THE CITY BEAUTIFUL
(SUNDER NAGARI )

Rahul Roy
India 2003 | 43 Min. | BetaSP, OmeU

Dis­creet­ly and qui­et­ly the Indian film­mak­er enters the liveli­hood of two fam­i­lies who live in SUNDER NAGRI – the ”beau­ti­ful city”, one of the out­skirts of Delhi char­ac­ter­ized by high unem­ploy­ment. Despite the unob­tru­sive­ness of his camera, Rahul Roy is close to what is hap­pen­ing, asks ques­tions and is includ­ed in the pro­tag­o­nists’ com­ments and obser­va­tions. The film deals with the unseen and unno­ticed effects of glob­al­iza­tion that hit the ones who earn their living through tra­di­tion­al jobs or that are not in pos­ses­sion of the resources needed to fulfil the require­ments of the urban work envi­ron­ment. There are sev­er­al per­sons in Hiralal’s big three gen­er­a­tion family that sup­port the family finan­cial­ly – espe­cial­ly he him­self. How­ev­er, the head of the family looses his job, his loom is replaced by a modern machine. He can only face the now upcom­ing urgent ques­tion of the future with the numb­ing effect of alco­hol. A film that points out where in local areas the global econ­o­my has the most impact and whose basic living con­di­tions are withdrawn.