Film Movement continues to bring brilliant little films of deep significance to our attention. LUCKY originated as a 2005 short film about a lad named Lucky whose parents succumbed to AIDS. Writer/Director Avie Luthra has expanded the message of this story into a full length film and cast it with South African and Indian actors, committed to having the dialogue in Zulu, Hindi, and English (which adds enormously to the film's treatment of isolation) and has discovered a gifted child actor in Sihle Dlamini who portrays the role of Lucky.
Recently orphaned 10-year-old South African Lucky (Sihle Dlamini) observes his beloved but estranged mother returned to his Zulu village in a coffin and being without family he leaves his village to make his own life in the city, having promised his mother in a touching scene at the gravesite that he will make himself better, become educated and make her proud. He makes his way to the nearest big city, lives on the streets, until he locates his uncle (his mother had let him know that should anything happen, her brother would take care of him) who is an irresponsible, womanizing, wayward man who has spent the money Lucky's mother left with him for Lucky's school. Desperately disappointed he seeks help where he can find it and encounters Padma (Jayashree Basavaraj), an elderly Indian woman whose concept of caste means she cannot touch Black people or anything that the Blacks have touched. Padma speaks Hindi and Lucky speaks Zulu so verbal communication is out of the question until Padma engages a genuinely warm taxi driver (James Ngcobo) with whom she can converse in English and translate for her. Lucky has a tape recording his mother left him, and when he finally is able to listen to it he discovers the last words of his dying mother reassuring him of her love. Padma has the taxi driver translate the tape for her and this gains Padma's empathy. The three work together to place Lucky in school, find the man ((Vusi Kunene) who had lived with his mother – a tender but lonely man who tends to the dead - and ultimately through the kindness of strangers Lucky achieves his primary goal: he wants to attend school and find people who will care for him emotionally.
Lucky questions everyone's motives and responses and it is from the taxi driver that he discovers that 'Adults have to lie sometimes. That's how they survive.' In his search for his dream, marked by greed, violence, and belonging, Lucky shows how a child's spirit can bring out decency, humility and even love in adults coping with life in the new South Africa. Beautifully written, filmed and acted, this is an exceptional film that deserves the widest possible audience. Grady Harp, May 13
Recently orphaned 10-year-old South African Lucky (Sihle Dlamini) observes his beloved but estranged mother returned to his Zulu village in a coffin and being without family he leaves his village to make his own life in the city, having promised his mother in a touching scene at the gravesite that he will make himself better, become educated and make her proud. He makes his way to the nearest big city, lives on the streets, until he locates his uncle (his mother had let him know that should anything happen, her brother would take care of him) who is an irresponsible, womanizing, wayward man who has spent the money Lucky's mother left with him for Lucky's school. Desperately disappointed he seeks help where he can find it and encounters Padma (Jayashree Basavaraj), an elderly Indian woman whose concept of caste means she cannot touch Black people or anything that the Blacks have touched. Padma speaks Hindi and Lucky speaks Zulu so verbal communication is out of the question until Padma engages a genuinely warm taxi driver (James Ngcobo) with whom she can converse in English and translate for her. Lucky has a tape recording his mother left him, and when he finally is able to listen to it he discovers the last words of his dying mother reassuring him of her love. Padma has the taxi driver translate the tape for her and this gains Padma's empathy. The three work together to place Lucky in school, find the man ((Vusi Kunene) who had lived with his mother – a tender but lonely man who tends to the dead - and ultimately through the kindness of strangers Lucky achieves his primary goal: he wants to attend school and find people who will care for him emotionally.
Lucky questions everyone's motives and responses and it is from the taxi driver that he discovers that 'Adults have to lie sometimes. That's how they survive.' In his search for his dream, marked by greed, violence, and belonging, Lucky shows how a child's spirit can bring out decency, humility and even love in adults coping with life in the new South Africa. Beautifully written, filmed and acted, this is an exceptional film that deserves the widest possible audience. Grady Harp, May 13