DCA Archive

Crow's Egg
(Kaakaa Muttai)

M Manikandan

When not having to pick and sell coal from the railway tracks near their Chennai slum, two young brothers play cricket with their friends on a nearby patch of derelict land – until this is taken over for a brand new shopping mall. Excited by promotional adverts on local TV for the newly opened pizza parlour, they are mesmerised by the prospect of tasting this exotic delicacy and set out to raise the money required to buy their very own pizza. As barriers to their plan suddenly appear, so their determination increases – and any and all actions become justified in their single-minded devotion to the task in hand.

How far would you go for something you’d set your heart on? In this touching comedy we see some of the realities of life in a slum community – as the director notes: “I wanted to depict life in a slum realistically but also didn’t want to advertise India’s poverty to the world”. It’s an occasionally hard-edged portrayal – the law is not just bent, but broken – but captures the daily challenges the family have to face. You’ll be rooting for the brothers and their campaign by the end – and, yes, that pizza does indeed look tempting…