With the brand new offering from executive producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas, The Cycle of Love, out in selected cinemas on the 18th of September, check out our review below and watch our interview with director Orlando von Einsiedel and stars Chirag Lobo and Mina Dale!
It was Taylor Swift who said “the greatest films of all time were never made”: a beautiful notion that, try as Hollywood might to create grand, sweeping love stories capable of taking our breath away, nothing can quite compare with the most extraordinary love stories that have occurred in the real world
Luckily for us, executive producer Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Oscar-winning director Orlando von Einsiedel made this once-in-a-lifetime love story into a film, The Cycle of Love, to give the rest of us the chance to fall in love with it too.
The part-drama, part-documentary, follows Indian artist PK Mahanandia, who grew up in poverty and endured unspeakable discrimination as a member of India’s Dalit community. However, as a child, a fortune teller told him that he would one day marry a woman from a distant land who would be a Taurus, be musical, and own a forest.
Years later, while drawing portraits on the streets of Delhi in 1977, he crossed paths Swedish traveller Lotta von Schedvin when she sat down for him to draw her portrait. After realising that she was the woman described in the prophecy, PK and Lotta eventually fell in love. When she had to return to her homeland, PK, armed with only a dream and second-hand bicycle, travelled thousands of miles from India to Sweden to find her.
Whilst is an extraordinary story, the film is interested in far more than the extraordinary lengths PK will go to in order to be reunited with the love of his life. His journey becomes an expression of bravery and staunch belief, and a reminder of the deep kindness of strangers. The man taught by society to see himself as lesser finds the strength within himself to keep going, and discovers not just a life beyond the constraints imposed upon him, but also meets the many incredible people along the way who help him on his Herculean task, while he earns money to support himself by drawing portraits at every stop.
Von Einsiedel combines present-day interviews with PK and Lotta with dramatic reconstructions of their younger selves. Chirag Lobo brings a quiet tenderness and warmth to the Young PK whilst Mina Dale, as Young Lotta, lights up the screen with earnestness and wide-eyed wonder. Their gentle chemistry is never overdone as some sweeping, fated love (though we’d argue that perhaps it is), but is instead constructed as a gradual love found between two people open and excited enough to see the magic in not just one another, but also in the world around them.
Filmed in mostly warm tones, von Einsiedel clearly revels in the joy of telling a story that looks so fondly back at the past, flickering between different effects and textures to bounce the audience between past and present. The production itself stayed true to the spirit of the film by casting people off the street for many of the moments where we see PK on his journey: yet another reminder that human magic can be found anywhere you look, if you only you try to find it.
Thus it is perhaps unsurprising that the film is unapologetically sentimental, a balm to the heavy cynicism that currently runs throughout much of modern cinema. In fact, one might argue that such sincerity – however saccharine one might feel it is, depending on how you’re so inclined – is its greatest strength. It allows PK and Lotta to tell their story openly with their hearts on their sleeves, and the earnestness with which their real life counterparts recall their memories is deeply endearing.
The scale of PK’s journey may be the initial draw for audiences, but it is both characters’ short and long term devotion, and how their love impacts those around them in a profound manner, which makes you want to believe in humanity during a time when faith in our species is in notably short supply. Both PK and Lotta were present throughout the entire filming process, and with that in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that the film has turned out to be so deeply warm and sincere.
The film also spends some time focusing on PK’s experiences of caste prejudice, racism (when he crosses into Europe) and its impact on his mental-wellbeing. The relief we feel for him at the end of the film is not only because he has finally reached his love (not a spoiler), but also because it is a culmination of his inner journey to learn love and appreciate both himself and the world around him.
Gentle, tender and unmistakeably feel-good, The Cycle of Love is a poignant celebration of romantic love, self-love and the love that can still be found in humanity. Perhaps love cannot solve every ill in the world, but it certainly can remove many a barrier in the way.
Check out our interview with the cast and director of the film here:
The Cycle of Love is out in cinemas on the 18th of September.
