The Monthly Film Bulletin noted that Tins for India is ‘An advertising film in which the advertisement is rather obtrusive’ (MFB, 1942, 139). However, although oil production is prominent in the film, Tins for India shares the tangential qualities of many of Shell’s other promotional shorts. Here it is the production of oil containers and not oil itself that forms the major subject matter. Moreover, the film is ostensibly concerned with the afterlife of the tin cans and not with their use for oil.

In this respect the film presents the activities of Burmah-Shell in a benign light. The tin cans purchased for oil go on to have a freely available ‘useful purpose’ once they have been emptied. They are shown being used as water containers, being flattened to make tiles for a roof, being cut into various articles (including lamps that will later contain oil), and being used as storage units by shopkeepers. The bulk of the film strives to show why the tins are so serviceable. In considered detail each stage of the tins’ construction is shown. This segment serves as a subtle advertisement for the dependability of the products of Burmah-Shell: ‘The durability and strength of these tins is known to every villager’.

The film is notable for the different ways in which it portrays its scenes of life in India and those of the construction of tins in the factory. Here, in keeping with the Shell Film Unit’s policy, it is primarily the use of images that conveys this difference and not the film’s dialogue. The film chooses to focus on rural India, described as ‘the real India’, for its representation of the sub-continent. This sets up an obvious contrast with the mechanised construction shown in the factory. The scenes of rural India are linked by a series of cross-fades and the opening and closing segments of village life are circular. The opening three scenes – of a bullock cart travelling on a road, a raft heading downstream, and a man carrying water containers - are shown in reverse order at the close. Their patterning is also reversed, where the participants had crossed the screen in one direction in the opening they go the other way at the close. Each of these devices helps to give the impression that rural life is eternal and unchanging. In addition, the cyclical construction of the film mirrors the endless recycling of the tin can.

The scenes in the factory are filmed in the opposite manner. Here the sharp rhythm of the machines is matched by the use of sudden cuts in the film rather than cross-fades. Moreover, the story line is linear. Despite the fact that production of tins is ongoing, the film chooses to focus on the construction process of a can from start to finish. It gives the impression that we have witnessed the speedy construction of a tin occurring in real time. Some of these images are cut so that they cast opposing diagonals across the screen, in others a predominantly horizontal image will be followed by one that has strong verticals. This enhances the rhythmic effect and helps to reinforce the sense of industrial dynamism.

The film could be said to be offering a standardised contrast between the ancient ways of rural India and the mechanised efficiency that Europeans have introduced. Yet it is noticeable that all the workers shown in the factory are Indian; there is no white overseer. Moreover, although the primary focus is on the tin can as it evolves among the web of conveyor belts, the film does also provide some studied portraits of the Indians at work. They are also shown to be skilled operators, rather than as cogs in the machines.

Richard Osborne (October 2009)