I saw Soul of Sand on Sunday after Stephen and Dad left to back to Sudbury on the final day of TIFF. I saw it in the new Bell Lightbox theatre where TIFF is headquartered.
The theatre was small, tall, and clean. (The latter being expected since it's fairly new) The director of the movie suggested that his movie, about the social world in New Delhi would subvert expectations and would have a hilarious conclusion. I didn't reall agree wit the former, and I assume the latter was meant to be an in-joke that no one else there could get as they hadn't yet seen the movie. The ending was not funny.
The story is about a lower class watchman who works like a serf for a rich landowner. He has followed in his father's footsteps as a watchman of a now-shut down silica mine and he lives on site with his wife. Obviously there is some tension in this arrangement between the man and his wife. Meanwhile the landowner is trying to corral his rebellious daughter into marrying a very old man who could buy the defunct mine and help him with his monetary troubles. She flees with her lover and they cross paths with the unknowing watchman. Events spiral out of control and murder and death ensue for all.
The movie is very obviously about class conflicts and exploitation. I'm sure there's also supposed to be a strong inference made from the end where the landowner is killed by his servants and they in turn are killed by the assassin, who I'm presuming from his frightening and oft-covered visage is of the lowest class. There was a lot of tension as events begin to seriously heat up, and I really like the well designed characters. Most of them show a lot of depth, except for the hired assassin who seems more like what Javior Bardhem was supposed to be in No Country for Old Men. He is not at all a bad character, but he is less complete than he is enigmatic. The move was very good and the characters were sympathetic, but the the movie is also pretty bleak, and so it wasn't quite a 'fun' afternoon at the movies.
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