Andhadhun

We're in. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Bollywood Cinema Club, a podcast where every other week we take a look at Indian cinema, be it Bollywood, Dollywood, Hollywood, everything in between. I am the host of the Culture Cast Chris Stashue. This is a spinoff show from the Culture Cast. If you want to hear more episodes of well us talking about Indian cinema, you can find him here and over at the Culture Cast.

Once a year, we did an entire month of it. On this episode of The Bollywood Cinema Club, I am joined by my good friend. He is a musician. He is the host of several shows over on the weirding Way Media Network, including but not limited to Noise Junkies Night, Mister Walters and Wolf and Raisin the Banchek Podcast. He's also on The Culture Cast from time to time, and he's known Father Malone longer than anybody else has known Father Malone that I know, your friend and mine HP.

Thank you, Chris. Glad to be here. And I'm impressed you got all that out without having to stop for breath. It's impressive. Yeah.

Well, I'm I'm like one of those lizards. I breathe through my eyelids. So for your prop your consummate pro it's great. And on this episode of the Bollywood Cinema Club, HP and I are gonna be talking about a more contemporary film. I mean, we talk about kind of all kinds of movies, all kind of Indian cinema here, old movies, new movies, everything in between.

We're gonna be talking about a little film from twenty eighteen that got a whole lot of of well notoriety, got a lot on a lot of awards. Why is that? Because it's a good movie. We're gonna be talking about Suri arm raghavans An hand Hun, which is roughly translated to blind Tune. So the film does star Tabu, a Yushman, Karana Radka update and a Nil Dawan And it is, like I mentioned, directed and written by Surinam Ragavan.

And it's all about well Akash who is a blind pianist who gets wrapped up in a murder involving a well, a very well known Indian star. And yeah, there's gonna be spoilers. I think we could just get this out of the way here before we even talk about it. This movie is worth watching. I think it's best to go into it knowing nothing like you probably did, like I probably did, do not look this movie up ahead of time.

Just know that it's about a blind musician, and that's it, because this movie is fantastic, Harris, non spoilery talk, but what kind of what would you say? Overall thoughts are not spoiling the movie. So not spoiling the movie, so I would for look, I came into this not well acquainted at all with Indian cinema. But if I was going to compare this to something that maybe Western audiences might be more comfortable with and understand, would be something maybe like a Cohen Brothers movie, like I've seen it compared to Fargo, and I think that's a pretty fair comparison. It's it's a very black comedy with aspects of a thriller.

It's suspenseful, and it's it's funny as hell. It's a black comedy kind of at its core, but there's all sorts of other elements that play into it, much like a Cohen Brothers movie. Yeah, no, I'm right there with you. It is a It is one of the more kind of I would say interesting Indian cinema movies because it really leans on things that are very like you've already mentioned, recognizable to a Western audience. This is a perfect entry point into Indians cinema for a Western audience.

A. It's on Netflix, which is super easy for anybody to find. B it's on Netflix, and see it's on Netflix, which everybody effectively has at this point. And I know Prime video exists, and I know YouTube exists. But again, the fact that any of these movies are able to be found so easily in the States, I will never be able to appreciate that any more than I already do, which is immensely because sometimes it is a struggle to find these movies unfortunately, because well it's a struggle to find a lot of things pre nineteen nineties that came out in this country at least, and try finding something that came out in India in the mid seventies and finding American subtitles for it.

So I appreciate the hell out of this that this is on Netflix. But all that out of the way, this is one of the best Indian cinema films I've seen. It's just when you think you have the film figured out, it takes another turn. And it never feels like, at least for me, it never feels like it takes a turn that isn't unearned and all. So, you know, our mutual friend FM, him and I have talked about movies with twists before, and they seem to irk him because most of the time, as someone like yourself or myself or himself, we're watching we watched movies all the time, so we're seeing these tropes being recycled.

While I felt like I knew where this movie was going, it really surprised me, which doesn't factor into whether or not I liked it, But I appreciate that even as a consummate cinophile like I happen to be, and I know you are, I can still be surprised narratively by films, and this is one that really surprised me. It shouldn't be surprising to anyone that this movie was successful. It's been remade three separate times in India as Maestro Braham and ant Hagan so in Telugu and Mylam and in Tamil. So I mean that alone should give you an idea of the success of this movie. But yeah, this let's talk spoilers.

So you mentioned the Cohen Brothers, and that I think is the best comparison because I wanted to say like neo noir, but it's not. But it at times kind of like wants to be and it feels like it's going to be, but then it abandons it, I think rightfully so for something else, but the Cohen Brothers I think is like the perfect the perfect kind of comparison, at least, like you said, for a for a Western audience. Yeah, and I think what you said is is I couldn't agree more that this movie takes a lot of twists and turns and goes in places you don't expect. But for me, this is this is my entry point to Indian cinema. The only other picture I think I've ever seen that qualifies would be something like Monsoon Wedding, which I think was made with the intent of a broader audience twenty years ago or whatever.

But great film. By the way. No, it is not to put it down as something that's mass marketed. But but for me that the thing what you said about everything being earned is true because what I kept expecting as an un an issue viewer is it never took a turn into the fantastical or something that just seemed completely like out of the realm of the universe of the movie. It never gotten too weird if if if that's makes sense there where it you know it all it takes place in this it's it's an odd little universe that it takes place in, if you will, But it's not fantastical, and it's not it's very well grounded and the characters all, you know, the motivations are clear, and I felt a little bit it was kind of it was nice for me to be eased into this genre of cinema that I had no familiarity with, in something that had recognizable Western tropes, and uh, you know, it felt familiar to me and I could really get into the picture a little bit more and kind of appreciate the non Western aspects of it.

So let's talk a little bit about kind of the setup and the care So, like I mentioned, you have Ashaman Karana playing Akash, who is this blind musician, at least that's what we're led to believe in the setup of the film, and he is trying to improve his piano skills and he runs into Sophie, whose father owns a bar, and he starts going to play at the bar for the patrons. Yeah, technically, Sophie runs into him with her scooter after saying to someone else, are you blind the point she then hits the suppose it against pose it blind man and he brings her to their bar and he essentially sets up a residency in the bar with the piano and he's playing for the patrons. One of the patrons played by Anil Dawan.

He plays Pramad Sinha, who is kind of a kind of like Ami tab I guess they're trying to make him be this like old school, really famous, well known Indian cinema actor. And he comes in with his wife played by the Fantastic and everything she's in Tabu. She plays his wife see Me, and he wants to hire a cosh to come to their apartment, their high rise apartment and play as a surprise for her on their anniversary. And a cosh who we find out before he goes, I think in one of the best parts in his entire movie, when he just I didn't expect him to not be blind. I'm just gonna level like I didn't expect that.

