There are two gut-punch shocks that you get in the first few minutes of watching the film Cargo. One is that this film exists. Two that it took so long for India to come up with an authentic science fiction film that does not rely on Hollywood for its ideas. And man does this film have ideas! Death and the afterlife! The indian concept of rebirth taken to a galactic scale! But it is also just the story of a lonely man connecting with another person and finally making a change in his life.
Two people wait on a spaceship for the dead of the world to arrive. And we see glimpses of the recently deceased just before they die.
I hope people discover the film Cargo the way I did, with no idea what it's about. Even the synopsis gives away too much detail. Surfeit it to say, the director Arati Kadav has created an entire philosophy and created a rich unique world filled with details that I think I will notice when I rewatch the film. The cinematography is beautiful, the sets feel original, and a special mention for the music that is gleefully happy one second and sorrowfully sad the next. The actors are really good with Vikrant Massey bringing a sense of gravitas to the role of lonely man filled with pain. You can feel his soul in the film, especially in a moment in the climax which culminates his and the story's end. This is an actor that has just gone from strength to strength from Death in Gunj to Mirzapur. Here he seems to have come into his own. A chunk of the film is just him on a spaceship by himself, and he keeps you riveted. Nandu Madhav is the film's version of HAL, a simple middle class man who we only see on the tv screen managing our two characters. In the screening I attended, he brought the house down with his dialogues.
But the movie is truly unique because of what it is: an authentic original science fiction from a country that should be making many more such films. May we see many more of its kind.
Review of Cargo
