Dahaad aka Roar [dir. Reema Kagti]

I'll say one thing for Reema Kagti and her frequent collaborator Zoya Akhtar: With an output that includes material as diverse as Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (ZNMD), Talaash, Dil Dhadkne Do (DDD) and Gully Boy, they are certainly versatile. Of course, there is the question of whether this versatility is backed by sufficient substance. ZNMD and DDD are fluffy crowd-pleasers providing an aspirational upper-crust western-influenced lifestyle married with some desi sentiment; like Karan Johar films, but less insufferable. Talaash (2012) and Gully Boy (2019) treaded grimier territory - the former was a crime noir with some supernatural underpinnings, the latter showcased the gritty saga of a lower middle-class Muslim boy using art to first shut himself off from his circumstances, and then to rise above them. The results are more mixed here, but they do achieve a credible texture in their capture of the urban underbelly. Kagti also made a period sports film called Gold (2018) with the country's biggest wannabe patriot Akshay Kumar, which I really did not care for (my impressions HERE).

The point of this extended prelude is, if Kagti and Akhtar do not necessarily have first-hand knowledge of the culture and milieu captured in their crime series Dahaad, they can be relied on to do their research to provide a sufficiently nuanced portrayal, at least for the purposes of mainstream entertainment. The setting here is mofussil Rajasthan, primarily the town of Mandawa. Progress, both technological and social, is lagging behind metropolitan India: Smartphones are rare, as are dedicated career women. Sub-inspector Anjali Bhaati (Sonakshi Sinha) faces the double-whammy of being both a woman and a lower-caste. When her team goes investigating, Anjali is barred from entering the homes of the dominant caste. A running gag shows an upper-caste colleague in the police station lighting incense to ward off her aura. Her melodramatic mother is constantly at her to get married. Like with Sinha's previous character Akira, Anjali's reaction to these challenges is to double down and fight even harder, because to give an inch would be to give up the fight altogether.

In several ways this series' antagonist is her antithesis. Anand Swarnakar (Vijay Varma, who I first saw in Gully Boy) is the eldest son in a traditional well-to-do goldsmith family. He is an articulate soft-spoken language teacher, much admired by his pupils and colleagues. While dismissed by his businessman father as a non-achieving black sheep, he has a shining reputation for his efforts at educating children in remote areas during his weekend leisure. Even his wife, who is carrying on an affair with a workplace colleague, believes Anand to be a noble man. But Anand is also a serial killer that preys on lower-caste women, first seducing and then murdering them (no spoilers here, the series is not a whodunit, but about how he is ultimately caught).

Anjali and Anand's paths cross when she comes upon a string of disappearances of under-privileged women who apparently eloped with an unknown lover; she charts a connection between them, concluding that a single man is behind all of it. Of course, the idea of a serial killer in Mandawa is laughable to most of her colleagues. Her only support comes from Station House Officer Devi Singh (Gulshan Devaiah), whose interest in her may be more than professional. Going back and forth in time, the series follows Anand's crimes and the efforts of Anjali and her colleagues to unmask an intelligent and remorseless killer.

There are many things to like about Dahaad, but some missteps as well. Sonakshi's Anjali is a spunky protagonist, determined to breach the limits placed by society. Even if it occasionally seems too eager to signal Anjali's liberated spirit (she has a casual sex relationship with a drinking buddy we never see outside of that context) Kagti-Akhtar's characterization is strong in terms of expressing Anjali's determination to be a tough girl in a tough world. Devaiah's Devi Singh is less well-etched - It's nice to see the actor playing a "good guy", but Devi comes across so "correct" in all his opinions and actions, he is bland as oatmeal. His character has a 'manufactured' feel, as though Kagti-Akhtar wanted to imbue all their expectations for an ideal male into him. I was ready to throw up when Devi Singh gives his son the sort of enlightened talk about women and sex most metropolitan men wouldn't. Even when introducing the idea of Devi being attracted to Anjali (which may be further developed in the almost certain second season), they appear obliged to soften it by giving him a shrewish nag wife.

Sohum Shah's Parghi is a competing colleague to Anjali who is trying to obtain a transfer by currying favor with his superiors. He shows some interesting character development, especially in his reluctance to bring a child into an increasingly fucked up world (I empathize), but his transformation towards the end of the season could have been better articulated. Vijay Varma's killer is a lot more believable - his modus operandi is based on a real-life character dubbed as Cyanide Mohan. Unlike the glamorous psychopaths from the Hannibal Lecter universe, Anand doesn't believe in playing amusing mind-games with the police or arranging his victims in artistic tableaux. He is a blunt petty-minded villain, whose cloak of civility only shrouds an unmitigated ugliness. Even when alluding to a childhood trauma, the writing and Varma's performance do not try to generate sympathy for the character; they only show how he uses it to further manipulate people around him. 

