Satisfying slice of cinema vérité. Beautiful photography of Bombay and the Indian Ocean. The film is primarily interested in the impact that encroaching urbanism and shifting technology, have on the friendship of two indigenous fisherman. They are both Koli. One is committed to continuing to use traditional, fishing methods, and fishing in the shallow sea and the other is moving into the deep sea with LED fish attractors. It’s caused the overfishing of the sea, and made it virtually impossible for fisherman, working the shallow sea to sustain a living.

It’s sad and shot beautifully. This is ultimately a film about displacement in this case, caused because of shifting environmental concerns and advances in technology. The Koli’s way of life is being destroyed and this tells that through the prism of friendship. There’s a moment when Ganesh, content with the success he’s experiencing with the LED attractors, sneeringly mocks Rakesh by telling him “Your house doesn’t even have a toilet.” Friends that moment tore me up more than any in The Banshees of Inishiren. 

The film is directed by a second generation Pakistani refugee and so the lived experience of generational displacement comes through. In the empathy in the way this story is told. It’s tragic and every time Ganesh and Rakesh storm off from each other you yearn for them to find a way through this. in a world with no simple answers, at least this film asks the questions in the way it shows the world. Beautiful and recommended.