Over the course of one night, the delicate protagonist is forced to go from prey to predator, from victim to slasher. But her transformation is so performative that it’s funny. Like a flick of a switch, Apurva’s face suddenly becomes steely – and that’s how we know she can’t be messed with anymore. (I’m just surprised that the sky didn’t open up to reveal herself as a mythological figure – or the rebooted heroine of Anjaam). One moment stands out in particular. A dacoit is stuck at the bottom of a well, on the verge of drowning. When he looks up, he thinks he sees his colleague, but it happens to be Apurva. She isn’t cowering though. On the contrary, she is shining a flashlight onto her own face – to create that horribly misplaced “I’m here to haunt you” effect – before she hurls a rock at him. He probably dies of mediocrity-by-association before the rock gets to him. It’s like she knows she’s in a film, and the film knows it’s a film, but the narrative refuses to understand the relationship between survival, self-defense and cold-blooded revenge. Who has the time to stage their own entry during such a crisis?
Revelling in Vulgarity
This movie has 99 problems and a 95-minute runtime ain’t one. It’s mercifully brief, but it still manages to make us squirm (in a bad way). For the most part, the four dacoits are treated as the central characters of the story. I don’t mind the perspective, but one can sense the film is revelling in their vulgarity. They’re sick and brutal in a very showy manner, cackling like hyenas and torturing everything that moves, as if they were malfunctioning Anurag Kashyap characters. The gaze comes from a space of torture porn. Even if the intent is to show how monstrous these men are, the style here screams for attention, because it remains at odds with the (cultural) setting. What is the point of a scene in which one of them stubs a cigarette onto the palm of an unconscious Apurva before proceeding to unbutton her top? Or a moment where the four louts have a pissing contest? What is the point of the youngest of them clicking a selfie with a corpse? What is the point of hearing them casually discuss who will rape her first?