There's a Hindi phrase that kept popping into my head while watching
Lion: "na idhar ke, na udhar ke." Literally it means neither here nor there. But colloquially it suggests a sense of constant displacement. A lack of belonging in any place. The phrase came to mind during a scene where Saroo (Dev Patel) is walking to a party with his white girlfriend Lucy (Rooney Mara). The sequence is very Bollywood especially with the song "Urvashi Urvashi." The party is hosted by some Indian friends' house. And these friends are immigrants from India. There is Bollywood music playing and a Hindi movie on the TV. Lucy does some Indian dancing, Saroo struggles to eat with his hands. Through his facial expressions and body language, Saroo is visibly uncomfortable. This isn't his culture, his life, even if he is surrounded by people who share his skin tone. In another parry scene--this time, with mostly white people--Saroo is even more uncomfortable and sticks to the wall while Lucy dances with her friends. Saroo seems out of place wherever he goes.
Lion is the directorial debut of Garth Davis, who worked on the acclaimed miniseries
Top of the Lake. The film is based on the autobiography
A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierly. Adapted by novelist Luke Davies,
Lion stars Dev Patel, Rooney Mara, Priyanka Bose, David Wenham, and Nicole Kidman along with debut child actor Sunny Pawar. The cinematography was handled by Greig Fraser (
Zero Dark Thirty), with editing by Alexandre de Franceschi (
The Painted Veil).
