Always examining the values and traditions that combine to create India's explosive political realities, in Kharij Mrinal Sen touches on the problem of child labor in order to scrutinize middle class notions of responsibility and class. A desparate peasant offers his small son as a servant to a middle class Calcutta family; the boy thus joins the millions of working children in India. When he dies of carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to keep warm in the kitchen to which he is relegated, the family is thrown into a panic of guilt and fear of the police. 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 individual tragedy. "For more than a quarter of a century, (Mrinal Sen) has tenaciously used film to respond as directly as he can to the overwhelming complexity of his native social reality. The Case Is Closed can draw you so deeply into that reality, you may not realize how shaken you are until the lights go on and the spell breaks" (J. Hoberman, Village Voice).