TWO

TWO is a thought provoking short film by Sathyajit Ray. Its a kind of a silent movie with no conversations at all, but still a lot of messages are beautifully conveyed through the movie.

'TWO' picturises the story of two boys, a rich one who lives in a big house and a poor one who lives in a slum which can be seen through the window of the rich kid's house. The movie opens with the scene of the rich kid left alone in his house with a lot of luxurious toys by his parents, he was wearing a mickey mouse cap and was roaming around and playing with his toy robot.

All of a sudden the rich boy notices the sound of a flute. When he looked outside through the window, he finds that it was the poor boy who was playing the flute. Soon he brings his trumpet and plays it through the window, slowly a competition was rising in minds of the children. The poor boy soon keep the flute away and comes with his toy mask, hoping that he could beat the rich kid but this time too, the rich kid wins as he had a large varieties of toy mask with him. Realizing that he will not be able to beat the rich guy with his toys the poor boy leaves the game. After a while he again comes out with a kite and starts flying it. The kite  indeed can be seen a symbol of freedom, which is restricted to the rich kid. The sight of flying kite really frustrated the rich boy as he was confined in his houses.

He becomes restless not knowing what to do. Suddenly an idea pops out of his mind, he takes his air gun and shoots the poor boy's kite. As the kite fell down the rich boy becomes happy, and with the sense of victory and pride he walks through his room and again gets engaged in playing.

In the climax of the film we again hear the flute being played again, the rich boy gets surprised and he starts feeling bad about himself, he regrets about his act and realizes how meaningless his victory was. At last we see the toy robot destroying his building made of blocks. This scene indeed makes the climax phenomenally phenominal.

Though its just a 12 minutes work, it deals with a lot of complex subjects like loneliness, economic division and the philosophy of happiness and contentment.

'Two', indeed was  one of the finest works i ever watched. I assure that you will have a great time watching it. Its really a must watch for all generations.