Fire in the Mountains
The first time we see Chandra (Vinamrata Rai), she is going to a bus filled with people and offering to carry their luggage to their hotel for money. We don’t get the full picture of why right away, but as the story unfolds, we see it is for the noblest of reasons- to make things easier for her family. Whether there is more than one way to do that is central to the drama of “Fire in the Mountains.”
Writer-director Ajitpal Singh has taken a fundamental struggle- a parent trying to do what’s best for their family- and made it a look at faith vs. science, the corruption of bureaucracy, and a mother’s love for their child. There are moments the film feels inert, but when it matters most, it packs a massive punch, no more so than the ending, which challenges everything that was believed by Chandra, while also giving her what she wants most. Few endings this year will land quite like this one.
When I was born, I had a birth defect, which resulted in immediately being taken to the operating room, as well as the first 3 1/2 months of my life being in a hospital. My mother had a profound struggle with that. In this film, Chandra is trying to make money for expensive doctor’s appointments for her son, who is unable to walk, in hopes that he will be able to walk again. Her husband, Dharam (Chandan Bisht), thinks it’s a waste of money, as the doctor just keeps ordering different tests. It would be easier for her to take him to his appointments if a road were built, but that requires money, and managing to convince politicians it’d be in their best interests to approve it. Whatever she can do for her son, though.
The tension of the film comes from Dharam feeling that a shamanic ritual (Jagar) might give their son the ability to walk. Fundamentally, this is a film about the spirit and nature, and the northern Indian landscape of this film is striking and beautiful to take in. Sometimes, we are shown the ugliness of human nature when Dharam and Chandra’s disputes get violent; why can they not just agree that what matters is their son? When a turn of fortunes happens, one side will win out, but at the end, is what happens really the result of what we’ve just seen, or is it just that the body works on its own timetable? Regardless of how you feel, the final moments of “Fire in the Mountains” will challenge what you thought might be true at the beginning of the film.
