A young man tries to impress and woo a young woman in a Delhi college in a short film by first-time director Shourya Kumar Lal. This is Canteen.
We seem to be seeing a surge of new and up-and-coming film-making talent emerging from India in recent years, and some movies even breaking into the mainstream with their over-the-top effects and performances. Whilst many of the Indian productions are flamboyant, some new efforts are more grounded in reality, focusing on relationships and human interaction. The new short film Canteen definitely falls into the latter category.
Veer (played by writer/director Shourya Kumar Lal) is a college student with a crush on a fellow student by the name of Sara (Jiya Giri). Scared to approach Sara, as she is always with her friend (Pakhi Pundeer), Veer attempts to get her attention by playing the guitar and singing in the titular canteen. It works, and the two start conversing via social media at first, and then in person.
Wanting a relationship, Veer attempts to show his crush how much of a gentleman he is by paying for Sara’s meal, but he is put straight into the friend zone, and the two have a little falling out, that is until Sara explains the reasoning behind her outburst.
Canteen is actually a sweet little teenage drama film and was reminiscent of the type of teenage dramas that were readily available to watch after school finished. Picture a few scenes out of Dawson’s Creek or One Tree Hill, but set in India and without the budget, and you will be close to picturing Canteen.
Kumar Lal does really well in shooting at quite a few different locations, before always returning to the aforementioned canteen. Doing so makes the work that his characters live in more believable and larger. The performances of all the actors were all done well and sincerely. The film is not without its faults though, as the sound is all done via ADR and with Foley, which can take you a little out of what you are watching on screen, it makes you wonder why they went down this route. Were a boom mic and sound recorder not available?
Still, I actually enjoyed the short film and I would be very interested in seeing what Shourya Kumar Lal does next. If you manage to be given the chance to watch Canteen, we recommend doing so.
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