Thursday 16 June 2011

Shaitan [2011]


Bejoy Nambiar had won a competition comprising of aspiring filmmakers and he was supposed get an opportunity to direct a movie backed by Ashok Amritraj. Amritraj, who’s spent his life producing sub-par genre films, didn’t honour his commitment, and fortunately for the wannabe filmmaker, the maverick Anurag Kashyap stepped in in the nick of time. Shaitan is a dark, psychedelic and wickedly funny tale of five friends, and their hallucinatory journey through hell. The five delinquent, emotionally bankrupt youngsters, most hailing from wealthy families, end up inadvertently committing a crime during one of their many hedonistic sprees, thus setting them on a rollercoaster ride involving blackmail and murder. Meanwhile, an excellent cop, who has long stopped acting by the books, takes charge of the hunt. The hyperstylized, unabashedly violent and deliriously amoral film is unrestrained in its depiction of a modern-day urban dystopia. The film however is not without its drawbacks. For one, the young director’s overindulgence ought to have been kept under a tight check by Kashyap. Further, since most of the characters have been painted in broad strokes, they end up just as “types”. And not to forget, it started seeming overlong by the third quarter. Nonetheless, criticisms aside, the film has provided ample proof of Nambiar’s immense potential as a filmmaker.








Director: Bejoy Nambiar
Genre: Thriller/Black Comedy/Crime Thriller/Psychedelic Thriller
Language: Hindi
Country: India

1 comment:

Arnab Tumpy said...

A good attempt ... Psychedellic themes are almost untouched in Indian cinema .. Kudos to Nambier to make a script such a theme and present it in a almost mainstream manner.. Thumbs up to Anurag Kashyap for backing such a product..

P.S : Khoya Khoya Chand sequence was awesome