She Will Build Him a City

March 2, 2015
Jha (Fireproof) constructs a surreal study of the longing and loneliness of three nameless characters in a world that shifts between menacing and romantic, comical and violent, demonic and endearing. Woman is confronted with her daughter's sudden return home; Man comes undone in a nightmarish descent into desire and violence; and Child, an abandoned baby boy, is adored by a TB-stricken nurse and sheltered by a contingent of animals and spirits. The return of Woman's daughter exposes secrets hidden after the death of Woman's husbandâand the daughter's heartbreaking grief and disastrous affair. "Whatever happened to me... whatever happens to us from now on doesn't matter to anyone except us," Woman says about her reunion with her daughter. Yet their reconciliation is linked by a cascade of unintended consequences to Child's uncertain future, which triggers the desires and dreams of everyone around him, and Man's erotic, murderous obsession with a "Balloon Girl." Jha's dense, evocative tales of urban India are mesmerizing and magical.