‘Little Zizou’ is a Treasure of a Film!

There are a handful of things in life that, when witnessed, tasted, experienced or chanced upon, make me thank the higher powers and remember how grand life can be. The film “Little Zizou” – written and directed by Sooni Taraporevala, premiered as well as celebrated with two awards at the MIAAC Film Festival little more than a week ago – is exactly one such gem.

Xerxes, or “Little Zizou”, is a young boy who prays persistently to his late mother for her to send his soccer idol Zinedine Zidane on a visit to Bombay. His elder brother Art is a prolific cartoonist, a romantic with a fantastic imagination and a group of friends determined to achieve the nearly-impossible, while the boys’ father Khodaiji is a religious leader of sorts, with prophetic aspirations and a flair for the dramatic. Because of Khodaiji’s fanatical convictions, the boys spend most of their time at the home of their father’s archrival, Boman Pressvala, a principled newspaper man with a loving, kind wife and two girls. While Art pines for the elder one, the younger Liana resents the presence of Xerxes, who is tended to with care and attention by her mom. It is a modern fairy tale, with a story as old as love itself.

But the ultimate greatness of this film lies in the journey that it takes us – its audience – on, through the fascinating Parsi community of the colorful Maximum City, warming our hearts with the love and family values so obviously present in this society, while filling our thoughts with a story worth watching more than once.

For an quick insight into just who the Parsis are, I will use the words of Ms. Taraporevala herself: “Parsis are followers of the world’s first monotheistic prophet Zarathushtra who was born more than 3000 years ago in Iran. With the Arab invasion of Iran, a group of Zoroastrians fled to save their religion. They sailed away and landed in India 900 years ago. These strangers were called “Parsis” (from ‘Pars’ – Persia). Today there are only 70,000 Parsis left in India, 250,000 Zoroastrians around the world.”

Little Zizou does tell a story that is unmistakably woven into this tightly knit community but this film is also about any child with a deep sense of longing for the mother he never knew, any teenager trying to grow up in a world where dreams are difficult to hold on to, any mother who has enough love in her heart to contain in it more than just her biological children and any man who believes that the freedom of speaking the truth is worth fighting for, at any cost. And Taraporevala manages to infuse the film with humor and charming inside jokes, like the newspaper in the beginning of the film with the headline The Namesake wins Oscar for Best Film!”

The film is presented by director Mira Nair and Indian Films. While this is Sooni Taraporevala’s directorial debut, she is well known as the writer of such Mira Nair hits as Salaam Bombay, Mississippi Masala and has written the screenplay for the screen adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. It is superbly acted by all involved, from Little Zizou himself, Jahan Bativala, and his nemesis/friend Liana played by Iyanah Bativala – both making their feature debut – to Indian cinema great Boman Irani, playing the amiable Pressvala with flair and dashing charisma and his loving wife Roxanne, played by Zenobia Shroff who is beloved by the camera and brings familiarity and warmth to her role. Bollywood hearththrob John Abraham has a lengthy cameo as – you guessed it! – a hunk, and Imaad Shah brings an almost tangible melancholy, as well as a striking screen presence and soft-spoken wisdom to his role as Zizou’s brother Art.

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