A few logical missteps notwithstanding* my only disappointment was that the caste hierarchy element has little play in the investigation of the actual killer - It would have been interesting if Anjali's sometimes reckless pursuit of Anand had been labeled as caste revenge and affected her agency. Still, Dahaad was a nicely paced procedural with a well-realized setting, and I would recommend it to fans of dark crime thrillers.

*One thing that bothered me was, in a narrative so conscious of caste identity, why did the suspect's name Swarnakar (literally meaning 'Goldsmith') not ring immediate warning bells for the cops, especially since it is revealed to them beforehand that cyanide is used by the gold industry. Instead, they continue to fret over where he could obtain the poison. It also occurred to me a lot earlier than to these intrepid investigators that the killer, after having sex with his victims, was persuading them to consume the cyanide by disguising it as a contraceptive or morning-after pill.

Dancing on the Grave [Patrick Graham]

People of a particular generation based in Bengaluru city (in Southern India) will remember the sensational case of Shakereh Khaleeli, on which this new mini-series is based. Showrunner Patrick Graham, who had previously helmed OTT horror series like Ghoul and Betaal, takes a documentary approach, interspersing contemporary and archival interviews with re-enactments. I'm not usually one for potentially sordid true crime TV series content, but since Dancing on the Grave was only 4 half hour episodes long, it seemed like a decent diversion before starting on something else.

Shakereh Khaleeli (nee Namazie) came of an affluent and prestigious family linked to the Diwan of Mysore. She was married to Akbar Khaleeli, a high-ranking Indian diplomat and bore him 4 daughters. Wherever she accompanied her husband on his tours of diplomatic duty, Shakereh was known as a brilliant socialite, beautiful, witty and sophisticated. But during the late 70's Akbar went alone to Iran as India's Ambassador, it being around the time of the Iranian revolution. It was during this period she met Murli Manohar Mishra aka Swami Shraddhanand (SS). A godman-cum-fixer type, SS inveigled himself into the Khaleeli household by way of helping Shakereh with her business affairs. They set up a construction business in Bengaluru. During this period Shakereh divorced her husband and in 1986, less than a year after, got married to SS. The move led to Shakereh's estrangement from her family and former circle, who were aghast at the idea of this glamorous, sophisticated woman from a high family giving herself to a short stocky plebian who in their minds had undoubtedly snared her with an eye on her property.

Just a few years later, Shakereh seemed to have disappeared. Her daughter Sabah Khaleeli was at the time an in-demand model for ads and fashion shows - I remember being wowed as a kid by a glam cover pic of her in Femina (I am ashamed to say I only remembered the pic, and not the article it was part of). When Sabah, who had rekindled communication with her mum, found a sudden silence at Shakereh's end, she repeatedly enquired with SS, but found that he was fobbing her off with evasive answers about Shakereh being on extended holiday. In the meanwhile, he continued a lavish lifestyle in the Bengaluru home. Sabah went to the police and filed a missing persons complaint. The initial investigation was lackadaisical, frustrating her. Then things then began to slowly move. Almost 3 years after the report of her disappearance, Shakereh's body was uncovered as a skeleton buried in her own backyard and SS was arrested for her murder. He was convicted of the same, and sentenced to be harbored in jail till the end of his life, a term he is still serving.

Apart from covering the investigation, mainly by interviews with the investigating team and the legal authorities that worked the case, as well as journalists, the series does some superficial psycho-analyzing about how a smart social diva like Shakereh could have fallen prey to this ugly conman with dubious charm. Was she that lonely or desperate during Akbar's tenure in Iran? Did SS with his guidance of her business affairs, convince her that he could help her have a greater self-identity than being a diplomat's wife? There is talk about how SS claimed divine powers to grant her a male child, and how it later led to quarrels between them.

Shakereh's direct family (mother Gauhar Taj and daughter Sabah) are only seen in archival (90's) video footage. Some cousins and a nephew were newly interviewed for this series. In an eloquent and politely outraged manner (words like 'dastardly' roll unctuously off the nephew's tongue), they express their dismay at how one of their own was ensnared and brutally done away with by this lowly schemer, and insist that SS has only got the minimum punishment for his heinous crime. During their speeches, it repeatedly came to my mind, where were these family members when Shakereh had been reported missing. Going by Sabah's old interviews it appeared that she was running alone from pillar to post to get the police to take her complaints seriously. They had essentially abandoned her for daring to degrade their social standing with her poor choice in marriage. It is when the series moves on to show the perspective of SS himself that their current participation makes more sense.

