminder and a historical recreation of the time. At first the villagers welcome this mostly, but they obviously expect more from these new folk around them as they become a separate community in the area with big city needs. They hire locals to work with them to hopefully make up for their disruptions but this eventually backfires. The movie being made loses a main star in the production and they start trying to get local talent to play the part of a prostitute but this creates a lot of controversy in the villages and they start turning against them. This is a one of a kind movie that makes you think about our insistence on being entertained despite the circumstances. The movie community actually starts creating it's own famine in the surrounding areas by absorbing their goods – which is exactly opposite of their intention. The movie portrays the film crew as understanding and willing to make changes based on the locals reactions(unlike what American filmmakers might be like), so they definitely are not the enemy just absorbed in the situation. The movie should be a requirement for film schools but because it's made in a third world country and mostly unknown it probably wont. Watch it, you'll see what I mean!!