Kathmandu, April 9 -- Basanta', the debut directorial movie of Prakash Saput, arrives with good intentions. It is a film that wants to speak loudly and urgently. About caste. About class. About gender. About education. About patriotism. About menstruation. About almost everything that ever came up in our school's social studies textbook.

The problem is not that 'Basanta' talks about too many things. The problem is it talks about too many things at once with little narrative cohesion and almost no room for the viewer to breathe.

In its pursuit to address society's deepest wounds, the film forgets to tell a story that moves us.

The film's dialogues, throughout, are laced with literary tones. The choice of words is carefully considered an...