Yes, SS is interviewed for this series, while still serving his sentence. In front of the camera, he pleads not guilty for Shakereh's death (his lawyer claims that has always been his stance). According to SS, he found Shakereh dead in her bed one morning when he carried in the tea; his crime , as he sees it, was to go into an immediate panic about how her family and the police would perceive his role in this matter. Instead of even calling in a doctor to ascertain the death, he directly proceeded to bury her body in secret. By any account this is a nonsense story. Shakereh was bundled into a specially constructed box and buried inside a deep pit dug in the yard (ostensibly for a tank). There is reference to evidence of fingernail scratches on the inside of the box, and her fingers tightly curled around the bedsheet she was buried in, indicating that she was likely alive at the time of burial, in a deeply sedated state. Even as he claims to have shared a deep bond of mutual love with Shakereh, there is no corresponding warmth in his eyes. He seems a man ready to try anything to see if it can get him a reprieve.

True, there are discrepancies in the prosecution case, which his lawyer points out. In the video captured at the time SS was led by the police to the crime site after being made to confess, he is seen to pull the keys of the house from his own pocket; they should have been part of sealed evidence when he was called in for questioning. The lawyer points out that is this a break in the chain of evidence, and suggests that the police could have easily used the keys at some previous juncture to plant sedatives in the house. Any criminal, he insists, would have discarded these sedatives in the 3 years after Shakereh's disappearance; it's a fair point. My own view is that although the police did get the right man, they knew the material evidence they had was purely circumstantial and may not be sufficient to obtain a conviction, hence 'bolstered' their case with some planted evidence.

The legal machinery may have also been under a lot of pressure by the family because Shakereh had made a will naming SS as the beneficiary. If he was not unequivocally convicted, he could make a claim for Shakereh's estate over the rest of her family. He had already made money off selling pockets of her land around the house, using the power of attorney she had bestowed on him. Still, there is the question, when so many habitual criminals with multiple murder crimes are given pardons for good behavior? Especially after more than half his life has been spent behind bars, and there is little likelihood of his posing a danger to society now, why is he being held without any hope of compassionate pardon? Surely he cannot, as a convicted criminal, hope to lay claim on the assets for which the crime was committed.

In terms of the making, I would think that the 'series' could instead have been a single 80-90 min documentary. In his groundbreaking Thin Blue Line docu-drama Errol Morris showed that re-enactments of incidents could be a powerful tool. Here, the re-enactments are extended to completely trivial and petty footage, a cheap shot at raising drama. Not the film-makers' fault, but the almost sneery nature of the relatives currently interviewed annoyed me, and I wish they had been questioned more strongly about the family's desertion of Shakereh, which led her to becoming an isolated lamb, easily hunted down by the wolf in disguise. The only place I got a genuine sense of grieving for this brutal crime was in the archival footage of Sabah and Shakereh's mother (former Femina editor Sathya Saran talks about the pain she always saw in Sabah's eyes).

Still, if you're interested in this piece of shocking true crime history, it's only a couple of hours of your time in all. Showing now in India on Amazon Prime.

The Devil's Hour [Tom Moran]

Over the course of a week, I finished watching this 6-episode mini-series called The Devil's Hour (TDH, currently showing on Amazon Prime). It can be loosely described as Silence of the Lambs meets The Sixth Sense meets Groundhog Day. Check the Vlog to see my take on it. If you prefer reading to watching, the full transcript is given below the video:

Our protagonist Lucy (Jessica Raine) is a social worker and single mother who balances her job of counseling assorted abuse victims with a troubled home-life; her son Isaac (Benjamin Chivers) is a cipher, almost always silent, and curiously devoid of any emotion. While Lucy's husband Mark would like dearly to get her back in his life, he is far less enthusiastic about the son; with cruel sarcasm he refers to the latter as a "psychopath in the making".

Lucy also has a senile mother who watches television with the power off and talks to people that aren't there. And oh, it appears that Lucy wakes up every night exactly at 3.33am. This is evidenced by a bedside clock that glows a ridiculously bright purple; to me the bigger mystery here is how she manages to fall asleep with that light in her face.

On another story-thread detective-inspector Ravi Dhillon (Nikesh Patel) - whose schtick is retching at crime scenes and listening to the Beach Boys while studying them (hold on!). Along with his intensely Scottish cop buddy Nick Holness (Alex Ferns), Ravi is on the trail of a random series of murders and abductions, which hint at a diabolical serial killer. Together they discover that the murderer is in some way connected to Lucy and Isaac.

