Giant Wheel (Tamil, 2015) | Short Film Review

The short film brings out a different angle about the socio economic issues surrounding the plight of farmers in our country and does it quite well. It also subtly highlights the politics, hypocrisy, the subconscious actions of the society that worsens their condition and the failure to get to the roots of the issue before embarking on protests. Apart from the strong core, the Edits by Fenny and VFX by Ram to create the TV show scrolls, social media popups etc are pleasing to the eye. The dialogues are a major boost, especially the one towards the end between the farmer and the talk show host which looked very natural and was further enhanced by the good accompanying background score.

Having said that, few of the silent scenes pictured on random individuals towards the end had inconsistent lighting and a little too murky/dark for the liking. Another notable failure was the reaction of the talk show host at the very end which we believe was supposed to show a sense of realization of the obvious which was right under the eye, yet overlooked – but it kind of spoilt the ending as it looked artificial and forced.

A commendable job by the team for handling a tricky subject with relative effectiveness, even though the acting and filming could have been a lot better.