Shot along with Richa Yadav, the 15-minute short film is thoroughly captivating. It is a mosaic of expressionistic visuals. The film is about a couple- Saira and Salim going down their memory lane to find the traces of their burned-down house which they had to abandon shortly after.
“Memoirs of Saira and Salim” screened at Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas
The short film chronicles the situations from the past from the lives of Saira and Salim that we experience through their voices. The couple joyously reminisces the good old days in their old house. They don't miss out on any details about the times they had spent with their children. Even after being in a devastating condition, they still prefer to call it a home rather than a house or just another architectural structure. That personal attachment is what still holds them emotionally to those walls.
The film presents an atmospheric identity and traces down the history of communal violence from the lens of deeply personal experience. The words of Saira and Salim are enough to take us through the horrors that they had faced back at the time. In the increasing hatred based on the same, the short seems very potent and timely. It doesn't shy away from presenting it. But the personal angle makes one relate to these people and lets the viewer have empathy for them.
The cinematography is impressive here, thanks to Richa Yadav along with the director, who captures the lights in these abandoned walls with an eye for the tragedy and yet filled with the required warmth. They find the montage immersive enough to connect their expressionistic frames together and the sound design by Kunika Kharat helps it further in keeping the feeling alive.
“Memoirs of Saira and Salim” works like a melancholic love-affair between the past and the present. It is filled with the memories of nostalgic times that both Saira and Salim had spent in that place. And yet the scars are present. They are quite literally visible through several frames, through the cracked ceilings or the worn-out pieces of color and even the shadows between these walls filling up the spaces with a brittle texture. Due to this, the film almost gives the sense of a tangible reality still taking out its head with possibly the worst instances from the past.