These two tracks are frequently interrupted by a series of scenes set at an unspecified time in an interrogation cell, where a bruised Ravi and Lucy are talking to a rather sinister, murderous looking character called Gideon (Peter Capaldi of Doctor Who fame).

The overall tone of TDH is what I call "Netflix Dark" - the characters have intense obsessive personalities and dark secrets, the crime scenes are gruesome and if a character smiles, you can be sure that smile will be wiped out before long. That said, it is not all misanthropic and it does have a sense of humor, which goes some way to making the atmosphere less miserable. It also helps that the actors fit their parts really well. Jessica Raine is empathetic as the single mother protagonist, but special mention must be made of child actor Benjamin Chivers, with his beautifully modulated depiction of the almost android-like Isaac. Capaldi and Nikesh Patel also embody their parts well.

For most of the season, TDH's narrative jumps around in time in a manner that is distracting, without making itself clear. Individual episodes have some strong moments but there are also seemingly random dream logic segments. It is in the final episode that the underlying concept is revealed, for which the clues had been strewn before. Without going too far into spoiler territory, this is where the Groundhog Day element dominates in a very far-reaching way. It calls for a significant suspension of disbelief, and renders certain characters and sub-plots less important than they initially seemed. How much that conceit appeals to you is a matter of individual taste. I thought it was decent, and they did go for a bold downer ending, which is not a return to status quo.

On the whole, TDH can be described as somewhat cliched and contrived. But it is also nicely polished and frequently effective. Fans of mystery/horror dramas might want to check it out, and it's only 6 hour long episodes.

Official trailer link:

I Start Counting [dir. David Greene]

I Start Counting (1970) is basically a Hitchcockian plot by way of kitchen sink realism. Specifically Shadow of a Doubt (1943), in which a young girl suspects her charming uncle of being a murderer, seems to have been in the mind of novelist Audrey Lindop when she wrote the 1966 book that became this movie.

Early teen Wynne (Jenny Agutter) is a adopted Catholic girl in a working class family who have just shifted home, because their old neighborhood is slated to be razed. Despite the mother's warnings she repeatedly visits the abandoned old homestead, finding comfort in old memories. Wynne also has a huge crush on her almost 20-years older stepbrother George (Bryan Marshall). She fantasizes romantic scenes with George and follows him about like an attention-seeking puppy. Her attempts to please him are rewarded by remarks like "You're a funny little biscuit". Wynne's ardor is so dominant that when she becomes suspicious of George being the dreaded serial murderer of young women in the neighborhood, she works to destroy the evidence she finds. This causes some conflict with her Catholic conscience. The other major characters in Wynne's life include her rebellious drug-taking second brother (Gregory Philips) whose collection of newspaper clippings of the killings may be more than idle hobby, and the saucy best friend (Claire Sutcliffe) who may be competition for her crush's attentions.

I Start Counting is not bad as low-key suspense dramas go, and Jenny Agutter shows fine form as the conflicted teen, but I found it underwhelming. Unlike the sensational promise of the posters, there's a tame TV movie feel to it (it's shot on 16mm, I think, and has that grainy diffuse look). The emotions are very on the nose, and it doesn't really grip you or get under your skin the way a Hitchcock film could, when he aimed for that. Helmer David Greene leans on the working class style opting to tamp down the drama. Some visual motifs like the White Rabbit doll on Wynne's bed are interesting (a metaphor for her Alice-like journey through the strange Wonderland of adolescence?), but under-developed. There are no bravura suspense sequences of the level that Hitchcock would have concocted. Basil Kirchin's score is prominent and unusual in its incorporation of sitar and tabla with jazz elements, although sometimes it also distracted me from the on-screen proceedings instead of underlying the action.

A few remarks on the UK blu-ray release from the BFI:

Given the modest production origins, the 2K restoration video on the BFI blu-ray is good. There are, I assume unavoidable, source limitations of brightness and density fluctuations. Audio is generally clear with a bold edge to the score. Optional English SDH subtitles are provided, but they may be on the smaller side for some people. Of the extras, which are plentiful, I have so far only seen the Jenny Agutter interview, in which she talks about her experience of making the film (It was a happy shoot with an enthusiastic director and some very helpful co-actors).

Trivia: Phil Collins has a one-scene appearance as an ice-cream vendor whose entire dialog, when asked if he has Neapolitan Tutti Frutti, is "Eh?"

