A little break, a little madness, a little fun

A little dose of Little Zizou and you’re all set to restore your belief in humanity. For long I have maintained that we are a serious nation that takes the serious bit a little too seriously. It is sheer physical inability that prevents us as a collective from turning into a non-stop never-ending in-your-face manifestation of the classic Lament !! Your eyebrow twitched? Look around you pal – what you see is not normal. It was not meant to be this way – ok so you went and made a mess of the way we as a historical collective turned out to be but that doesn’t mean you resign yourself and the rest of your ilk to eternal gloom. But there is hope. You see it in the changes happening around you. There is more merriment in the air, there is more laughter, and there is more of the chill-pills going around. But theres still a long ways to go, but then its happening.

Little Zizou, written and directed by Sooni Taraporevala, is a delightful film that takes a look at the wacky, funny and endearing ways of a local parsi community. Its like the ads say – a little madness, a little fun. And that’s how things should be.

So what do we have?

Cyrus II Khodaji (Sohrab Ardeshir), who is

- The self proclaimed voice of God going to deliver his people from whatever it is they want to be delivered from and return them to “Purity”
- convinced the Russians are going to invade, because they have indicated their intentions of doing so by laying claim to the faith.
- raising an army – PLO (Parsis Liiberation Organization) – to try and stave off the Russian invasion.
- The same army which after two-and-a-half rounds of an attempted march past pack up and go home.
- is assisted by (Shernaz Patel ), a hip-flask swigging, proper, overworked, underloved personal assistant who helps with the daily chant rituals


Boman Pressvala (Boman Irani), who is

- determined to expose Cyrus II Khodaji for the fraud that he is
- uses his newspaper to print his rants against his methods (including photographs of his attempts to put together the “army”).
- In love old music, has a blast with all his 100+ year-old friends at home
- totally disapproves of his daughter going out on dates


then we have:

Xerxes, who is Little Zizou, named after Big Zizou (Zinadine Zidane), bunking school every opportunity he gets to play Zizou in cybercafes and waiting for the big day when he will meet his idol.

Artaxerxes, working towards becoming a graphic novelist,sketching every minute he can find, and also working on a secret project with two buddies on restoring an old abandoned cockpit of a 747 Jumbo Jet into a flight simulator

Zenobia, who talks Artaxerxes into chauffering her around while she meets up with her boyfriend.

Liana, who loves animals more than humans, rats on her older sister’s escapades and is insanely jealous of Xerxes because her mother showers a little too much affection on him

Roxanne, Boman’s wife, who appears to be the only stable character in the whole film.

Roxanne's mother, who stays in a derelict ruin of what used to be a hotel in the old glory days, who has fought with everybody in the little seaside town and has a bunch of stray dogs to keep her company. She also offers to help Roxanne and promptly forgets all about her offer the next morning.

And a whole bunch of other wacky characters each playing a role in this little mad outing that is a fun watch. If you are quite up to here with all the stuff that is going on around you, and need a little break, a little madness, a little fun – then a couple of hours watching this one would be time well spent.