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Following the success of his first documentary, The Bielski Brothers (1993),
notorious film Executions (Europe's biggest selling video in 1995), and the
documentary Bengali Backlash (Channel 4, tx. 8/9/1997), Arun Kumar's fiction
short, Looters, won the Special Jury Award at the Terme Film Festival, and was
shortlisted for a BBC Talent Award.
The opening scene sets a tone of deceit that is light-hearted at first (Anna
and Gibbo's plans to steal from Mr Sifter) but grows darker as the film
progresses (Mr Sifter's surprise reversal).
Looters greatly benefits from a film noir feel. Cross-cutting between Anna
and Gibbo's cluttered, colourful and vibrant flat and the sparseness and
darkness of Mr Sifter's, Kumar uses high contrast lighting to underline the
ostensible disparity between their lives (opposing youth and age, friendship and
loneliness, peace and war, deviousness and innocence).
It is not until the twist ending and the film's biggest strength - when the
'victim' turns the tables on his 'aggressors' - that the viewer is invited to
rethink the story thus far. Does Mr Sifter callously rob young people for a
living? Or is this a one-off incident? How much of what he tells the youngsters
is true? By painting Mr Sifter as an affable man, with his wartime anecdotes,
gentle manner and unyielding love for his late wife ("the love we had would
never leave our hearts"), the film lulls Anna, Gibbo and the audience into a
false sense of security. If there is an overall message in this enjoyable film,
it is the shattering of first impressions and stereotypes, entwined with the
popular adage, 'two can play at that game'.
Shalini Chanda
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Complete film (10:07)
