Hkhagoroloi Bohu Door (1995)

It’s a Long Way to the Sea - English

Barua’s Assamese modernisation melodrama tells of the boatman Puwal (Kharghoria) who ferries people across the remote Dihing river. On the invitation of his son Hemanta (Nath), he goes to see him in the city, Guwahati. Hemanta invited the old man mainly to have him sign a legal document that would enable the sale of family land. The circumstances of the deal disillusion Puwal, who returns to his village. There, in the film’s second half, a bridge is built over the river by corrupt politicians and bureaucrats, losing the boatman his ancestral employment. Constructed in two movements, the film is held together by the relationship between Puwal and his orphaned grandson, Hkhuman (S. Barua), which becomes the framing device representing the kind of modernity that encircles the uncomprehending old man. Elements of the plot resemble the director’s earlier Halodiya Choraye Baodhan Khaye (1987), but even the symbolic revolt of the earlier film is now missing.