One of the immediate twists in the first twenty minutes of the movie was, Oh, he's not actually blind. He narrates, and he basically says, you know, he focuses is important to a musician, and the way that he's able to focus on these complex you know, he's trying to learn a song for a competition. He pretends that he's blind so that he is focused solely on his hands on the music and can exclude everything else around him. So he puts in like contact lenses that I presume make him blind. Essentially, he can't see, and he sleeps with a with a mask, so you know, he can get around his apartment.

And yeah, he lives essentially. We don't know how long, but we can presume for a long time, long enough that everybody in his orbit, they all believe he's blind. They don't even suspect the thing. But he's not at all. No, he's not.

He's not it. And literally it's revealed, like you said, within the first twenty minutes. So it's this is this is a critical spoiler, like it's not, but it's so there's so much more to come, so many twists and turns and things that it's almost like this is just an appetizer for what's to come. Well, and the way that they do it is so smart. They don't make any like fanfare of it.

You just see him looking in the mirror and then you see him take the contacts out and that's it. That's all. That's all the director and the cinematographer give you. It's not this you know done an no, no, no, no. You know, him taking the context and oh my god, he's been able to see this whole time.

And I think that, like you just mentioned, it really set the tone for me because I was like, oh my god, like this is you're doing this right now? Like where are you going in the next you know, two and a half hours, because this movie clocks in at about two hours and fifteen minutes, which is, you know, on the shorter side of a lot of Indian cinema. There's a reason for that. There aren't a whole lot of musical numbers in the film. There are two or three, but they're not not the way that they are normally an Indian cinema, or at least the way that I assume you probably expected they were going to be.

Right sure, yeah, you know, and it has to be said, like the few that are in there, they're fantastic, right, Like I got a taste of what stereotypically what I would expect, which is an elaborate There were no elaborate choreographed musical numbers, like you know, someone who doesn't know a lot about it would expect. But the ones that are there, like the first one is basically he's playing at the restaurant and the song lyrics are reflecting on his kind of getting swept up in the romance with Sophie and how happy he is and the cam was gliding all around and it's beautiful, it's beautifully shot. And it has to be said also, these musical numbers all have lyrics that comment in some funny way to what's happening, like in this case, like the lyrics make reference to his eyes and how you know, his innocent eyes or something, and it's like, because we know that he you know, it's almost the rye comment on the fact that we know that he's fooling everybody into thinking he's blind.

But the song is all about eyes. It's interesting. I don't know, I thought that was fascinating. Well, and what's funny is, you know, this isn't the first time someone has mentioned it, but you know, I've never gotten a chance to kind of give my at least not headcannon, but kind of the way I interpret songs in Indian cinema. Obviously, in this one, I would say it's more or less it would you could classify it as diagetic, even like the musical numbers, right, because he's performing in the space for those people, while it kind of goes into more flights of fancy a little bit where you kind of have things happening that wouldn't be happening in a space performing for music music for people.

A lot of the Indian cinema, at least a lot of the songs, I always kind of interpret them as like we're taking a moment to see inside the character's head and kind of how they're feeling or how they would be feeling through the context of song. And that is something that I do appreciate, and clearly you do as well, that the songs aren't just you know, it's a musical number in the in the vein of a musical where there's some sort of plot furthering or character growth through the music, which I, like yourself, I appreciate that. I understand how in a movie like this, they could have gotten wrapped up in like overloading it with music because he's a musician. But him being a musician ends up not being as big of a deal as you would think, which I again kind of appreciate because I was I was worried, but I was kind of like, oh, is this going to be like a music heavy film because he's a musician, And they didn't go there.

But like you said, music numbers that they do have are so good I kind of wanted more. Yeah, I agree, But at the end of the day, like you know, when all of a sudden done, really he could have almost been They could have made him a chef, right, a blind chef that has to go to the house to make a dinner for the for the couple, and it wasn't him being a musician was a nice way to work in some music and kind of add that that color to his personality. But it could have been almost anything and it wouldn't have taken away from like, it wasn't central to the plot. It was a means to an end in my opinion, which I appreciate. So Akash goes to this apartment and he shows up and the wife says, hey, you know, I don't know who you are.

Why are you here? He says, hey, your husband called me. Let me in. And he comes in and again he's having to pretend that he's blind, and he walks in and he sees it before the audience sees it. But we find out that the wife, ceb has A, along with the inspector Manohar Jawanda played by Mana vij have murdered her husband.

Though she claims it was an accident. We don't ever get any kind of confirmation, never what it was. But yeah, we never That's the interesting thing because we presume it was murder. But all you ever see in a flashbacket and this movie is filled with unreliable narrators, which, yes, which flash forward will be crucial to the end of this movie. We'll get to that.

But all you end up seeing is uh Pramad comes home. He's going to surprise his wife. Now, it has to be said, his wife is very much younger than him. He's an older man, so there's a little bit of tension around the fact that she is, you know, a much younger woman and for this older men. They give it that scene at the beginning of the movie where you see the relationship between the two of them and it doesn't seem antagonistic.

You kind of get there's that kind of fake out, which that fake out works because again, yeah, don't know where this is going, but there's this like fake out of her claiming that he's going to poison her, and then she's like, no, no, I was just I was just acting. But I appreciate that the movie takes the time to give us a scene between the two of them so that we can see, well, this isn't some sort of antagonistic relationship. They're not at each other's throats like ostensibly, it seems like they love each other. Yeah, and it's interesting because this movie, it's interesting. They made reference to a lot of Shakespeare, and it kind of starts in that scene because they have this playful banter.

He's recording her doing a fake cooking show and they're being very sweet to each other. And then she hugs him and she's been cooking with peppers or something, and she wraps her arms around his neck to hug him, and you see that her hands are red from whatever she's cooking, giving you that idea like there's already blood on her hands. Before she's actually done anything, which is a reference to Macbeth, which is also referenced later somebody calls her off handedly Macbeth and someone actually makes reference to Hamlet. I just thought that was kind of cool. But at the very you know at the beginning that there's something not right here, because they really hammer home in the fact that she has, you know, metaphorical blood on her hands or will be involved in something that is maybe a bit unsavory.

So but yeah, so she so and it's a wonderfully tense scene. Getting back to when a cash it has come to the house and uh he sees that, you know, there's there's stuff strewn all over the floor, there's candy and flowers, and there's blood, and there is her husband, ProMED and he's dead. He's slumped in the hallway, and I think she takes she takes him into the bathroom, right because he says he has to go to the bathroom. And he goes into the bathroom and the inspector uh is in there, and it's so you just you don't know what's going to happen. You feel like anything could happen.

He could he could get shot by this guy. He's got to walk a very fine, you know, tightrope to make sure that he's seeing enough. But he doesn't want them to suspect because once they think that he can see he does, anything could happen. He could be murdered right there. So then he comes out.

