The Shadow

Director: Dipan Dey

“Every film has its own language”- this quote is just appropriate for this short silent movie. In its span of just 4 minutes and 15 seconds it speaks a lot but in its own language. Film starts with a man staring at his own shadow with full of disgust in his eyes. Then suddenly he starts stabbing his shadow with his own knife and after a certain time he loses hope and throws his knife. Then he looks around and finds some stones there. He throws large stones, broken pieces of bricks towards his shadow, tries to erase it forever. But he fails each and every time as ‘ It is inseparable from your soul’. He starts to run, wanting to leave his shadow behind and reaches under a big tree where his shadow loses its identity under the large shadow of tree itself. The shadow just disappears. Momentarily the man gets success and starts to laugh in his win over his shadow. After all the fun and pleasure man comes out from the large shadow and then looks back. And then, oh yes, ‘You can have momentary pleasure but can you really leave it behind?’ that is how it ends and gives a scope for the audience to think about all the messages the film tried to give in its own language. Ending the film with a question mark makes the audience think the whole story again to identify the real story behind the allegory.