Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

dipesh parmar Venkatesh (Venkatesh Chavan) is a self-sufficient eighteen-year-old, working for the hotel Arcadia in the city of Panjim, India, whilst saving up as much money to give to his mother on his frequent visits back to his village.Venkatesh's best friend and business partner is 11-year old Jhangir (Jhangir Badshah), who spend their spare time selling plastic bags. Along his morning laundry-delivering route, Venkatesh sits high up a tree looking over at a gleaming swimming pool in a wealthy mans home. He dreams of swimming in the pure blue water, the pool becomes an obsession to him as a symbol of the wealth he has never known. The house is owned by Nana (Nana Patekar), who returns with his self-centred teenage daughter Ayesha (Ayesha Mohan) to tend to the garden. But neither father nor daughter use the swimming pool, which confuses Venkatesh who has by now managed to get some extra work helping Nana in his garden. He becomes even more intrigued by Ayesha, who spends her days reading books which help to "screw your head up". She strikes a friendship with Venkatesh and Jhangir, their educational, class and caste distinctions put to one side whilst they enjoy each others company.Venkatesh and Jhangir's friendship (both local non-actors) was endearing and thought- provoking, their 7-year age gap rendered meaningless since both have had to grow up at a young age to survive. Their lack of education is all too evident, shaped by what they see not what they read, especially when Jhangir thinks everything outside of India is America. Initially, Venkatesh appeared slack and selfish, he wasn't even bothered when he inadvertently got his hotel co-worker fired. But we learn more about him and his past when he starts to open up to both Ayesha and Nana especially, developing a father-son relationship with him. This bond culminates in Nana making Venkatesh an offer that could change his life. We learn a lot about everyone, including Nana and Ayesha's strained relationship, and it becomes clear that the disused pool was central to everyone's lives.'The Pool' seems initially to tread the familiar coming-of-age stories we have all seen, but it becomes something much more tender, much more contemplative than you could imagine. Beautifully directed by the American director Chris Smith, known for such documentaries as 'American Movie' and 'The Yes Men', he covers a lot of difficult themes with little melodrama or pretension. Complex subjects such as education, the caste system and poverty are treated deftly and with scant moralising. The characters are naturalistic, their insecurities are teased out of them through subtle and poignant observations which you cant help but be moved by.Will Venkatesh understand and accept the wisdom behind Nana's story of the 100 Rupees, will it enslave him or empower him? Nana's offer of salvation requires Venkatesh to grow up and take a terrifying leap of faith, and he knows it. By the end, he may well have surprised us all.

kris-murthy "The Pool" is an excellent, slow paced, moving and an uplifting story of an impoverished teenager whose life changes from having an obsession with a swimming pool. I can easily say that the story being slow paced added an extra charm to the movie. The main actor, Venkatesh, could improve his camera presence a little. Nana Patekar(father), Ayesha (daughter) and Jhangir (friend) were spotless. I am not writing a spoiler content here, and would like to recommend this movie to everyone, not just for the ones who loves independent movies.To you Netflix, when did low budget movies become documentaries? I like documentaries, and surprisingly Netflix recommended this movie to me. I am glad they did! :-)

cultfilmfan The Pool is by an American director, but takes place in India and had it's original English screenplay translated into Hindi with the end result having English subtitles. The film is a look at a couple of youth living in India and how they go about their everyday lives. The main character is Venkatesh who he says is about 18 years old and he lives alone in a bigger city and does various small jobs throughout the different days of the week to support himself and send money back home to his mother and siblings. We are also introduced to his much younger friend Jhangir who sells plastic bags on the street with him and after time the two of them have become best friends. After being fascinated by a beautiful summer house and swimming pool in a certain area of town, Venkatesh eventually gets to meet the owner and his daughter and soon gets a job cleaning up the garden and maintaining the property while they are there for the summer. The plot might sound simple enough and The Pool is definitely not a complicated film, but when you have watched the film and start to think about the different characters and their actions and decisions they have done in the film as well as their behaviours and what they said, really opens up a whole new way of looking at the film and it's characters. Everything here is analyzed and constructed very well. After awhile we feel like we have gotten to know the characters really well and at times they seem like people who we have probably known in our own lives at one point, or another because they seem so real and there is nothing exaggerated or over the top about them. The teenagers act like teenagers and the adults like adults. I know that is a very brief interpretation, but if you choose to see the film, I think you would agree that the way the characters are written are very comparable to a lot of people out there and like I said it could (depending on your age) remind you of yourself at certain time periods in your life. The film just had an authentic feel to it about it, whether with the dialogue of the characters or some of the grittier areas of town they are in to the story itself which is ultimately about one's survival in a big world and staying true to the things that matter to you and ultimately trying to better yourself for the big wide world out there. The film does have an authentic look to it, like I mentioned earlier, but it also has some scenes of great beauty and tranquility. The scenes in the garden of the summer house, or just some of the areas the teenagers go to are overgrown with beautiful plants and flowers and even though it is just a film it gives you a pleasing feeling watching it also because of the low key and slower paced parts of the film that make it seem like a very gentle and peaceful film. There are some sad elements to the film here, but overall I would not say it is a depressing one. I think for me the film offered a bit of hope to some of these characters and that some of the others may have to work on things a little more in order to achieve happiness, or what they want, but it is not unattainable. This is a film that left me thinking about it after I saw it and I really enjoyed some of the natural dialogue, the wonderfully written characters and the slower paced yet tranquil and beautiful aspects of some of the film's story, characters and scenery. If all of what I just described sounds the least bit interesting to you, then I recommend you see The Pool because it is masterfully done film with a lot of talent behind it and I am sure with the right audience it will be a hit.

Kris Cheppaikode Well-respected documentarian Chris Smith proves himself a master of narrative form with this incredibly subtle and moving Hindi-language drama, shot in India. Along with Elite Squad, Edge of Heaven, Reprise, and Let the Right One In, "The Pool" is easily one of the best films of the year.As a New York-based Indian-American filmmaker who grew up in Wisconsin and has shot fiction films in India, I was nonetheless skeptical about a Wisconsin-based documentarian, even one of Smith's stature, working from a Midwestern-set fictional short story reset in India. Western filmmakers tend to miss the subtleties that make India unique and exciting, choosing instead to exoticize India's most superficial differences, condemn its shortcomings, or talk vaguely about its 'contradictions' (when they mean "contrasts," revealing their ignorance of the same contrasts in any big city).Smith doesn't fall into any of these pitfalls, and has created a work of lasting honesty and beauty. Watching it, it's hard to believe Smith is not only not Indian, but does not speak Hindi. I have been recommending the film to everyone I know, even more so on second viewing (at the South Asian International Film Festival, where it won top honors), once I could worry less about what was going to happen next and focus more on the incredibly nuanced script and acting, lush sound design, delightful score, and masterful framing and camera movement."The Pool" has the lyricism and humanism of Satyajit Ray, the simple strength and beauty of the great Italian neo-realists, and a great documentarian's eye for telling detail and feeling of captured reality.I hope the film wins some year-end nominations and awards, followed by a wider re-release, because everyone who loves great cinema deserves to see "The Pool."