HIT - The First Case [dir. Sailesh Kolanu]

It might seem like I'm doing a bait and switch with the title of the new Rajkummar Rao film, when this is actually my opinion for the Telugu original starring Vishwak Sen, which came out in 2020. But it's not just the name that is carried over. Going by the trailer of the Hindi remake, even the content of the films seems so identical that, slight differences in actors aside, I suspect you would be having a photocopy experience.

Vikram (Sen / Rao), the lead character of HIT (which stands for Homicide Investigation Team), is the investigator you have seen in a thousand modern detective shows. He ticks the columns of being (a) a brilliant but morose anti-social chap with (b) past trauma that gives him nightmares / hallucinations and (c) is is tasked with a case that has personal ramifications and threatens to burst his bubble of sanity. Vikram is so pathologically obsessed with the job he refuses to give it up even when his therapist warns him that his 'vitals' are failing, but the moment he takes a sabbatical on the insistence of his forensic scientist girlfriend Neha (Ruhani Sharma / Sanya Malhotra), she goes missing. Her disappearance seems linked with that of a young girl Preethi, who vanished one day after her car broke down on the highway. To find Neha, Vikram plunges headlong into cracking Preeti's case (for some reason, even though Neha disappears directly after digging up forensic evidence on Preeti's abduction, no one else thinks of connecting the two matters). Meanwhile he repeatedly gets stress-triggering flashbacks of a past trauma in which he is unable to save a girl being killed. I won't spoil it for you, but the reveal of the mystery calls for some serious suspension of disbelief, and characters acting in a manner that far exceeds their motivations.

Even with the cliches and contrivances, HIT has its moments of interest. Vikram gets so caught up in tracking down Neha he doesn't care about risking the lives of suspects. His superior officer (Bhanuchander / Dalip Tahil) uses him like a gifted bloodhound and indulges his eccentricities (though a botched narc test crosses even his line). There is an intriguing sequence of events early in the film showing Preeti's encounter with a disheveled cop Ibrahim (Murali Sharma / Milind Gunaji) who offers to drop her after her vehicle breakdown, and when she goes missing makes some forays towards tracking her, but a chain of circumstances lead to his ignominious suspension and the overlooking of crucial evidence till Vikram picks up on him later. At least in the Telugu version, the writing is solid in this segment and Murali Sharma's under-playing is a joy to watch. I actually wish the film had been more about this guy because...

For me, the lead character was a cold fish. I think a good deal of this has to do with Vishwak Sen's acting so perhaps the Hindi version fares better. True, Vikram is supposed be psychologically fatigued, but there is zero emotional  register in Sen's performance. Even in the writing the relationship between Vikram and Neha is a vacuum. Given that he refuses to share his past trauma with her, and doesn't seem one for cheery small talk, one wonders what apart from their work draws them together. That seems a bigger mystery than the one tackled in the film.

The Green Man [dir. Robert Day]

In a story that triggers brief memories of Ealing Studios' (ha!) killer comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets, The Green Man's protagonist (Alistair Sim) is an unprepossessing assassin who specializes in bomb hits. The story starts with our bomber giving a self-laudatory account of his career, leading up to his latest endeavor in progress - giving an explosive sendoff to a pompous politician when the man is at an incognito weekend getaway. 

Unfortunately the mousy secretary Sim had been pretending to court, to get info on his target's movements, becomes suspicious and insists on an explanation. Rather preposterously, she decides the best way to do this is to go alone to the home of the man she suspects of ulterior motives. Now Sim must silence her before she can spill the beans. For this he arranges to lure her into the heretofore untenanted neighboring house and dispatches his not entirely trustworthy assistant (John Chandos) to finish the job.

But in what seems the beginning of bad luck for him, the new tenants (Jill Adams and Colin Gordon) choose that very day to move in, and there's also a pushy vacuum cleaner salesman (George Cole). This leads to a merry rigmarole in which the characters run helter-skelter and even the corpse seems to have a life of its own. The final showdown is in the titular Green Man hotel, where the bomb is supposed to go off. Will Sim's plan succeed or will his neighbors be in time to stop it?

If you like classic dry British humor, there is much to enjoy in The Green Man. It is all very silly and not remotely believable, but that doesn't stop the film from being fun. In the script by Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder (of The Lady Vanishes fame), there seems to be a mischievous skewering of the snooty class, with characters called Upshott, Willoughby-Cruft and (really now) Boughtflower being the target of a lot of the humor. Alistair Sim is a consummate comic actor, carrying off his scenes with aplomb, and George Cole (who in real life was a protege of Sim) as the bumbling but dogged appliance pusher is an excellent foil. The much-loved British character actor Terry-Thomas as the Boughtflower character has a rather smaller role than one would have liked (he would have been excellent as the pompous politician target).

