Status: 09.05.2022 06:00 a.m
Director Pan Nalin calls himself the biggest movie fanatic in the universe. With “The light from which dreams are made” he has succeeded in creating a beautiful, lovingly staged homage to his great love – the cinema.
35 millimeter celluloid – that was once the classic cinema format before digitization swept away spools and film projectors. For the audience, it may not matter as much how the moving images get on the screen, but nostalgics like the Indian director Pan Nalin are already suffering badly from the triumph of modern technology. That’s why he shot an homage to the good old cinema of rattling projectors.
Nobody forgets the very first visit to the cinema, the amazement at the huge pictures on the screen. For many, “Bambi” or “Heidi” was the first film, for little Samay, who grows up somewhere in the Indian hinterland, it’s a religious epic about the goddess Kali.
PREVIEW: Trailer: The Light That Dreams Are Made Of (2 min)
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Eight-year-old Samay wants to be a filmmaker
Samay not only follows the story with fascination, but also follows the dancing grains of dust in the bundled beam of light that conjures up the images on the screen. After that, the eight-year-old found his purpose.
Samay: “I would like to make films later.”
Father: “Now shut up! Don’t ever say that again, Samay! Have you ever heard that a Brahmin’s son is doing such a disgraceful job? The film world is indecent and goes against our values.”
Scene from “The Light That Dreams Are Made Of”
But no ban and no cane can stop Samay. He’s infected with the Bollywood bacillus. He skips school, sneaks into the hall because he has no money for the ticket and gets a beating for it too. Eventually he gets to know the projectionist Fazal, who smuggles him into his cubbyhole.
Pan Nalin’s film rediscovers childish wonder
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Turning a hobby into a job: Fazal (Bhavesh Shrimali) works as a projectionist in a cinema and infects young Samay with his passion for moving images.
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In future, Fazal Samay’s lunch box will be deliciously filled by his mother, and the boy will have free entry to the projection room, where he will also learn everything about projection technology. And because Samay is a clever, imaginative little fellow, he begins to reinvent cinema for himself.
These are beautiful, lovingly staged scenes that also allow the audience to rediscover a childlike amazement. First the boy experiments with shadow plays, then he builds a camera obscura with his buddies and finally his own projector from an old bicycle rim from the junkyard, which is set up in an abandoned house. They simply steal film spools from the parcel post at the train station.
Only the pictures on Mama’s tablecloth don’t want to show. This requires some technical tutoring from the projectionist. “Now pay close attention,” says Fazal. “We always feel like the film is going non-stop. But that’s not true. It really stops and then spurts on again. One frame at a time. And between the light and the image here, there’s a shutter , which closes and then no light comes out.”
Pan Nalin: “I’m the biggest movie fan in the universe”
“The Light That Dreams Are Made Of” is a film about the director’s great love: cinema. “I’m the biggest film fan in the universe,” says Pan Nalin about himself. Much of his own biography can be found in his hero and some of his favorite works are found in the film excerpts chosen for the village cinema – from Kubrick’s “A Space Odyssey” to “Lawrence of Arabia ” – plus lots of singing and dancing Bollywood.
If you love cinema, your heart must rise when you see a film that celebrates this art in such a way. And who tells of the disappearance of projectors and rolls of film with such melancholy. The celluloid may be melted down into bracelets. But telling stories remains! And Pan Nalin has succeeded in doing a particularly beautiful one here.
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