‘Parikrama’ Review: A cinematic journey worth taking

Film: Parikrama

Director: Goutam Ghose

Star cast: Marco Leonardi, Chitrangda Singh, Aaryan Badkul

Rating: 4 stars out of 5

There’s something unsettling about the timing of the release of Goutam Ghose’s ‘Parikrama’. Here’s a film that walks the course of the sacred River Narmada while tracing stories of displacement and ecological ruin, released in theatres just when Himachal and Uttarakhand are drowning under monsoon mayhem. In these fragile hills littered with hydro projects, flash floods and landslides have become the new normal.

Rivers are our lifelines. They nourish us and silently carry the weight of our daily mess like quiet saints watching over our chaos, but mess with them too much and they strike back. Just like the mighty River Narmada did.

Reports say around 42,000 people lost their homes when the Sardar Sarovar Dam came up. But according to the Narmada Bachao Andolan, the actual number is closer to 5 lakhs. Ghose’s latest film, ‘Parikrama’, puts a face to this number. Aryan Badkul (Lala), a young boy from the upper Narmada valley, who loses everything - land, home and his future - in the name of progress.

In the film, Italian director Alessandro (Marco Leonardi) arrives in India to shoot a documentary on the annual ‘Narmada Parikrama’, the sacred pilgrimage around the river. He’s joined by Rupa (Chitrangda Singh), a writer helping the film crew. But what begins as a film project soon takes a turn, just like the river itself, when Alessandro meets Lala, a street-smart kid trying to sell ‘magic stones’ to make enough money to buy back land for his parents.

That’s when the film changes course, too. It becomes a story of people uprooted, caught in the chaos of so-called progress, where borders fade and human struggles feel the same across the world. Like the pilgrims who follow Narmada’s course, Alessandro begins to follow Lala’s. And through this unlikely bond, ‘Parikrama’ becomes a film that speaks straight to the heart.

It’s not just the river that’s on a journey; the people making the documentary are too. The film quietly weaves in Alessandro’s son, Francesco, grieving his mother back in Italy, while Lala mourns the loss of his motherland in India. Here are two children, oceans apart, bound by loss and the director beautifully draws a parallel without ever over-explaining it.

Marco Leonardi is pitch-perfect as Alessandro. He is vulnerable, curious and empathetic. You can’t imagine anyone else playing this role with such raw honesty. Chitrangda Singh brings a quiet grace to Rupa. But it’s Aaryan (Lala) who stayed with me long after I left the theatre. His innocence, his quiet rage and that heavy silence - it all hits where it hurts.

Also, what truly takes ‘Parikrama’ to another level is Ishaan Ghose’s cinematography. The visuals are stunning, gentle when they need to be and fierce when the moment calls for it. Ishaan, son of Goutam Ghose, proves he has inherited not just his father’s eye, but also his empathy.

Yes, the film deals with heavy themes like displacement, environmental loss and the emotional wreckage of forced migration. But ‘Parikrama’ never turns into a lecture. It doesn’t preach. It flows, sometimes calmly, sometimes furiously, just like the river it follows.

Seems like the director has a surreal connection with rivers. Time and again, his cinema has flowed back to their banks. From ‘Padma Nadir Majhi’, ‘Paar’, ‘Antarjali Jatra’ to ‘Shankhachil’, rivers have always played more than just a backdrop in his stories. This time, it’s the Narmada - mighty, mystical and marred by mankind’s greed. It’s as if Ghose doesn’t just tell stories about rivers. He listens to what rivers have to say. And maybe, we need to start listening too. You could start with ‘Parikrama’. If you’re someone who’s complaining about the lack of good content on the big screen, well, here’s one worth showing up for. If you skip it, don’t whine later.