The film was also produced by Gilliat and Launder, who had a great regard for Alistair Sim. In fact it is said Robert Day (previously a camera operator) was a director more in name than deed, and the film was ghost-helmed by Sim (with some uncredited aid from Basil Dearden, who is seen directing  the cast in behind the scenes stills of the film).

For those interested, a few words on the UK blu-ray edition from Studio Canal:

The blu-ray gives an excellent clean presentation of this vintage movie with nice filmic detail and good contrast. The mono sound is limited by the source material (don't expect any floor-rattling explosions, and there is some hiss) but clear enough for the dialog which is the main thing. Extras include 3 approximately half-hour featurettes (plus a short photo gallery video)

Thupparivaalan aka Detective [dir. Mysskin]

A dedication at the start of Thupparivaalan salutes Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes and 'the mercurial' Jeremy Brett. But the detective hero of Mysskin's movie owes more to the rude arsehole of the Robert Downey Jr. interpretation. 'Action' star Vishal is Kaniyan Poongundran, the archaically named moody sleuth that 'rebels at stagnation' (in the hero introduction scene he stomps all over his book-lined apartment, petulantly demanding to be given a challenging case). He behaves like a  perfect tyrant with almost everyone, but most notably his 'Watson' Manohar (Prasanna) who seems a loser with no life of his own.

Kaniyan takes up the case of a schoolboy whose family dog was murdered, but the matter quickly escalates to a more sinister degree, involving a gang of assassins-for-hire (including a near-unrecognizable Bhagyaraj) who come up with some truly outre ways of carrying out their hits. The plot is all over the place, but Mysskin's writing delivers some ingenious fun moments, like when the killers carry out a Rube Goldberg scheme of offing a target with the help of nitrous oxide aka laughing gas - this would not be out of place in a Denny O' Neil - Dick Giordano 70's era Batman comic (for some reason, all mentions of nitrous oxide are bleeped out in the soundtrack, as though they were threatened with legal action by the gas manufacturers). Kaniyan's incongruous golf cap and ascot - standing in, one supposes, for Holmes' deerstalker and pipe - and the throwaway references to Tamil pulp fiction detective Sankarlal and Stanley Kubrick raise chuckles as well.

Thupparivaalan becomes less interesting in the bigger picture. The villains bandy a generic ruthlessness (the leader takes a coffee break in the middle of chainsawing a corpse, whoop-de-whoop), the 'HERO' action scenes and location hopping chases lose the idiosyncratic touch (although one of them ends in a memorably crazy Seppuku sequence). Also, Kaniyan's treatment of the token romance (a simpering Anu Emmanuel) is risible. But even while commercial, this film has more of the Mysskin personality than his Mugamoodi and is a decent watch for fans.

Zodiac [dir. David Fincher]

Last night I re-watched David Fincher's 2007 movie Zodiac and the film still manages to grip. Zodiac looks at the investigation of a series of unsolved murders during the late 60's and perhaps early 70's in the San Francisco Bay Area, committed by an intelligent but crazy killer who called himself the Zodiac, and after the acts sent taunting messages to the police and the press. This led to significant panic in the region, especially when the Zodiac in a published letter speculated about attacking school-buses and killing children, a plot point used in the first Dirty Harry (1971), which based its cold-blooded villain on the Zodiac.

In Fincher's film we see the investigation from the point of view of SFPD investigators David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards). The Zodiac's letters and cryptograms sent to the SF Chronicle newspaper also attract the attention of its crime journalist Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr) and cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal). While Avery's speculation on the Zodiac being a latent homosexual earned him a death threat (which the film suggests led to Avery's deterioration along with his alcoholism), Graysmith became obsessed with identifying the killer, unofficially interacting with the police and compiling information over several years, even to the detriment of his family life.

Zodiac is mainly a procedural, interested in the details of the investigation, the politics of cooperation between different jurisdictions, the landslide of drudge-work and official pressure once the killings become public knowledge. Unlike Fincher's previous serial killer feature Se7en, this film is not particularly interested in the killer's motivation or in exploring his psyche. And despite its lack of a conclusive denouement (although there were some strong suspects the killer was never identified) Zodiac also does not have the nihilistic aftertaste which defined its predecessor. The case dies down, Toschi and Graysmith carry on with their lives.

Under Fincher's measured vision, Zodiac for all its sprawl is an unrelentingly focused film, eschewing high style but still keeping us engaged all through its nearly 160min running time. Especially in Ruffalo's Toschi, we see an investigator doggedly pursue his quest, growing older and more frustrated as time wears on with no clear answers forthcoming. Gyllenaal's Graysmith goes from cheerfully curious to disturbingly obsessed. He is so convinced of a suspect's guilt he says, "Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true" only for Toschi to respond ironically with "Easy, Dirty Harry".

