Catdog

2020, Hindi, YouTube, First Prize at Cannes 2020, Directed by Ashmita Guha Neogi -2013 Student Diploma Film of FTII (Film and Television Institute of India, Pune).

A shocking revelation of the evilness in unattended children and whose emotional needs are not catered promptly.

The core plot revolves around children unleashing their duality similar to adults, when left alone. Its something like the animation world of Toy Story series, where the toys have their own lives, choices, likes and dislikes. But this isn’t by that cute standard here. It’s a miniature representation of the world of adults. Children aren’t those naïve innocent bundle of joys that we take them to be, the film claims. Especially in the technology driven world that we live in right now, we silently acknowledge to ourselves.

A teacher, a single parent has very little time to spare for her kids- Rachana, a teen daughter and her little brother. The kids seem to have their own lives. Their time in the woods seems such a relief, as they are away from the addictive gadgets, you are left to presume.

Rachana’s science text doesn’t fascinate her any longer. The mischievous duo set the cats in an old woman’s house to trouble her, a regular feature in Indian cinema.

As we become restless for the prize winning moment of the film to unravel, there it comes. The heart wrenching obnoxious role play in the absence of their mother. The sequence is alarmingly unpalatable, immaterial whether you are a parent of a kid that age or not.

The overlapping TV commentary hints that the behavior might have been influenced by the shows on the TV about animals. Her mom’s affair, fuels Rachana’s preexisting psychological distress, as she keeps prying. The story weighs on the responsibilities of parents to provide undivided attention to the children. It’s not what they watch, it’s who is guiding them through what they watch seems to be emphasized.

Hide and seek with a polybag covered face is a freaky musical the siblings play. Rachana is left deprived of companionship as the scene ends poetically with her little brother moving to boarding school. As they are separated, one is weirdly reminded of the two headed snake’s story they discuss in the woods.

Restricting TV time and monitoring the content looks insufficient if there is no parental guidance at all time. It poses even a bigger threat for the broken families and where both parents work full time. The film is a wakeup call as it addresses the state of emergency as these mishaps in child upbringing are directly proportional to the crimes and abuses of society at large.

A good watch.