Review of Trishna (2011) by Walter M — 13 Aug 2012

After hanging out with his friends at a hotel in rural India, Jay(Riz Ahmed) gives Trishna(Freida Pinto), a cute worker at the hotel and whom he was flirting with, a ride home but cannot go any further due to the possible presence of her father. She also goes with her father when he drives his truck for his job but his exhaustion leads to the truck crashing and his ending up in the hospital, with Trishna walking away with a broken arm. Hearing about this, Jay offers her a well-paying job at his father's(Roshan Seth) hotel near Jaipur which she accepts, even though Jay has one eye on Mumbai and Bollywood.

Movies can often serve as a portal into a different world, of which "Trishna" is a prime example, being set in Rajasthan, India which is depicted simultaneously as a country on the move and one with a foot in the traditions of the past, especially concerning the role of women, creating something of a yo-yo effect in the process.(I don't know if it was just the early accident but I felt nervous every time the camera went on the road.) It is to Michael Winterbottom's skills, including filming guerilla style, as a filmmaker that the movie never threatens to become merely a polemic. On the other hand, the movie is not that deep, and in hollowing out the source material of "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," he has pushed the background of the movie into the foreground.