"Prashant Bhargava’s first feature, has a lovely, unforced quality...[Prashant] draws layered, naturalistic performances from his cast of professionals and non-actors...themes appear: about wealth in the new India, family responsibility, old ways versus modern ones. They seem fresh here. So does “Patang."
Rachel Saltz - NEW YORK TIMES
"The storytelling is effortlessly made part of the hypnotically beautiful visuals, and woven into a kaledioscope of colors, faces, music and a little romance. Bhargava is masterful in the way he allows his story to emerge from his mosaic, instead of spelling it out by the numbers. Evokes the old and new Indias side by side as well as I've seen done."
- Roger Ebert, CHICAGO SUN TIMES
"Bhargava's naturalistic approach to capturing the sights and sounds of a city in full revelry on rooftops and in the streets is colorfully vivid — reminiscent of Wong Kar-Wai's silky urban baths... His fragile balance works thanks to a confidence in actors and how skillfully he massages his central metaphor: a sky full of kites as the airborne hopes of a people."
- Robert Abel, LOS ANGELES TIMES
GRADE: A-
"[Bhargava] allows us to discover these people in mostly glancing, sidelong moments, as if he were capturing their lives on the sly. It’s rare for a filmmaker to integrate with such seamlessness the staged and the “caught.”... When a character says, “You fly these kites and feel the joy,” we know just what he means."
Peter Rainer, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
"This is the sort of gorgeously photographed picture that practically begs to be seen on the biggest screen possible. It stands as a reminder of what truly absorbs a viewer into a film. Arresting visuals and vivid characterizations..."
- Matt Fagerholm, HOLLYWOOD CHICAGO
"A stunning, joyous visual portrait...a ravishing, beautiful look at a part of the world not often shown in American theaters"
Jonathan Crow, YAHOO MOVIES
"We watch these children of God soar and fall like the kites flown high, each clashing with a threat of cutting loose. Bhargava has a keen sense of universal community and is able to engulf us in this world to show how similar humanity is."
Jared Mobarak, FILM STAGE
"A movie that's so lyrical, so heartfelt and so intimate that it feels like you're reading someone's diary rather than watching a movie. Like going through their childhood photo albums. Every frame of this film feels like a snapshot of a very private moment between the director and the city of Ahmedabad, with its kites in the sky, its busy streets, its cascading rooftops and its fascinating people."
- DOLCE & NAMAK TALK INDIAN MOVIES
"Patang is an art film in the highest definition that is filled with both exciting scenes, beautiful pictures and quiet moments, where a look or an action literally takes your breathe away."
- Stacey Y, BOLLYSPICE
Read Review and interview with Director Prashant Bhargava
"Everything about Prashant Bhargava’s film will draw you in and make you feel a part of this place – the story, the visuals, the sounds, the music, the characters – especially the characters. But what will linger once the film is done are the moments of pure poetry"
- TOTALLY FILMI
"The cast—a blend of seasoned pros and some truly gifted beginners—is flawless... Patang soars as high as anyone could possibly wish."
- John Ketich, THE STRAIGHT
"An unexpected, warm and engaging masterpiece. Outstanding camera work - precisely how I shoot my own films!"
- MICHAEL NYMAN, composer & filmmaker
Prashant Bhargava has “a sure hand with his actors, immeasurably enhanced by Biswas' motherly presence whose underlying bittersweetness is salved by a palpable warmth of heart.”
- Jay Weissberg, VARIETY
"Bhargava knows when to stop and catch the right, fleeting expressions and gestures. There’s a gentleness in this snapshot of a family and all its baggage that seems almost effortless.”
- Natasha Senjanovic, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER
“PATANG is a visually stunning film... Bhargava handles the subject in a quiet gentle way, but shows the tension with his hand held camera and quick edit cuts. Biswas is fantastic as the central figure in the film and truly standsout as the moral compass of the story.”
- Arthur J. Pais, INDIA ABROAD
"As the multiplex era reaches a formulaic state of contemporary Indian Cinema, indie filmmaking continues to take on unchartered mores and widen our sense of cinema with original story telling, honest craft and indulgent passion. Leading this silent brigade is currently is Prashant Bhargava a Chicago native of Indian origin." -