In the mountains of India in the late 1980s, unexplained fires rage. This is the pitch for Indian filmmaker Raam Reddy’s new film, presented in the “Encounters” section of the 74th Berlinale. A dreamlike reflection on paranoia and racism.
The poison of suspicion. Beneath its fantasy aspects, Indian director Raam Reddy’s The Fable is an eminently political tale. The year is 1989, in the Himalayan mountains of India. The owner of a vast and magnificent orchard is faced with a series of unexplained fires in his fruit trees. The result is an atmosphere of paranoia between the owner and his workers, but not only. There’s also a small group of nomads camped nearby. They’re not from around here, they’ve never been seen, so they’re bound to attract attention.
This film has a special resonance in being shown here at this year’s Berlinale. And why? Because this year’s edition was marked, even before it began, by a controversy surrounding the invitation to the festival of elected representatives of the AfD – Germany’s main far-right party. Germany is currently marked by a resurgence of its old racist demons. A racism that feeds on the fear of the other, the foreigner, perceived as the reason for all problems. This is why The Fable is so strikingly topical, even if it is set on another continent, in another era, and in the form of fiction.
But this new film by Indian filmmaker Raam Reddy is a multi-faceted work that cannot be reduced to a single reading. To forget its dreamlike, fantastical aspect would not be to do it justice. Firstly, because one of the most beautiful discoveries is the fact that the main character can fly, thanks to wings he has built himself in his workshop, a mixture of wood and feathers, reminiscent of one of the most beautiful French films of 2023, The Animal Kingdom (directed by Thomas Cailley). Then, because there’s magic and beauty in every shot: the grain of the image – the film is shot on negatives – has a lot to do with it.
