Mrinal Sen, the most celebrated of India's “New Wave” directors, is a political radical with an introspective approach: his films comprise a harsh examination of the values and traditions that combine to create India's explosive political realities. In The Case Is Closed, Sen touches on the problem of child labor in order to scrutinize middle class notions of responsibility and class. A peasant desperate for money offers his small son as a servant to a middle class Calcutta family; he becomes one of millions of working children in India. When the boy, in an attempt to keep warm in the kitchen to which he is relegated, dies of carbon monoxide poisoning, the family is thrown into a panic of guilt and fear of police action. How they come to terms with themselves, with the boy's family, and with death itself is the subject of the film, which is rich in detail and the suggestion of life going on all around this one, “small” tragedy. London Times critic David Robinson writes, “The creditibility of The Case Is Closed lies in its rough, indignant urgency. Sen brings us closer than any other filmmaker to the daily life of his country.” Featured at international film festivals including Cannes and London.