A slow-burning, finely crafted film from Singapore focused on the city-state's minority Indian community brought the curtains down on the competition section of Cannes Critics' Week here on Wednesday.
Directed by K Rajagopal, "A Yellow Bird", the seventh and last film to be screened as part of the Semaine de la Critique competition, turns the spotlight on an Indian man struggling to reclaim his space in his family and society after serving a prison term for contraband smuggling.
"This film is a meditation on the position of Indians in multi-cultural Singapore," says Rajagopal, a third-generation Singaporean whose feature film debut comes in the wake of several award-winning short films.
The film's protagonist, played by Singapore actor Sivakumar Palakrishnan, looks for his wife and daughter after being released from jail but his quest bears little fruit, with the exception of stray moments of joy that he shares with a pretty sex worker (Chinese actress Huang Lu).
The cast of "A Yellow Bird" includes Indian actress Seema Biswas in the key role of the male protagonist's mother who, by way of punishment for his crime, not only casts her son out of her life but also snatches away his physical space in the house.
"I was a bit apprehensive at first, but once the shoot began it was a breeze," says Biswas. The actress, who landed in Cannes on Wednesday for the premiere, shot for four days last year for the film.
"Although 'A Yellow Road' is pure fiction, there is a personal element to it in relation to my mother. My father died when I was a child, and she was a single mother bringing up five children. I did not see eye to eye with her on many matters," says Rajagopal.
"She was also an inspiration. It is she who introduced me
to the cinema of Adoor Gopalakrishnan," says the self-taught director whose family has roots in Thrissur, Kerala.
"Elippathayam (The Rat Trap) was the first film of his that I saw and it showed me the way forward.
"My mother would tell me to make a wish whenever I saw a yellow bird because she believed it would bring happy tidings. But as you grow up, you can only be disillusioned with such beliefs and wonder if there is really any hope?," says Rajagopal.
The yellow bird that the central character in the film sights is a dead one - a pointer to the hopelessness of his situation as he strives to wrest his rights in the face of heavy odds.
"A Yellow Bird" is a grim film that makes no effort to soften its blow.
"I am not a commercial filmmaker, but I have consciously kept the narrative simple. Because of the kind of person the protagonist is, we had to keep his responses simple," says Rajagopal.
The sound and visual design of "A Yellow Bird" captures the predicament of the Indian in a country where his racial identity seems to overshadow his national identity.
"The tension isn't overt, but it is always under the surface," says the director whose name will definitely be among those in the hat when the Critics Week jury sits down for its final deliberations.
