HOTEL SALVATION

 The journey of old people towards death is a theme not unknown in the cinema, sometimes treated comically but more often treated tragically yet always with a great deal of affection and by some of the cinema's greatest directors. "Hotel Salvation" is the first feature by the 26 year old Indian writer/director Shubhashish Bhutiani but it could have come from Satyajit Ray. Daya, (lalit Behl), is the 77 year old who, convinced he is going to die, asks his son Rajiv, (Adil Hussain), to take him to the holy city of Varanasi where he will find salvation. 

Bhutiani treats his subject not as gloomy tragedy about the end of life but as a comedy that celebrates life in all of its forms, shot in glorious colour by his cinematographers David Huwiler and Michael McSweeney and displaying a deep affection for its characters and the traditions they hold dear and he has drawn wonderful performances from his entire cast, (Anil Rastogi is outstanding as the proprietor of the hotel).

An American or British film dealing with the same subject would be mawkish beyond belief and the jokes would probably fall flat. Of course, it's also unlikely that someone like Satyajit Ray would have taken such a broad outlook or have his characters 'find themselves' quite as enthusiastically as they do here. That said, this is a remarkable debut and a film to make you feel good about yourself and about life (and death) in general.