Synopsis
Anyone who’s seen Delhi-6 will agree that the film is a paean to the eponymous city. It follows the journey of Roshan, a young Indian-American who brings his grandmother back to Delhi when she expresses a wish to die peacefully in her hometown. Thus, the movie thematizes ‘the return,’ but the journey is, for Roshan, more properly one of ‘awe’ and ‘discovery.’ A virtual foreigner in his homeland, Roshan finds Delhi to be a place that transforms everything within it—including its most unfamiliar aspects—into something captivating. Following Roshan’s enthralled gaze, the movie eulogizes Delhi as “a place for those who love life.” Accordingly, the camera movements and editing are light and vivacious. Still, Delhi-6 does not depict its subject as an unearthly paradise. Toward its darker second half, the film shows that Delhi, like any city, is riddled with problems and conflicts. Differences in religion are reified by physical walls, the rigid older generation tries to forcefully restrict the freedom-seeking younger generation, and corrupt politicians and false saints seduce the people. To this world of chaos, the movie exhorts: look within. The honest advice offered by this film is one more way of loving Delhi. (HONG Sung Nam)