Ivan Ayr's 'Milestone' Captures The Mindscape Of A Lonely Indian Truck Driver

Ivan Ayr’s ‘Milestone’ which released on Netflix on May 7,2021 is the story of Ghalib, a truck driver who is going through a phase of existential despair, after having lost his wife and finding his advancing years as a deterrent to his profession. He has a contender in the younger truck driver, Pash, who functions as another central character in the movie. Interestingly and intriguingly so, the characters are named after two legendary Urdu poets, Ghalib and Pash, which reveals the director’s love for visual poetry and also serves to set a striking contrast between the narrative’s overall bleakness and the flair and flamboyance associated with the verses of the Urdu poets.

The movie also reimagines Delhi as a melting pot, throbbing with a glaring cosmopolitanism and therefore serves as a reminder of the phenomenon of immigration that plays a huge part in the emerging landscape of the country. Delhi as a space that welcomes all and sundry from different parts of India within its economically promising cityscape is also something that the movie plays with on both a metaphorical and literal level.

Watch the trailer here:

Interesting Fact: The film has no background score, and solely relies on sounds you hear on the road. The sounds of the truck engine, drivers checking up on each other in the middle of the evening, banter at a line hotel etc. and the natural sounds around the zone where the movie is filmed are the only sounds you will hear when you watch ‘Milestone’.

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