She takes him to the piano, and she tells him to play, and it's really ostensibly from his point of view while he's playing this song, and she every once in a while, we'll applaud to keep him, you know, thinking that nothing's wrong. They clean up the body. They stuff the body into a giant suitcase that they have to open the suitcase to get his watch, the dead man's watch, and his rings off his hand. And this is all happening in real time as he's playing and pretending that he's not seeing what he's Uh. It was so it was I'm just even thinking about it.

It was so suspenseful. It was wonderful. I wish, I wish I could have written a scene as well as this, Like I know that there is essentially another like two hours of the movie afterwards. Yeah, but that scene alone is just a masterclass and how you build suspense with so many moving pieces because so many things. And mind you, we've we've called him the inspector now a couple of times, the kind of the confederate of the wife.

We don't know at the time. He's the police inspector, which is the which is again another twist, because once a cosh gets out of the apartment, he goes, as any of us would, He's like, oh my god, I gotta get to the cops. I gotta tell the cops. I gotta tell the cops. Walks into the police station, sits down, he says, I gotta I gotta tell somebody there's been a murder.

All right, we'll go get the inspector who walks in, but the guy that he just saw, and yeah, I just yeah, only shit, Like the movie is. The movie's been going for thirty minutes at this point, and we're already so far into like the like the rabbit hole of the movie that you can't, like, thirty minutes in and you don't even know where this movie is going because it's already gone so many places in such a short span of time. Yeah, you're you're sucked in because now you're like, what is going to happen here? Everything that's like this is why it's like a Cohen Brothers movie, because you know, it's like one mishap after the next that just keeps on snowballing. And then so so then he changes his story that, oh no, it was a cat.

So then they say, all right, Inspector mo Hinder, you take this guy to his apartment. Now he's going to go to his apartment with the guy that he knows is frankly he thinks as a murderer. Maybe he's not, but he believes he is. And the guy's asking him all these questions, what colors the cat? How do you know what color the cat is?

You're supposed to be blind? I loved then. I loved that question. It was such a that's like the oh my god, the scriptwriting in this movie. It drives me nuts that it's just like it's so pit, it's so perfect, like they're they're they're asking the questions that someone who has seen movies like this and has seen somebody write these scenes before would go, yeah, but could we ask this as well?

And like it just it further reinforces like he has to be so perfect in all of these scenes. Akoshta, like even from just like him as a performer standpoint, because he sells it for the audience long enough that we believe it, but he has to keep selling it for the characters in the movie, and he's doing that really well, even in those scenes. And when you get to see him kind of he's in another room and all of a sudden, he's not in eyesight of the inspector, so he's grabbing his contacts and doing things. It's like, I don't want to be hyperbolic, but it really bums me out that I had never heard of this movie before, because this movie is crazy, like it's actually insane. That the tension of those scenes, I can't I can't describe it other than it was exquisite.

I hate to I mean, that's such a flowery word, but it was like, if you're not as a viewer, if you're not grabbed in those thirty minutes to what you've just witnessed and you want to see how this is going to end up, I don't know what to tell you you're not. It's like you can't help but be sucked into the movie at that point. It's so great and and that for me, like you know, I've thought about movies that I would introduce people too that would be good entry points for Indian cinema. This may now be the movie for me because again, in two hours and two and a quarter, it moves along at a crazy clip. I mean again, we've we've we've been talking for about twenty five minutes and we're only about a third of the way into this movie and we haven't even talked about the crazier things where this movie ends up kind of really going.

But the fact that within the first thirty minutes of the movie we have a murder, a blinding, and an unblinding, and then all of this this tension with kind of him trying to out with the murderer's post murder, and then and then and then, and that's what this movie feels like, just and then. But oftentimes with a movie like this, they kind of by doing all the twists, they twist themselves into a corner and then they don't. They set it up, but they don't know how to pay it off. That being said, turns out that the neighbors saw a cosh come home. She remembers the order of people.

She knows that the inspector came before he did. She knows that the husband came before he did. She goes and tells the other inspector at the funeral, Hey, by the way, the order of the people showing up wasn't correct. Well, that that neighbor that neighbor gets would you say unsummarily taken care of? It's so abrupt, like you know, it has to be said, I think what basically like it's implied and not so implied that the police are just corrupt, like you need money to really get anything to happen, so it really shouldn't be surprising that they're not taking her seriously.

But yeah, so, uh, see me, hears this or or or figures out or finds out that she's been saying. No, there was a there was another man that came before before her husband, and then there was another guy after the fact, so now you know. But then so see me. Basically just I'm not gonna just there's the other way to say it. She throws the older neighbor over a ledge, just through her to her death.

Just complains of a headache. The woman goes to get her an aspirin or something. She comes back and then she just shoves her right off the ledge with no real fans there, it's just like boom, that's it. And this is still when Akosh is supposed to be blind, And of course they wouldn't give you this scene without giving you something more. They have the elevator doors of him that he's in opening as she's throwing her off the ledge, and he has to pretend that he's blind and didn't see it.

It's like every opportunity in this movie where they have a chance to really do just that little bit more, they do. And that's what makes this movie so much better than the kind of movie like this that I've seen before where it just wants to oh, crazy twist and that's it. Like this is just like ratcheting it up and ratcheting it up and ratcheting it up in a logical way because, like we've mentioned, the inspector and the wife are in cahoots, but the inspector also has his own wife who he's trying to evade her finding out, and and she also has a daughter that she's trying to evade finding out that she murdered her husband. Her husband there, her the daughter's father. There's so many like moving parts in this movie that being like there's a reason the script has five names on it, and yet somehow five names doesn't make this movie convoluted in a in a negative way.

No, it's in a good way. It's absolutely a good way. Yeah. So she see me and Akash go back to his house and this is again and I didn't see this coming, no pun intended. She poisons him, finds out that he's not blind, and by poisoning him, I mean she actually makes him blind.

Well that's I was wondering about that because I thought. So she comes in and she gives him prayer offerings like sweets. Yeah, yeah, so he eats them and then they sit down. He brings them coffee and just to test, like she suspects that he's not blind, so as he's pouring it, she pours something out of a little vial into his coffee to basically force him to admit because he's not going to drink the stuff. And then that you find out that she's drugged the prayer offerings.

But it wasn't clear to me, like did because he passes out? Was something in the drug what caused him to go blind? Or did she do something because they say later on that he needs to have a cornya transplant. So I was thinking after the fact, Like initially I thought, yeah, it was something in the drug that made him go blind, but I also thought I could also see her blinding him while he's unconscious doing because his eyes are all messed up. They're like when he wakes up, they look like the contacts.