A few notes on the blu-ray release for those interested:

I got Paramount's 2-BD set in 2011 for nearly 30$ when it reported to be going OOP. The only other option that time was the UK release in which film and HD extras were all stuffed onto a single disc (and lossy Dolby instead of the US release's TrueHD track). unfortunately for me, in this case, what going OOP meant was that Paramount's film library was going to be distributed by Warner Bros in the US, and so that same package came to be re-released by Warner (and later by Paramount again), frequently hitting the sub-10$ bargain bins. Gnaar! Oh well, so long as one doesn't compare it's still a strong offering for the price.

Zodiac was shot digitally, and although I think 35mm would have been stunning, it looks quite good (Fincher's penchant for yellow filters aside). It is the first time since getting a surround setup that I am watching the film and I'm shocked at how front-loaded the track is. Most of the time I can't hear anything significant from the rear speakers. Dialog occasionally struggles for clarity above the music and ambient effects.

I have seen most of the extras on previous viewings but outlining them for completion's sake: On the feature disc there are 2 commentary tracks, one with Fincher and one with the actors, writers and whoa, James Ellroy. Disc 2 contains a multi-part making of the film, showcasing Fincher's obsessive penchant for authenticity of props and huge number of retakes. Of course everyone is in awe of the director and gushes over the opportunity to work with him. There is also a feature-length documentary covering the confirmed Zodiac murders, talking with investigating police personnel and survivors of those incidents.

A Date with a Serial Killer

...or how I had one of the most memorable evenings in recent time.

Thanks to a post shared by Facebook pal Aseem C (who I should make the effort to meet in real life soon), I got to know of a screening, arranged by Drishyam Films, of director Sriram Raghavan's early effort, a docu-drama on Raman Raghav, the notorious serial killer of 60's Bombay. The film itself for the longest time was almost a myth. It was made by Raghavan sometime in 1991; I recall reading about it around a similar time, while in college. Then I had no clue who Sriram Raghavan was, but I still remember that particular article had a B&W still of actor Raghubir Yadav in the title role (which made me think the film was in B&W, which would be another interesting way of filming it). But Raman Raghav was never ever released anywhere or screened on any television network, so you can imagine my thrill at the prospect of being actually able to watch it.

I registered on the Drishyam Films website last Friday but didn't receive any response communique from them, not even to the message I sent on their "Contact Us" tab about whether or not my registration was confirmed. It was therefore with some trepidation that I made my way towards the venue (the PVR multiplex at Citi Mall, Andheri West - formerly Fame Adlabs), since it meant I had to rush directly from work and jump through multiple modes of transport (including the occasional bits of jogging on and off the pavement, when the Navratri climax evening traffic meant any vehicular transport was useless). Breathlessly I reached the venue just a little after 8pm when the screening was scheduled to begin. The real bit of uh-oh moment occurred when at the counter my name was not present in the participants list and I was asked if I had received any confirmatory message. On giving my whole story (with woebegone face and specific emphasis on the enormous distance I had traveled across the city specifically to be able to watch this film), I and some others were asked to wait with the promise that if some half dozen or more reserved names didn't turn up within the next 10 min when the screening was due to start, the tickets would be handed on a first come basis. While I sympathize with anyone that didn't make it on account of being stuck in Andher Nagri's traffic, I was quite happy to receive a ticket at the end of that interval and bounded happy-puppy-like up the stairs to the screening floor. I was making my way among the crowd to the venue screen when I saw in front of me, Sriram Raghavan himself, chatting with some people I presumed to be part of the organizers. With the mixture of schoolboy glee and tongue-tiedness that invariably hits me upon meeting a celebrity I admire, I announced myself as a fan who had seen all his other films including The Eight Column Affair (a brilliant short made during his FTII stint), Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddaar and Badlapur (for reasons well-understood I left out a certain overblown where-did-the-fun-go secret agent misfire). Taking advantage of  his soft-spoken thanks I held out my DVD covers of JG and Badlapur for autographs, which he kindly obliged (Woohoo!).

Eat your hearts out, hehehe!

The charmed nature of the evening continued. After being called on stage (the emcee was Atul Sabharwal who had scripted My Wife's Murder), Raghavan briefly explained the history of the film, cautioning repeatedly to temper our expectations with the fact that it was shot nearly 25 years ago on the U-matic videotape format. Even the mandatory pre-movie playing of the national anthem was made more interesting with an all-instrumental interpretation featuring the who's who of Indian classical music. Then, the film rolled.

