Chintu Ka Birthday Analysis

Chintu Ka Birthday

Written & Directed by: Satyanshu Singh, Devanshu Singh
Produced by: Team members of AIB

Available on Zee 5.

Though this film is set in a war zone, the external conflict of this film is small that it grounds the world of the film. Usually in war films, the world is set in a way that sometimes even a death doesn't affect us as much whereas in this film, when they kick Chintu's father, we feel bad. The external conflict is just about a kid who is excited to cut a cake on his birthday. This reminds me of the Iranian film, Children of Heaven by Majid Majidi where the goal of the protagonist is designed in a way that it reminds the audience of their privilege. All the characters are designed in a way that they evoke empathy, the father is always on the leap to help others sometimes at the cost of himself, Chintu is an innocent child and his mother, his sister and his grandmother, all are distinguishable characters. Because of the differences between the characters, there is interesting drama happening all the time. The plot is constructed in such a way that there is escalating tension throughout the film, at the beginning, the soldiers don't even lay hands on anyone. After some point, they start manhandling the father and after some point, they threaten to kill him. This simple tool, was also used in Money Heist which is what made it engaging for that long. If in the first scene, we have the soldiers threatening to kill them, or in Money Heist, if in the first episode they are ready to kill the hostages, then there is no way there could be escalating tension for the rest of the runtime.

The backstory being told in animation, was a new experience to me. I remember the opening 10 mins of Pixar's Up, gripping me for the rest of the film, but here the backstory was just to explain the characteristics of these people. I can't really judge if without the backstory, I'd have understood the characters as well as I do now, but it felt expository. The performances were good by all the actors. The sound design was one tool which let them make this film in a single location, by not using so many special effects and yet making the film authentic that it's set in a war zone.