Yeah yeah, and he Yeah, it's really crazy. But yeah, somehow either she poisons him and he gets blinded from that, or she like does something to his eyes while he's passed out. Yeah, she tells the inspector. She's like, there's plenty of ways to look up on the internet how to blind someone. I looked.

I just googled it out of curiosity. I couldn't find anything. So I don't know. Look, I have no idea. Again, I'm just gonna go off of what she said.

But like, I didn't know that there was something you could give to someone that would make their eyes like do that. Well, I know, like you know, I've heard, like you know, in the days when they were making bathtub gin, like it was so strong that it could blind you. Like that was a real danger back then. So I don't know, I don't think that's that figures into this at all, but at the end of the day, I just I it's just a little more kind of like, I don't know, not just kind of chilling. If she did something to his eyes while he was asleep, I find that a little bit creepier, if you will.

But he wakes up and he's now blind, and he freaks out as you would expect that you would waking up and now being blind, and then but talking about all these pieces kind of fitting together basically at the same time. Like, so he passes out, and the woman from the beginning, Sophie, the woman that ran into him with her scooter, is now they've had a romantic relationship to get they've gotten intimate, and she's coming to his apartment and there's a little boy who's you get the sense he's kind of a troublemaker outside of hanging around shit is what he is. Right, So, unbeknownst to a gosh, he's secretly filmed him going through his non blind ritual, Like he's recorded him with like a stick and a phone to prove that.

I don't know what his motivation was, but he proves that he's not blind. I guess it's like he didn't like him, like that's like the only thing in the movie that kind of felt like a slight contrivance was that kid having an issue with him. But I guess if they just didn't like each other, right, he's just an agent of chaos. So so Sophie gets there and the kid says to him, Hey, pay me fifty rupees and I'll show you my video. Basically, he shows Sophie the video proving that he's not blind.

So she storms up to his apartment to base to give him a piece of her mind, and seem comes to the door as if she's getting dressed. She basically implies that she's been having She puts on this display that maybe she's had an affair with Akash. I guess so yeah, So, so Sophie freaks because he's passed out in the bed half naked. So Sophie understandably says, you know, she's upset. She storms off.

She accuses him of not even being blind, blah blah blah. And that's when I think that's when Akosh wakes up and goes, oh my god, what did you do to me? I'm actually blind now right now, now, I'm really in trouble. It's it's but like you said, it's just one hairpin turn after the next that you don't really expect well, and it's and what's so smart is you have the scene of her coming into his apartment to go, hey, I know you're not blind, and this is at the same time where he is actually turned blind. Yeah, it's the Again, it's so smart and so kind of again it's really it's smart, but it's also really tongue and cheek because it's it's playing on your kind of expectations for what this is going to be, but at the same time also just going like we're just going to do whatever the hell we want ultimately, and now he's blind and yeah, like narratively he's blinding, but really he's actually blind though, because that's again this movie is filled with people who are being deceitful.

Yeah, you know, I Cash is being deceitful from the first frame about being blind, seem is deceitful about her affair with the inspector. The inspector is deceitful about his involvement and everything. So really everybody, seemingly most of the people in the movie have an agenda, are something they're trying to hide from somebody else, even the hero of the piece. You know, Gosh, he's got a lot to answer for beyond the fact that he's in this predicament. I mean, he was playing at being blind.

That's kind of awful when you think about it, no matter the motive, completely awful. I do find it funny and it feels like a movie thing. When someone runs into someone in a movie who's blind, they have to like convince themselves themselves the character that that person is blind as a like I have met blind people in real life, as I'm sure you have, and I'm not like, hey, can you how many fingers am I holding? You know, like everybody in cinema is always so suspicious of someone who's blind. There's not a lot of that, it has to be said, there's not a lot of that in this picture.

There's one at one point, like the inspector, the guy having the affair comes so so after this all happens, he goes to the apartment basically to kill a Gosh. At this point, Simmy has told him that he's here, and I think at one point, like he might have waved his hand in front of his face to test whether he's blind or something. But that's about it. Everybody else kind of takes him at his word that he's blind, you know, which is which is good, which is refreshing because you would expect, like you said, how many fingers fake punch are gonna flinch? Like there's none of that.

And and I also really appreciate you know, you mentioned that the inspector then comes to his apartment to kill him, you know, the the inspector and see me have this back and forth a couple of times in the movie, and they kind of keep repeating this line of he's blind, but he could still go to the cops, like you you should have killed him when you had the chance. Kind of keeps becoming there, like reoccurring mantra in this movie is blind people can still talk. He's not mute, he's not deaf. So it's really funny because they keep finding themselves in this predicament where the only way to resolve the issue is to kill him, but they don't do it. There Yeah, somehow they're like beyond like beyond unadept at doing it, like killing him because he escapes and then just want cashious wanders through the streets and passes out.

Essentially he hits he walks into a telephone pole, right, but then he just passes out. Yeah, yeah, I know, he's panicked and he's trying to run away, and he's he's blind now, and he basically in a panic. I took it as he's running and he runs head first and knocks himself out basically, And that's and I think at that point the inspector kind of forgets about him or he can't find him. And then we enter the next weird twist to the whole thing, maybe the weirdest twist in the whole movie. Yeah, So earlier on in the movie, we have this scene where Akash is sitting on a bench and there is a rickshaw driver and the rickshaw driver has a friend and the friend is selling lottery tickets and and he's like, hey, can you call me a cab And she's like, yeah, sure, and he calls this character played by Pawan Sing called Merley, and Chaya Kadam plays Saku, the woman selling lottery tickets.

It turns out their inco hoots with a doctor, doctor Krishna, who is performing organ harvesting on I guess people that they find in the street. Well, but it's the way, it's like set up. So he wakes up, so he's passed out a gosh, and then he wakes up and he's in a clinic and he's he's a doctor there you think he's in a clinic. Everything seems fine, everybody's really nice. The doctor says, you know, he tells him, we can get you a cornea transplant.

Da da da. But things aren't like, aren't really what they seem kind of like. They end up they say they're going to give him a shot for tetanus, but they're actually drawing blood from him, and he can't see this, and like you said, eventually it comes to light and he does. He still doesn't know this that they run an illegal organ harvesting operation and their plan and it's so awful. They're gonna take both of his kidneys.

And I think one of them even says, like, well, won't that kill him? They said, well, who cares? You know whatever, They don't care at least, But they seem so like there's nothing evil about their can leaner or about how they're They seem perfectly friendly, just saved for the fact that they're removing people's organs against their will. So uh, so so finally they bring him into an exam room and he I think he finally dawns on him what's happening because they have him take off his clothes and having him lay on the thing and they're they're actually drawing the line for removing his kidney, and he freaks out and he basically before he goes under the anesthesia or whatever, he says to them, like I think he convinces the woman that he could see the tattoo on her hand and that he can he can get them a lot more money than they're going to get from his organs, because mind you, they thought he was blind, right, so how he knew wouldn't make any sense to them unless he wasn't actually blind, but is now.

