shaan Ghose’s Jhilli takes audiences deep into one of the largest dumping grounds in the country. Dhapa, located along the eastern fringes of the city, has probably never been captured on celluloid in such great detail. Ghose explores an impressive visual language, which on occasions, is hypnotic and rousing at the same time. It’s not the first film about have-nots and won’t be the last. But Jhilli aspires to be more.
It follows Bokul (Aranya Gupta), who works in a Dhapa bone factory. He learns the trash yard will soon be cleared out to make space for modern infrastructure. His struggles and that of his friends have not been narrativised as you’d expect. It’s a remorseless portrait of life but doesn’t ask for empathy, or even rage.
For the most part of the film, Ghose spotlights spaces — to make a point about inhabitancy. This turns out to be key to his approach to world-building; be it the burning corpse in the middle of a trash yard, Bokul and Ganesh’s (Bitan Biswas) trysts with their randy, older cohort Shombhu (Shombhunath De) near a garbage heap, or the scenes shot through the ‘familiar’ Kolkata streets. The visuals drive home the point of gentrification Bokul is heard screaming in the direction of the bulldozers that seem to be clearing the dumping ground.
It follows Bokul (Aranya Gupta), who works in a Dhapa bone factory. He learns the trash yard will soon be cleared out to make space for modern infrastructure. His struggles and that of his friends have not been narrativised as you’d expect. It’s a remorseless portrait of life but doesn’t ask for empathy, or even rage.
For the most part of the film, Ghose spotlights spaces — to make a point about inhabitancy. This turns out to be key to his approach to world-building; be it the burning corpse in the middle of a trash yard, Bokul and Ganesh’s (Bitan Biswas) trysts with their randy, older cohort Shombhu (Shombhunath De) near a garbage heap, or the scenes shot through the ‘familiar’ Kolkata streets. The visuals drive home the point of gentrification Bokul is heard screaming in the direction of the bulldozers that seem to be clearing the dumping ground.
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Gentrification is the process of changing the character of a neighborhood through the influx of more affluent residents and businesses. It often shifts a neighborhood’s characteristics, such as racial-ethnic composition and household income, by adding new stores and resources in previously run-down neighborhoods. This process can raise property values but often displaces low-income families and small businesses
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