If Sriram had any fear of the audience being disappointed in this early no-budget effort (3.5 lakhs all inclusive, he later revealed), they proved entirely groundless. Raman Raghav is a testament that a talented director will shine regardless of the budget and format. Even in his maiden feature, he shows the trademarks of his better known films - the long meticulous tracking shots, the careful scene transitions, the jolts of brutal action to punctuate the intensity of the scene than revel in the gratuitous overkill, the ability to introduce sly humor in the midst of suspense, surgically precise editing, astounding attention to detail and almost symphonic arrangement of "movements" in the sound design. The other strong point of the film is of course Raghubir Yadav's portrayal of the killer. The film being based on true events and recorded testimonies, Raman Raghav is not presented as some ultra-genius Hannibal playing cat-and-mouse with the cops, but a morose and simple-minded but highly disturbed individual who killed without any consideration to human life and got away for as long as he did on sheer luck.

Quick snap on a crappy phone-cam, L-R Sriram Raghavan, Raghubir Yadav and Atul Sabharwal.

Anyway, I won't spoil any of the film for you people, and I really hope there is some opportunity for this to come out on home video or on youtube so it can be seen by a wider audience. From Raghavan's own words at the post-film QA, it has only been shown at some festivals (including the first Bombay Film festival). While he does not own the rights, he can connect interested folks to the rights-holders (If that happens, I know there are at least a dozen people on my list of friends alone, who would be thrilled to get this on home video). The other pleasant surprise of the evening was the announcement of Raghubir Yadav to participate in the QA session. In his characteristic impeccable Hindi, a relaxed Mr. Yadav talked about his experience of making the film, shooting in outdoor locations which would not be possible anymore, his preparation, including avoiding baths so that he always had an unclean feeling. Sriram talked about how this was originally conceived as a series of video-films on various high-profile cases the police had solved, but I have not heard of any other films in this line so perhaps it did not materialize as planned. Sriram's own approach to the script changed once he started filming, focusing more on the character of the deranged killer, although he did have to retain a certain amount of police investigation material to meet the producer's requirement.

So a fantastic movie evening for this self-proclaimed film buff. I just had time for a quick bite (a pretty decent chicken burger at a Dunkin' Donuts), then off homewards so I could write you lucky folks this here blog.

Ebar Shabor [dir. Arindam Sil]

While ostensibly a murder mystery with a trademark eccentric sleuth (the title itself is a play on the previously released Abar Byomkesh), whodunit (and how) is the least of the script's concerns. Physical investigation of the crime scene and accessory locations, forensic studies, circumstantial evidence - the tools of the normal detective story - barely come into play here. What we have is more in the vein of character exploration. By a series of interrogations, with some subjects repeatedly questioned in the light of new information, the film is more concerned with unraveling the facets of the ensemble cast, including the victim herself. To be sure this is no L' Avventura style meditation on the modern human condition, not by a thousand miles. But the film is not ashamed of its simplicity and sincere enough to its premise to make it worth the sitting through, at least for me.

Fans of Bengali sleuth movies will find amusing meta-trivia in the casting. Saswata Chatterjee, who previously played the Watson-esque parts of Topshe in the Feluda series and Ajit in the Byomkesh Bakshi films, is cast as Police Detective Shabor Dasgupta, while Abir Chatterjee, the new face of both Feluda and Byomkesh at the cinema, plays a pivotal supporting role. Shabor's approach to questioning his suspects is to first provoke them by accusing them of the crime, and then draw out the facts he wants. He has a deadpan demeanor, and is egoistic and abrasive (thankfully not so much as some of the newer portrayals of Sherlock Holmes), but can be compassionate on occasion and is not averse to putting aside the rulebook.

Typically, the supporting characters in a detective film tend to be flat, hastily scribbled out caricatures that at various points fulfill the role of potential suspects (complete with shifty glances and sweat-lined brows). This film is more interested in giving us a rounded portrayal, doling out information in select dollops till we get a more complete picture of each person. It also helps that the actors are very good in their parts. There are no deliciously complex layers or noir elements, and the writing could definitely have been better, but the overall effect of this approach is pleasant and engaging.

You could argue that as a detective story it stumbles, because apart from the repeated QA sessions there is no real detective work being done - the actual culprit would likely have been nabbed with much less backtracking if some physical evidence was also analyzed. The chase scenes seem like last minute additions, indifferently shot and making little sense in the context. The overall effect is more that of a telefilm than a cinema feature.

But even tele-films can be an interesting diversion, and Ebar Shabor can in my view definitely be described as an interesting diversion.