The Warrior

Lafcadia, the executioner for a warlord in feudal Rajasthan, decides during a raid on a village to put down the sword. His former master sends men after him, and the film becomes a pursuit. It is not interested in revenge. It is interested in a decision that cannot be undone: a man who stops killing is not cleansed by stopping. The film does not forgive him, it only lets him keep walking. The form is close to silent. Little dialogue, a great deal of desert and mountain, and a camera that leaves people small inside wide empty space. It is Asif Kapadia's first feature. A British production shot in Rajasthan and entirely in Hindi, it was submitted by the United Kingdom for the foreign-language Oscar and refused: the rules required a film to be in a language indigenous to the submitting country, and Hindi was not indigenous to the UK. As Kapadia has put it, nobody could contemplate that a British film might not be in English. The rule changed the following year, by which time the film was already disqualified. It did take three BAFTA nominations and won two, one of them the Alexander Korda Award for the outstanding British film of the year. Irrfan Khan takes the lead. Who it is for: viewers who like quiet, landscape-driven cinema and anyone who follows Irrfan Khan. Who it is not for: anyone expecting action. There is a sword, and almost no fighting.