🌾 Village Rockstars⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½

It has been almost a week since I watched this film.

And in that time, I let it settle into me — like rain into the soft earth —

spreading lateral roots, unseen but deeply felt.

I refrained from speaking, writing, or even thinking about it,

not out of neglect, but reverence.

I wished to simply observe how it might grow inside me.

And grow it did.

Now, in still moments, vignettes from the film sprout tenderly:

A lone boat adrift in a sea of floodwater,

the calm after yet another monsoon that takes and takes

from those who have so little to begin with.

Dhunu, our radiant little dreamer,

asks her mother — why this futility?

And the mother, with a voice aged by many such askings, replies,

“This is what we do.”

Children draped across the branches of a tree,

eyes turned upward to a sky filled with longing,

imagining guitars, drums, a stage — a life beyond.

Rain — endless, insistent rain —

accompanies the quiet rhythm of the film.

Not intrusive, but elemental.

And the storyteller-grandfather —

a gentle conjurer — tells Dhunu

that dreams, when believed in truly, always manifest.

And for Dhunu, they do.

She follows her music and becomes one with the sun.

Village Rockstars is not a film of plot points.

It is not about what happens.

It simply is — like nature, like time,

its pace set by wind, rain, breath.

It is poetry in motion.

It is meditation —

a love letter to land, to loss,

to beauty that breaks and builds.

I had waited to see this since its release in 2017.

When it didn’t find a theatrical release, I mourned a little.

Too many luminous, home-grown films never make it past festivals.

But at last, I found it. Quietly tucked away on OTT.

And I am grateful.

I imagine watching it in a dark theatre,

the floodwaters on screen reflecting on my cheeks.

And I think of Dhunu’s father —

who might have lived, if only an embankment had held.

If you choose to watch it, do so slowly.

Let the director hold your hand.

Listen to the rustle, the rage, the hush of the world she paints.

It’s a film that doesn’t just want to be watched.

It wants to be felt.

And when you feel it —

you may come away not with answers,

but with softened eyes

and a humbled heart.