This Indian film is a surface attempt at Kafka. When a poor villager steals some coconuts to feed his starving family, he is accused of a greater crime, that of murdering a local notable, because officials running for re-election need a scapegoat to placate the public. The Communist party vows to the man’s wife that they’ll help the man, but instead of demanding his release, they lobby for his execution to be carried out with a modern “electronic chair” that will kill him painlessly. In becoming the first person to die by the chair, his family is assured financial remuneration, and he is lionized as a hero. The story is a better idea than its execution, which lacks finesse, and is missing the dark humor and menace that underlies Kafka’s works.
