The number of children who for one reason or another go missing not just in the United States but across the globe is staggering, maddening, and heartbreaking. The saga of one such occurrence is told in SIDDHARTH, a heartfelt, quietly shattering new film.
SIDDHARTH, directed by Ontario-born Richie, is an India-Canada co-production. The setting is New Delhi, but it might be anywhere in the world. The film opens with a father bidding farewell to his pre-teen son, who is boarding a bus that will take him to a different city. The boy has been hired to work in a factory owned by his uncle's distant cousin, and he will be away for one month. Are child labor laws being broken here? Most definitely, yes. But his employment is essential, because the father works as a fixer of zippers and he hasn't been bringing in sufficient income to support his wife and two children. The money earned by the boy is much-needed. But what will happen when the boy fails to return home? Was he kidnapped? Has he been physically or sexually abused? Where is he? Will he ever be returned to his family?
The factory owner brusquely claims that the boy simply "ran away" after two weeks on the job. It's as if he expects the father to soak in and accept this as fact, respond with an "oh," and simply disappear into the night. But the father, an otherwise submissive sort, will not disappear into the night. He wants the facts, he wants his son-- and the scenario spotlights his solitary, frustrating attempt to go out into the world to find the boy.
There is a universality to the story told in SIDDHARTH, and this transcends the plight of this individual family and the parents' despair over their missing child. Sure, SIDDHARTH may be set in a culture that is alien to Americans of all classes. But the basic values, the basic familial connections, are no different. Parents love their kids. Kids love their parents. Children like to play. In the U.S., for example, their game of choice might be baseball, while in India it is cricket. But no matter. Kids the world over enjoy tossing or kicking or hitting balls.
Also, these days, even in some of the smallest, poorest communities across the globe, individuals may have cellphones and, invariably, it is the technologically clueless adult who must turn to the child regarding the basics of this 21st-century technology. While watching the father turn to his very young daughter for technological assistance in SIDDHARTH, I was reminded of one of the running story lines in the recently-released CHEF. Here, a middle-aged Los Angeles master chef-- a man who is celebrated in his field and who has the money, property, and profile that the characters in SIDDHARTH only can dream of-- is constantly tossing social media-related questions to his technologically-savvy pre-teen son.
To be sure, SIDDHARTH, unlike CHEF, is not fashioned as popcorn escapism. But it is stirring and eye-opening and, most significantly, it is inspired by a true story.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
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