Shadows in the Dark

1999

1h 44min

Young filmmaker Pankaj Butalia directs this sweeping film about ill-fated love set against the epic canvas of India's partition into Hindu Indian and Muslim Pakistan. The film opens with Lajma, a beautiful school teacher with greying hair, leaving Pakistan for her childhood home in India. There she discovers that the home is in ruin, her aging aunt is half senile, and her cousin Gautam is bitter and defeated. Flashback to 1947 when India splits in two -- the police force a proud old Muslim man, along with his grieving daughter-in-law, to take in a couple of impoverished Hindus, Chand and Bhagwati, into their large home. Later, Chand's mute sister Lajjo arrives with her young daughter Lajma in tow. Suffering from some unnamed past trauma, Lajjo is eventually shipped off to an asylum, leaving Lajma with her uncle. Later still, Lajma, Chand's son Gautam and their neighbor's son Jamal all live and play with each other in Chand's vast complex.