So it's well, and what's really funny, And again, a thing that I really appreciate about this movie is the character of Morley and Sak who really are the Carl and Gear, the Steve Bussemi and Peter Stormayer of the piece, Oh you're talking Fargo. They're kind of like the bumbling morons who again don't they're not really they're evil, but they don't outwardly present is evil. They more present is like just opportunistic morons is more or less what they seem like. The doctor is evil, but the doctor, I think is I guess again, you know that's with a movie like this, evil and good like you could make the case that there are no heroes to root for in this movie. Maybe Sophie the woman who hits the gosh, but everybody else is varying shades of gray and or charcoal even.

Yeah, and that's the point I was making. Everybody is being deceitful or or you know, not there's something they're trying to hide or some aspect that isn't so nice or moral, I guess you could say. And that's the comparison to the Boushemi character and Fargo is per because again they're like this. The minute that they hear like the hint that they can get more money from some other hair brained idea, they abandoned the idea of taking this guy's kidneys and they let him wake up, and then they basically concoct another weird scheme where they're gonna kidnap see me, and it basically you know they're gonna blackmail Manohar to get the money. Not only they're gonna kidnap her.

They're gonna set it up to make it look like she's committed suicide. Right, So, so, so she's driving Akash somewhere and he chloroforms her while they're while they're driving, they set it up to make it look like she's committed suicide by driving off of a bridge or something, jumping down off of age and have a bridge news being like, well, she probably committed suicide because she was not a successful actress and when her husband died, well all of the funny opportunities dried up. And it's like Jesus movie and it's like digging a knife. She's scaring this, she's you're hearing this while she's being pushed in a wheelchair, blindfolded and gagged after they've kidnapped the murderous wife. She's hearing all this like just terrible things about how awful of an actress she is, which I really appreciate it.

Again, like they don't miss opportunities in this movie to like just do that little bit extra, that little bit more that just like twitt like you just said, twist of the knife, just that extra. It's so great. But so so they so he calls Monohar and Base and says like, I know you've got all this money, because they implied that when they when when the husband was killed, he was on his way to give like a like some ridiculous amount of money to a contractor. So they say, you know you got all this Yeah, so you've got all this money, deliver it here or I will expose you. And then meanwhile the wife finds out about the affair anyway, and she makes him hole up into a bathroom while she shoots at him with this service evolver.

But so, now, so if we're keeping score, he is. He's now kind of incohoots with the organ harvesters. They've kidnapped see me. She's tied up in a wheelchair. Now Monohar is going to come and deliver this duffel bag full of cash or whatever.

What can go wrong? Right? The answer, even more can go wrong everything, because hey, like we've mentioned the two kind of Fargo esque bumbling moron character as well, they get some autonomy of their own, and they double cross a Cosh so that they can just take all the money themselves and not split any with him. And they tie him up along with see me, and they leave them, and they go to get the money from Monohar, which goes about as bad as humanly possible. I guess it's bad.

Monoh kills one of them by shooting him in the neck, and then Monohar gets trapped at an elevator and kills himself by he freaks out and shoots himself by ac in. Yeah, yeah, and I guess he's dead. Uh, we never see him again, so yeah, I mean it's it's pretty much if something like that happens in a movie like this, I guess here you should assume that they're dead. Yeah, because we hear that he shoots he shoots his revolver in a closed elevator and you hear the ping ming ing mingo, and it's like, oh, yeah, I guess he's dead. Sure.

I mean, we never see him again. So it's it's the perfect way for a character like that to die unceremoniously. Just there you go, he's dead, all right, movie? Yeah, I mean, for for his presumed, you know, crimes. It's up for debate whether he actually killed the husband or if the husband just shot himself by accident, but certainly he's not he's he's not blameless in all of this, so one would say, maybe that's an apt way for him to go.

But but yeah, so so the one guy gets shot in the neck. The woman takes him to the hospital, so they're kind of out of the picture at this point. There, you know, he dies. I don't remember exactly what happens to her. She's upset because she got well.

The doctor says to her when she's in the hospital with the counterfeit money. Oh, that's right, the money is counterfeit right, Which would I guess is the is does that? Does that have some sort of bearing on the husband? Then the dead husband? I guess, you know, because up to like you were saying, there's only really you know, Sophie's the only character who has no hidden, you know, moral decay.

But I guess you could. You could add it's debatable whether the husband is also kind of blameless, because maybe he was, he had something else going on with this counterfeit money. I don't know, Yeah, but he never I actually really appreciate that the movie never gives us a second flashback to the scene with Pramad and see me and Manohar the inciting incident. We never actually see it, and I appreciate that, because the only way we would see it is if a character was flashbacking it and we know or can assume, or by the end of the movie we kind of find out that flashbacks may or may not actually again, unreliable narrators, flashbacks in an unreliable narrator movie. I've seen usual suspects.

This movie is better than that. But that's a good reference point for the character is not telling you the truth at all, and you don't know that until the end. Here again, like if Seem had recounted the story, who knows how true it is? Or Monohr you know, oh I didn't kill him, you know, he it was a mistake. Like of course you would say that, that would be what you would be saying to get out of it.

It would only have underscored. Like you said, then, even if we saw a flashback where maybe uh the husband fights back and there's a scuffle and he whatever, You're you're getting Manohar's or or Seem's account, so you can you can you can't take it as factual. There's just no way. But uh so, yeah, so it just it keeps snowballing and now and eventually they they trick. They basically trick see Me into confessing the crime, like they basically record her on a phone.

So now she they know that, she knows that, you know she she may not have killed her husband, but she sure has hell killed the poor elderly neighbor. She shoved her off off of the balcony or whatever. Yeah. So while while this is all going on at this point, we also have a quick scene where the doctor has gotten a call from a nurse about the blood that he drew. He drew blood from Seem, which I think is just a standard practice for Oregon harvesting perhaps, But so he gets a call that gets them really excited because she says something about we got the blood results back, and it's clear that he's excited about something having to do with Seeme's you know, blood draw.

So anyway, he's out of the picture. It's really just SeeMe and a cash tied to chairs. She manages to get him freed from being tied to the chair, and she's trying to guide him to break a window or get it, get them out of this locked room. At the same time, she's untying herself unbeknownst to him because he's blind remember he's blind. Yeah, and remember and eventually, uh, she she frees herself and right at the moment that a Cash has has broken a window and they're ready to escape, she attacks a cosh.

But then, just when she's getting the upper hand, who comes in but the friendly doctor, the organ harvesting doctor. H And she attacks him now and it's really kind of awful. She's stabbing him in the shoulder with a hypodermic. I don't know. For some reason, that to me like kind of got me like a little chilled, like just the thought of that and the sound it's really bade her.

