The producer of the international hit The Full Monty provides his directing début with Machan. This story about 23 poor wretches from a slum district of Colombo, Sri Lanka, is about unemployment as well as the loss of male standing. The Sri Lankans’ adventure is crazy and incredible, yet inspired by a true story. In order to escape their terrible poverty, 23 men apply as a fictional handball team to an international tournament in Bavaria. Despite the fact that handball is unknown in Sri Lanka, which certainly doesn’t have a national team, they finally manage to get the necessary visas thanks to forged letters of recommendation. Pasolini creates a sensitive balance between realistic drama and unadorned absurdity and convincingly plays off universal themes of poverty, deceit, love and comradeship against each other through a large cast of fully-fledged team players. They are underdogs with fleshed-out characters who sketch a subtle picture, contrasting with their individual backgrounds, of what poverty means. This is partly thanks to the script-writing duo formed by Pasolini with Ruwathie de Chikera, daughter of a Sri Lankan bishop in one of the poorest slums of Colombo. Together they interviewed local inhabitants and combined their stories with those of the ‘real’ handball players, who would never be found again after disappearing in Germany. (EH)
