In a rural village in present day Bangladesh (though sometimes the village seems to have frozen in time, at times only the presence of cell phones tell us we are in the present), a strict religious elder, called the Uncle by the scared locals, has banned the presence of television, among other things, as he believes the Koran bans the creation of images. This is not well taken by the local community, who seems less bothered by the coming of modernity than he is. A subplot has the tentative, clandestine and obviously chaste romance between a pretty vivacious girl called Kohinoor, that seems to represent a more modern face of the country and the cowed son of the Uncle.
Since I have never been to Bangladesh, I don't know how realistic this film is. The movie is interesting and never boring, though it sometimes goes over the top. A more subtle approach would have served it better. For instance, the village leader is almost always portrayed as an ignorant thug, a petty tyrant over his fellow villagers. A sign of his ignorance is that his desire to go to the Hajj crashes down when he realizes that he needs a passport, yet taking a photo for it is a big no no according to his beliefs. Only in the final scene, we are able to empathize a little with him.
Since I have never been to Bangladesh, I don't know how realistic this film is. The movie is interesting and never boring, though it sometimes goes over the top. A more subtle approach would have served it better. For instance, the village leader is almost always portrayed as an ignorant thug, a petty tyrant over his fellow villagers. A sign of his ignorance is that his desire to go to the Hajj crashes down when he realizes that he needs a passport, yet taking a photo for it is a big no no according to his beliefs. Only in the final scene, we are able to empathize a little with him.