It's like little like little patches of blood where she's like just all over his thing. Uh and uh. But basically he a cosh restrains her at that point before she goes too crazy, and they chloroform see me again, and now you know now she's she's done. Now they throw her in the trunk of the car and they're driving. Now this is again, this is awful upon awful upon awful.

The doctor's driving. A Cash is in the passenger seat, and he a doctor says that he's so excited because it turns out she has a rare blood type and there's a sheikh whose daughter has needs a deliver transplant and he's gonna pay big money because she's a she's a blood match, see me as a blood match for the sheikh's daughter. So they're driving the car, I think, to the airport where she will be sent to some who knows where to have her liver harvested fors and the doctor says, and if she's a match, I'll give you her cornias. And it's just but he's so batter of fact and cheerful about the whole thing because he's excited about this money that he's gonna make. It's nothing to him.

And and but I meanwhile, Akash, to his credit, is like, we should really let her go. This is not right. He can't be part of this. Drop me off. He's very not on board.

Now here's where this, to me is the most fascinating narrative choice of the movie. We didn't mention the very beginning of the movie. It starts very jarringly where n media is. One might say, exactly, so, what happened the way the movie begins, We didn't mention this is it. There's a rabbit, a one eyed rabbit that is like hopping around a field somewhere, and there's presumably a farmer or some other guy with a rifle who wants to kill this rabbit.

We can presume the rabbits a past and he's trying to get rid of it. So the rabbits hopping around and the rabbit is stopped in front of I think like a milestone marker. Yeah, right, as the hunter let's call him, has leveled his shot, and that's when you At that point we cut away to the main story of a cash and everything. But now, so keep that in your mind for a minute. Now, at this point, they're driving to the airport.

Then we cut to a flash forward from two years which is so so it's awesome, amazing. I was like, I was floored when the movie just goes, oh, yeah, by the way, there's more and more, and you're right there, but there's more. There's more and more, and you don't even get to see what that was yet. Just to say this stuff out loud makes makes it sound so crazy. But when you're you're being under the spell of this movie as you're watching it, you're you're in for a penny, in for a pound.

At that point, you're like I can't wait to see what happens. This may be a little nonlinear, but this is great. So so it's a flash forward. It's it's someplace in Europe and the girl Sophie that had that breakup with a Cash, she's there. She's visiting two years from the date of what what these events, and she sees a sign for a Cash performing at a local club.

So she gets excited or intrigued. Not excited necessary, but she's like, oh, that's weird. So she goes to see him. He's still he still presents his blind he's performing with like a band, a full band now, and it's clear that he's had some success. And she introduces herself to him again.

They go to get coffee, and essentially what you discover is that everything that we've seen up to this point is basically him recounting what happened to him, you know, after she left or whatever. Right, he's telling her the story. Now at that point, they're still driving to the airport. I talked about this rabbit, So then we cut back. Now the rabbit and the car driving to the airport are happening.

At the same time, Seemy is making noise in the trunk. I apologize, I forgot this part. So they pull over to try the doctor. Presumably he's just going to kill her at this point, because he dead her alive, it doesn't matter. He's going to take her organs, presumably, So he goes to the back AKSh still blind, doesn't know what's going on.

She overpowers the doctor. I think she stabs him in the neck. Another awful bruce of a really great shot through the looking what would be towards the back of the car through the back windshield, and you see the trunk close and you see the doctor like like grabbing as they're kind of like, and then you kind of see her get in the car and they start driving away. Yeah, but he doesn't but it cost doesn't know that it's not the doctor driving because she's quiet. So so she gets in the car.

She's driving him, and he's still pleading the case, like we shouldn't do this to her. It's blah blah blah. And eventually she she pulls over and just says to him, get out right now, you realize is what it is. He gets out of the car. You think, okay, maybe she's maybe she's gonna let him go whatever, so she lets him out.

Then she drives aways, turns around like she's going to run him down with the car. So now you're like, well, there's no redeeming anybody in this movie. It's all over. It's all over. Get how And it would have been an interesting ending had they had he she just but but you know that.

But because this is now happening after a flash forward, you know that he's not going to die, which is an interesting narrative choice. So cut to the rabbit about to get shot by the hunter. He shoots, the rabbit leaps onto the windshield of the car that is hurtling towards a Gosh trying to kill him. It causes the car to spin out of control and do a few flips in the air, fall and explode like in a movie, Like in a movie, right, but or like like you realize that this is him recounting this tail like an unreliable narration, like like the most unreliable. So she says to him, after all is said and done, like so they cut back to Europe where they're having coffee, and she says, well, you know, if I were you, I would have saved her and gotten her Corny is like, why didn't you do that?

Because at that point you think, well, she's she's exploded and it's all over with and whatever. He says something I don't remember exactly what, but they get up, they say they're goodbyes, and he's walking away down a cobblestone road and there's like a beer can in the middle of the road and he's got his cane. He's blind. Came off the rabbit's head on it. This came with a rabbit's head, which figures into that's a lot like the usual suspects, you know, like that's something that like the coffee cup.

Right, So because you've seen this this head of this cane and you're like, there's something not right here. So he happens upon this thing in the road, this can in the road, He stops and kind of like swings his cane to whack it out of the way and then keep walking. So you're left with this idea that he's not blind. Probably everything he told Sophie is probably bullshit, yes, like which you like, which for me with the never has a kicking of a can in a movie had so much implications and so many like narrative ramifications. It completely throws the movie on its head at the in the final frame, because I wonder so many things then about the movie, like narratively metaphorically, a cosh is the one eyed rabbit, right and see me and Monohar are the hunters throughout the movie trying to kill the one i'd rabbit.

So I wonder because there's a scene where you see a cosh and he's doing this with his eyes, one of his eyes isn't fucked up and one in So I wonder if throughout that whole second act of the movie could he see that entire time. That's that's it. That's the impression that I'm left with, And that was what It was kind of breathtaking in a way at the end of this, and I was, I was really kind of sorry that the movie was over because it was such a delight. But yeah, you know, The Usual Suspects is a great analog for this, where what you've seen, excuse me, really recontect in that final shot, recontextual recontextualizes really a lot of what you've seen preceding that, Like it calls everything into question, like he maybe isn't the uh, like the innocent sort of bystander that got caught up in all of this, like there's more to it than that.

I think that's so brilliant. Yeah, no, it, like you said, it contextualizes essentially the entire movie, because the sense that I get by the end of the movie is the doctor is still alive, still doing his craft in Pune a Cosh now can see because he has Seemi's eyes, her cornea is in her head and she was chopped up into bits for you know, the highest bidder for whatever parts. That is all kinds of terrible. It's awful, Like there's nothing redeeming anyone in this movie other than Sophie. That's it, Yeah, pretty much, because like you said, even even the husband Pramad, like having this counterfeit money, what was he involved with, right, we know, seem is rotten to the core.

