Un Certain Regard review - THE FOURTH DIRECTION by Gurvinder Singh

Fear, paranoia and general distrust in India in the eighties. The Fourth Direction by Gurvinder Singh was presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the 68th Cannes Film Festival.

Gurvinder Singh's film The Fourth Direction takes place in India in the eighties, in the midst of the tense and violent conflict between the Sikh militants and Indian authorities. Essentially, however, it may also be taken as a more general and universal representation of terror and violence and the effects it inspires on society on a human level. 

The film's intentions are effective, but the narrative is strangely structured and this very fact lessens the power of the film in a trivial and unnecessary way. It follows three main storylines. One is that of two Hindi struggling sharing a train journey with turbaned Sikh. The other is of a young couple lost in the fields at night with their young daughter whilst travelling afoot. Yet, the vast majority of the film follows a farmer and his family, whose isolated lifestyle does not prevent him from coming to contact with the afore mentioned conflict - which for most of the film seems to happen somewhere in the background.

In the latter plotline, Singh is clever to use the figure of a dog - loyal, innocent and full of unconditional love - as the pivotal figure. The Sikh want his owner to kill him, due to his barking blowing their undercover activities, the police shoot at him with no remorse and, in the end, the dog provides a powerful if somewhat predictable twist. The dog is important in Singh's implications of the idealisms of the two extremist factions following dangerously similar agendas. But it is also important in revealing both of the idealisms as morally wrong and repulsive. 

The Fourth Direction is mostly hence a film that follows a socio-politically aware traditionalist storytelling. As such, the characters are quite two dimensional, and occasionally the cast mostly made of unknowns shows signs of going a little too over the top. Collectively, however, Singh is well able to handle the film's atmosphere of paranoia. He does so by means of beautiful and meticulous cinematography, through which he also embraces a more poetic approach. One such sequence, perhaps the most beautiful in the fourth direction, takes place as the police fires at the dog, and a storm breaks out. The wind blows the grass in the fields and creates beautiful patterns. As a whole, the way in which the Indian rural landscape is shot reveals great warmth and a loving connection that its filmmaker has towards it.