REVIEW: Harishchandrachi Factory

THE DREAM MACHINE

First-time director Paresh Mokashi turns the Father of Indian Cinema into a Chaplinesque figure who’s eccentric, happy-go-lucky, but most of all, deeply passionate about making a moving picture at any cost. Literally. As the story goes, out-of-work printer, former photographer and part-time magician Dhundiraj Govind Phalke stumbled into a tent theatre in Bombay to watch The Life of Christ in 1910 and was drawn towards the nascent medium. But he lived in a time and milieu that frowned upon anything unconventional—particularly the performing arts—and given his precarious financial situation, his ambition seemed even more imprudent at the time.