Boong, A heartfelt movie about Love and Identity

I will say this out of the gate, this is not the kind of movie I would usually watch, but I am so glad I did.

I only saw this because I heard this film was Bafta Nominated, was of Indian Origin, and I have some Manipuri friends whose opinion I respect a lot.

And I don't know, the movie looked appealing especially the little kid in the poster, and boy did he win my heart from the very get go.

That is exactly something a nine year old boy would do and I love him for it.

And one may not know but the movie is already setting up something important, the slingshot move that he uses to knock the letters out of the school title is taught to him by his Father L. Joykumar Singh.

The father is someone who is on screen for less than ten minutes and yet the impact on the story is immense, in fact one may say he is the inciting incident of the story.

Now before going forwards I would like to say that I am quite culturally, politically and historically unaware when it comes to Manipur, but I will do my best to give my perspective on what I saw on the screen as a piece of cinema.

Now, Joy is an absentee father, he has been gone for a few years and he apparently runs a teak furniture shop in Moreh, I say apparently because his father doesn't respond, we don't see him, no one even knows if he is alive... until one day Brojendro(The Kid) a.k.a Boong(little boy) and his mother Mandakini receive Joy's Death certificate.

Which neither of them is ready to believe.

And everyone else is just happy to have an excuse to pretend like they care for a member of their society, a member who they have been berating endlessly for not having her husband around and talking with an "outsider"

The outsider in question is Sudhir, the father of Boong's best friend Raju, they are called outsiders for originating from Rajasthan, even though their family moved to Manipur a hundred years ago and they are basically Manipuri in all but looks.

The movie is not very complicated, it is basically Boong and Raju sneaking out to go to Moreh with the lie of a class trip while Mandakini is in crutches from having crashed her scooter in order to get his father back.

They are able to do so with the help of their classmate Juliana whose grandfather died so she sneaks them onto the car they are taking to his Funeral.

They try everything, including getting accidentally pulled into a show of Singer JJ also called Joy and crossing over to the Mayanmar border

Till the last moment Brojendro tries to hold on to what little hope he has left, until he spots a Burmese girl do the same slingshot move he does, he follows her to a place until we see what we all feared.

Joy is alive, but he has started another family.

Although none of us exactly thought that, we all thought a lot of things, like him being in trouble specially because the village chief was threatened into signing his death certificate.

And had to be threatened back to tell the truth.

But sometimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one.

But then why did this story stick with me?

I believe it was because of the simplicity, and because of the childish innocence mixed with the pain of growing up too quickly in the absence of a father, but more importantly it's a cultural piece that shows the beauty and elegance of a culture along with critiquing it where appropriate.

The way the village chief is threatened is by finding his stack of Bollywood films and then taking photos of it because Bollywood films are banned in Manipur.

The line: "Mary Kom cannot watch her own Bio pic in Manipur" stuck with me.

This is a very difficult balance to strike, the film is juggling so many things together.

And yet somehow it manages it.

And that's what makes it great.