Kayo Kayo Colour? (Which Colour?) [2023]

 Most films that attempt to demonstrate the experiences of marginalized communities have a propensity for depicting them as either angry or exploited “victims”. The more authentic, meaningful and nuanced representation, however, might instead be to delineate their lives in their mundaneness, ordinariness, vulnerabilities and everyday emotions. Such an approach – formally and politically – brings to mind such gems as Bresson’s Mouchette, Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, McQueen’s Lovers Rock, etc. Shahrukhkhan Chavada – who was born in the year of DDLJ’s release and named as such by his mom who’s a fan of the Bollywood superstar – opted for that quietly radical approach, perhaps as an expression of personal and collective resistance, in his remarkable debut feature Kayo Kayo Colour? Shot using long static takes in austere monochrome, on location, resorting to minimalist faux-vérité aesthetics, echoing restrained humanism, and employing a non-professional cast consisted of real-life couples and siblings playing as such onscreen, this film bore hallmarks of Italian neorealism, Iranian cinema, Lav Diaz and observational documentaries, thus revealing not just the filmmaker’s social and political consciousness, but his eclectic cinematic influences too. With its title indicating a children’s game – ironically, one that involves spotting colours – it portrayed 1 ½ days in the life of a working-class Muslim family, comprising of Razzak (Imtiyaz Shaikh), who’s hoping to purchase an autorickshaw, his wife Raziya (Samina Shaikh), who manages household chores, daughter Ruba who’s craving for an aerated beverage, son Faiz, and Razzak’s aged parents. They stay at an overpacked ghetto in Ahmedabad and bear scars of the 2002 pogrom, even though these get only fleetingly mentioned, and the day – that would witness a despotic governmental proscription – devolves into a bleakly consequential one for them.

Director: Shahrukhkhan Chavada

Genre: Drama/Urban Drama/Family Drama/Political Drama

Language: Gujarati/Hindi

Country: India