Maybe, I guess maybe the only truly innocent person other than Sophie was probably that poor elderly neighbor who only wanted to do the right thing to report what she saw and she got thrown off of a building because of it. Well, and Danny, the daughter of Primad and Seemi, who is now parentless as well, So that's the other innocent of the movie. Uh but it you know it. They couldn't let you know how big of a piece of shit a cast is until the final frame, because otherwise you wouldn't you would never have believed his story, and that the movie has to get you to the point where you believe that story at the end of the movie that he tells until the movie says, just kidding, don't believe it. But I'm so glad that they saved it for it literally the last frame of the movie, to let the proverbial cat out of the bag, as it were, because that, like you said, he is a terrible person through and through, just like the rest of them.

Right, But you're asked, but he he's the person you've been as a viewer, You've been tasked with, you know, rooting for him. You don't want to see his kidneys kicking out in an awful way. You don't want to see him blinded, You don't all this stuff. But then at the end, all you're left with is, Wow, I've been rooting for just a piece of shit, Like this guy is as bad as any of them, you know, Uh, yeah, it's But so this is one of those movies that number one it's it's a pleasure to recommend this to people site unseen and say, just just see this, don't go into it with any preconceptions. Number two, this is one of those movies that you wish that you could forget about it and watch it again.

It's that good. Yeah yeah, oh I I And you know, I was thinking about that when I was watching it. I was like, there there won't be another viewing experience of this movie like this, like this, this is this is the one chance that I've gotten I can watch it with other people. I think the twists are good. I think the twists are good in a narrative sense.

I'm not sure how like they're not like the twist and Malignant was. I don't know if you've seen Malignant, but that movie has a very big, kind of goofy twist that like, anytime I've watched it with anybody, they're like, what the actual fuck is happening in this movie? Now, there are twists like that in this movie, but there are so many that it feels more or less sustained, like it's not just one thing that Rarely do we recount the plot of a movie on this show or any show that I do, but yet we did it on this episode almost because what choice do we have. There's there's no other choice. The movie is so complex narratively that do not talk about specific things while they're occurring in the movie.

You might not be able to follow along with us because of the path that the movie takes. It's so twisty. But ultimately, again it doesn't. It doesn't peter out by the end of it. Like you said, I wanted more again, I'm not.

I wanted more, but I don't know how much more. I want to know about what a cast is up to, right, and it moves for a movie like you said, that's two hours, fifteen sixteen minutes or whatever, it there's not a dull moment through the whole picture, like every every scene has purpose, everything Like it's just it's like this, like just when you think things couldn't get much worse for the happenless protagonists, like things take a turn for you know. But like I said, it's not like it doesn't look it's it's it's not like this is a total gritty, real world situation that could definitely happen. But at the same time, I said this at the front of the all this it's not fantastical. It's it doesn't go into the absolutely like everything is played very matter of factly in the movie, and I think that helps.

Like it's not like, you know, it's not a usual experience to get your kidnapped into an organ harvesting clinic, but it's not called. There's not a tension paid to it like it would be in like a Terry Gilliam movie where everything is heightened and it just seems so bizarro and there's weird you know, it's not a caricature of anything. It's just kind of like this is the University's characters inhabit there's everything makes sense and nothing is too exaggerated. And I really love that about this movie. No, I'm right there with you know.

It has a real almost literary quality to it. I mean it is it's you know, it's a murder mystery thriller. Like it's hard to classify what this movie is in a lot of ways, and it's not because it's a massala film like Muthu, which is you know, action comedy romance drama, like this movie is that, but it is more of a crime crime movie. I guess again, what are Cohen Brothers movies, like they're Cohen Brothers movies, like like there's a lot of like the like it's not funny, like they're telling jokes, but the situations are so That's what is the Cohen sort of feel, is that the situations are so like outlandishly like like grim in some parts, Like I said, the scene where they've they've stuffed uh Pramad into a suitcase and they're getting ready to wheel him out, like there's so much happening at the same time, but then they decided to stop because the wife wants to get his watch and his rings off of his hands, like and it's so unnecessary, but it's so funny.

I don't know. There's something funny about the fact that they've got to get this body out, but they pause for a full thirty seconds more so they can get the jewelry off of this poor corpse. I don't know. And at the same time, the guy's playing piano literally for his life. It's just so like I said, it's comedy of the blackest black and I loved it.

I love that part of it. It's it's it's so grotesque, it's laughable, Like that's it's Gallows. It's it is Gallows esque humor, right, Like, it's so like fucked up that you can't help but laugh. Like you said in that in that scene where he walks into the bathroom and the guy's just standing there with the gun and he's he's right there washing his hands, it's like, it's hilarious that he's just because again, it's hilarious only because you can imagine in a cautious head like, oh my fucking god, like just don't don't do anything to let him know, and like that that is hilarious. But at the same time, I'm completely horrifying.

It is the most believable way. Yeah, no, this this movie is uh, it's like a I don't know, it's like a it just never stops. It's like a roller coaster where just when you think you're you've got the wavelength all figured out, it throws something else left field that you that doesn't feel shoehorned in or like out of character or out of story. You know, believability at all. It all really works.

It's all of a piece. Despite the fact I think you mentioned like there's a lot of writers attached to this movie. The story that's normally, like when you have that many writers, things tend to get disjointed and there's no real one unifying vision. That's not the case here. This movie is of a piece and it's it all works really well.

It's so uniform you wouldn't know that it's a product of five different writers. Well, and and you know I mentioned Siri arm Raghavan. He is more or less known for doing noir action thrillers, so this is also like a slower movie for him too, It's not as kind of if you look at the other movies he's done, the posters alone should give you an idea of the amount of bomb bast and kind of over the top action and kind of neo noir style that those movies have. And then you look at the poster for this movie. It's just two people back to back, one of them blindfolded so and the other one wearing essentially now his signature ray bands.

So it's interesting because even who is directing the movie, it's a change for his style, and normally that doesn't work for directors. Normally they kind of, you know, like this is your lane and you're good in that lane. And if you try to deviate, it tends to not be as successful. Like I mentioned, this movie was nominated for a whole hell of a lot of Filmfare Awards, which is the Indian equivalent of the Academy Awards. It won the Best Film by the Critics.

Because they have Best Film and Best Film for the Critics for the Filmfare Awards, which I think is kind of interesting, and I you know, we could be emulating more than just their films, folks, We could be emulating their way that they give awards because they also have Best Actor per critics and non critics and Best Actor Asherman Kuryana won for Best Actor per the critics, and Tabu was nominated for Best Actress. It won Best Screenplay. It won a lot of awards, and it was really well regarded. I'm actually really surprised of one particular thing. This movie came out in twenty eighteen.

