Film reviews: Sundar Prize Film Festival’s Dil Rakh: Gloves of Kin and Swallow Flying to the South
The former is a hard-hitting feature drama about small-town racism and generational trauma; the latter is a short stop-motion documentary about China’s Cultural Revolution seen through a child’s eyes
Dalj Brar in Dil Rakh: Gloves of Kin.
The Sundar Prize Film Festival runs June 15 and 16 at Centre Stage, Surrey City Hall
The inaugural Sundar Prize Film Festival has a total of nine films it’s screening; here are two that captivated us.
Dil Rakh: Gloves of Kin
June 15, 1:36 pm
Dil Rakh: Gloves of Kin, winner of the Sundar Prize for best B.C. film, tells the story of Sukh Sidhu (Dalj Brar), a man who spent 20 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Upon his release, Sukh aims to reconcile with his estranged son, Dayton (Umar Farook Khan), who was just a toddler when his dad’s life went sideways. They live in a small town, where many mindsets are even smaller; the two are subjected to racial slurs by everyone from the sheriff to the white thugs and petty criminals Dayton hangs out with. The tale follows the lead-up to the town’s annual boxing match, which Dayton hopes to win in order to score the $10,000 in prize money he needs to move to Seattle with his musician girlfriend, Marlow (Meghan Drew). Boxing is the catalyst to the father and son’s renewed relationship; Sukh is a top fighter in his own right who offers to train Dayton for the big event, and the two bond over so many jabs, pushups, and sprints. The film’s most impactful scenes are those in which Sukh and Dayton are prepping to go in the ring, the sport a form of release for so much of Dayton’s pain. “Dil rakh” means “keep the faith” and “keep your heart full”, which were the conditions that Dayton’s late mother insisted her husband and son live by. Brar, who co-wrote and directed the film, and Khan both lend tenderness and humanity to roles that are infused with so much violence. They may not entirely extinguish racism in their hometown, but the father and son each find a kind of inner peace that enables them to rise above ignorance and hate.
“Swallow Flying to the South”.
“Swallow Flying to the South”
June 16, 2 pm
“Swallow Flying to the South”, the Sundar Prize winner for best international documentary, is a short work of puppet animation by Mochi Lin that takes place in the spring of 1976, just as the Cultural Revolution in China was drawing to an end. A five-year-old girl named Swallow is taken from the countryside to Beijing where she attends a boarding preschool. She is surrounded by other children but is utterly alone, sent to a closed room by herself when she cries. Lin based the film on her mother’s actual experiences, with the children having to do almost everything in unison, including urinating. When it is announced that Mao Zedong has died, Swallow can’t make herself cry as is expected of her, so she spits in her hands and dabs the liquid on her face to fake it. The stop-motion animation and the fact that the characters only move two dimensionally give the film a certain rigidity, reflecting the tone of the school. Lin effectively conveys the impact of authoritarianism on the students through so many forced rituals. 
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