Film: The least of these
Cast: Sharman Joshi, Stephen Baldwin, Shari Rigby, Manoj Mishra, Prakash Belawadi, Aditi Chengappa
Director: Aneesh Daniel
Rating: * * * and a half
The Bible is saturated with exhortations to feed the poor and help the needy. In one verse, which gives the title to the film under review, Christ says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
Helping the impoverished then, is obeying God’s commandment and in serving others, we are serving Christ. This is the reason why the Albanian nun Mother Teresa and Australian missionary Graham Staines came to serve the downtrodden in a country far from home. But this crucial factor is not underlined in this feature which ignores Hindutvavadis who distort and misrepresent Christ’s message of love in service as “inducements for conversions.”
The only time a Biblical view (on the origins of mankind) is addressed is when one of Staines’ two children says he is “coming from dust” in response to Banerjee’s query about heritage and lineage. And as Staines (Stephen Baldwin) tells the fictional investigative journalist Manav Banerjee ( Sharman Joshi) “No inducement brings real conversion.” Interestingly, the film attributes the ghastly murders of Staines and his two small sons Philip and Timothy to the media which employs lies and deception in its pursuit of Truth. For example, fictional editor (Manoj Mishra) instructs newly recruited Banerjee to investigate the rumours of illegal conversion by pretending to be a Christian.
Banerjee is not beyond dangling threats of blackmail and petty extortion and as it turns out, the editor has a vested interest in Staines who spent 35 years ministering to tribal and the sick, especially those stricken with leprosy.
The editor’s personal vendetta against Staines is the weakest part of this otherwise compelling film which depicts Staines as the personification of humility and love when caring for the lepers in obedience to Christ who, as he tells Banerjee, had himself healed ten lepers.
Joshi gives a strong performance which marks his trajectory from cynic to sympathiser. Baldwin is calm and placid as Staines. As the wife who chooses to forgive his murderers, just as Christ commands, Shari Rigby instils strength and dignity into the role as does the leper who meets with revulsion from Banerjee.
The film does not depict the Staines’ fiery deaths. We only see the jeep windows being smashed, Molotov cocktails explode, but we never hear the children’s cries. Afterwards, the camera pans the burnt vehicle, but doesn’t show charred corpses. Only a small shoe that survived the blaze on that tragic January night of 1999.
The cinematography is outstanding and shows off the beauty of Orissa which also birthed the murderer Dara Singh, who was aligned to the Bajrang Dal. The end credits cite the Justice Wadhwa Commission which found Staines innocent of forced conversions. But the film doesn’t say it took an entire year before the criminal mastermind, Dara Singh was arrested.