9 EXCELLENT FILMS AND SHOWS THAT EXPLORE THE VARIOUS EMOTIONS OF LEAVING ONE'S HOME

THE NAMESAKE

This film is basically the one around which the idea of this list is constellated. Not only does it detail the many ways in which the Indian diaspora struggles to adapt to a new country, it traces a deeply personal story about growth, togetherness, loss and acceptance. It shows how crucial homes are to our identity, how we become homes to the memory of our homes as we leave them, and how a constant flux of selfhood begins to define those who leave their homelands to find a life elsewhere.

LITTLE AMERICA

I am not entirely sure how I chanced upon this precious little anthology, but I am so glad that I did. It speaks about immigrant experience with so much heart and ingenuity, gently detailing the psycho-geographical distance from their motherlands that expats experience. If there is one problem with the series it often shows struggle as a glorious part of immigrant identity. Struggle is a part of immigrant identity, but there is little glory in it. It is still one of the best pieces on immigrant experience, and I would highly recommend it.

MUNCHAUSEN

Those who have seen this film would understand just how peculiarly this film fits the bracket of this list - its central action is not rooted in the person supposed to leave their home. Munchausen preceded Ari Aster's first feature film by half a decade, and it is about an overly-possessive mother who begins to resent her son's decision to leave home for college. She does something extremely problematic out of that resentment, something that changes the meaning of home- leaving altogether.

UDAAN

Very few films build up towards home-leaving such that it feels like a release. Udaan is central to Hindi cinema's acknowledgement of toxic masculinity, problematic parenthood and difficult family structures. It is a film that I am deeply indebted to because of the way it pitched the idea of home - not a safe haven, but a place of violence, of resentment. As the film builds up to its climax, we understand just how necessary and courageous the act of home-leaving can be sometimes.

THE HAUNTING OF BLY MANOR

Very few works have touched me in the way this series has, because haven't felt such terror and such deep poignance at once. Homes are crucial to The Haunting series. But Bly Manor created such a brilliant metaphor for what holds us back in our homes, how desperate we are to leave them and how difficult it is. Every character that was held back, was held back in an emotion that was as insistent as their desire leave the home. The whole series is a thesis on leaving our homes.

APARAJITO

To say that Aparajito is a film about home-leaving is to massively understate its thesis of what home-leaving is. To leave a home is to leave familiarity. To leave a home is to leave a place, that even in its cruelty, shaped your identity. But yes, to speak of it briefly - Aparajito is that chapter of the trilogy which follows the establishment of Apu's individuality. It is the chapter where Apu would journey to the city, having no ties to childhood anymore - even his mother has passed away.

THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES

I watched this film with a nascent curiosity about a figure whose journey would inform my own opinions about engaging with a geography. Leaving his home to travel across South America is only the first chapter in young Ernesto's life. What he finds in the journey is not merely an experience of the world, but a deep kinship with its inhabitants. Che does not leave home with the degree of finality that many other characters in this list do. But the impact of that home-leaving is massive.

TAMAS

The Partition comprises so many layers of trauma, layers that have echoed through generations to reach us even in this moment. And home-leaving was central to it. Govind Nihalani's show traces those who had to leave their homes on foot in search of safety, in search of some semblance of a life. It shows how so many people, innocent, unsuspecting, were pushed to the edges of their sanity by a home-leaving that was pushed down their throats. In a way, every film on the partition deserves to be on this list. But what list, what heart, what sanity can contain even the cinematic portrayal of that unimaginable trauma?

PACHINKO

I promise you that you haven't seen anything of this sort certainly not anything that documents that particular chapter of political history that this series does. The series jumps between Busan in the early 1900s to New York City in the late 1900s, telescoping through the lives of several generations to create a truly unique story. It pieces together family histories and political histories to show you how layered the act of home-leaving can be how contentious, how heart-breaking, how imperative and life-altering.