I'm surprised there hasn't been an American remake yet. Like, I'm genuinely surprised because this is like ripe for remake in America. I don't want to see it. It would not be very good. It would be a poor facsimile of this.

But aren't you kind of surprised this like high concept of a movie has not made its way over to the land of twists and turns that US Americans love so much with our Western cinema and their last minute twists agree and agree like number one, Well, yeah, I'm really surprised because when you look at a movie like Old Boy, which I can't I can't speak to. I mean, that was that movie was a real sensation. I remember when it came out at the time, and it was there was nothing else like it, and Korean cinema was really coming into its own, but that movie was had everybody talking. I don't I can't say this movie captured the America's attention the way that that did. But if you look at that's the closest thing I can think of in terms of a movie that captures a s wide swath of critical and personal acclaim.

But then you have what Spike Lee made his version of Old Boy, and it's like it was frankly, it was unnecessary because the original was so like it was so perfect for what it was. I kind of feel, I mean, I know you've already said that this was remade like three other times, many times, and one is in production right now, Like that's I guess that's fine, like for me, Like I can't imagine anything being more definitive than this version of the movie. That could just be the fact that I'm high off of enjoying the movie, you know, recently. But at the same time, I mean maybe, like if you're thinking globally, like maybe there are territories that this would work really well in, but I can't see. I mean, I could see them trying to make it here.

I'm just thankful that they haven't gotten to it or they won't do it, because it would just be it would just be a pale imitation like this one is. So Look, some people don't like seeing like so called foreign movies because they don't want to read subtitles and whatever. I don't agree, but I get that, but this is not a move. I probably don't get it. I don't get it.

Let me, let me call off. I don't. For me, I'm fine, Like I love this movie despite the fact that it was in primary it was a little weird. I don't know if this is typical for a Hindi movie, but there were the odd moment where they speak English, which I found kind of interesting. Don't forget that India was occupied by Britain for over one hundred years.

I get that, but that's where that's where it comes from. Okay, I will tell I will tell you with a certain amount of uh. Well again, my Indian friends, when I was in India, and when I was in India, they were it was back and forth. They would be talking and it would be Hindi and then there'd be English spattered in through there and then Hindi. Yeah, that's that's common place.

So it's like a mix of like Spanish and English here would be where you Yeah, churching phrases, certain terms, certain things are kind of just widely accepted as spoken in English as opposed to in Hindi. No, that makes sense, but let me I just want to qualify. Like I while I'm fine with subtitles like it's personal choice whatever, if that's not your thing and you're not wanting to see a movie like that, then I don't know what else to tell that person because you're missing what I could tell them is in this case especially, you're missing out on an incredible viewing experiences and it's really not there's not a great onus to follow the movie like the movie moves and after you know, like any good you know so called foreign I say so called because it's farig in here in the US but not in India.

For a movie like this, after the first five minutes, you're going to forget that you're reading subtitles and you're gonna be enveloped into the story. That's the best thing I can say about this is if you're afraid of reading subtitles for whatever reason, don't be because this movie, like is it's just so like I said, it captures you from the very beginning, and you're it's not going to be an impediment to enjoying the story. You're you're going to follow the story, just find whether you have to read it in subtitles or not. The fact that he isn't blind is revealed in the first twenty minutes of the movie. Is the hook?

That's the hook? Yeah, Because then it's just like where does this go from here? Like what what does this mean? Because normally, like in a in a movie where that reveal happened, typically that's usually like a second or third act reveal, right, because up to that point, you've already you know, it's been impressed upon you for half the movie. But in this case, like you said, it's at the very beginning, and that's not even the biggest twist.

That's really like kind of the plot twist that the movie mostly hinges on, to be honest, because if if he's not blind or thought of his blind then the rest of the movie doesn't. It doesn't really happen in the same fashion. But the fact that you know it's revealed so early is a good indication, and there's so much more to happen is a good indication that this movie goes as we've described, in a whole lot of directions that you will never see coming. And even like like I said, the ending is is breathtaking in the best way, because you never in a movie filled with plot twists that are you know, just out of nowhere that's the final one. Is like, oh, that's so great.

It's almost the one. It's not that you don't see it coming. But you have to applaud the writers and the director, who is one of the writers, for practicing restraint in waiting and not letting the cat out of the bag, like you said, giving us two years in the future, like wait, slowdown, what now? Like it's It's so shocking how well this movie is done, because at any point it feels like it could just fall apart, not because the movie's bad or that anyone involved isn't qualified to be doing this, but this is a razor thin edge you're walking with this kind of movie where we've seen plenty of movies like this that just once the twist happens, it's like, but what about this? And what about this?

And what about this? And what about this? And you start going, what about all these things in the movie that don't make any sense? Now that they've said X Y or Z was a B or C. And I just I really can't be effusive enough about this movie, from the actors to the direction, to the editing, to the music choices, just everything.

I mean, we've barely talked about the actor, but Tabu is amazing and Ushman Kurana just the fact that he can do everything in this movie and is asked to effectively do everything to really carry the movie. I have not seen him in anything before, and I am not only looking forward to the next time I see him in something. I'm probably going to search out another one of his movies just to see what else he can do, because he's fantastic in this movie. Yeah, And actually we talked about this a little bit earlier, the fact that it would be nice to go back into this movie and rewatch it without knowing any of the twists. I actually, in thinking about this a little more, this actually maybe a good movie to rewatch because, as we've said, by about you know, by about halfway through the movie, like there's now there's doubt as to whether he was ever really blind after after the fact, right, because like you said, one of his eyes was colored weird.

And so I'm right, And it might be kind of fun to rewatch it now knowing that, Okay, this isn't as cut and dried as we thought the first time. It would be interesting to watch it again and look for those little telltale bits. Maybe the filmmakers have been dropping other little breadcrumbs that we just didn't pick up on, or little things that cast doubt that we just let go by and getting swept up with everything else going on. So the characters in the movie believing he's blind, we two may have been duped into thinking he was blind as the audience. How thematic is that to actually go back and then it's crazy, it's really I mean, I could not be more effusive, and part of that for me is frankly like, So, we talked about this and you mentioned that you're going to be doing this spinoff and it sounded exciting to me.

But like I said, I have no frame of reference for Indian cinema. I only know the little bits and pieces that I've seen over the years. I've never really aside from like I said, monson Wedding. But anyway, I have to thank you again for picking maybe the perfect movie for me, because it had enough of the Western influence and enough of the narrative sort of conventions that I'm used to, but you also get the flavor of India and Puna and all the locations and the music. So I have to wholeheartedly agree that this is the perfect like gateway to Indian cinema, I believe not again, I haven't seen a lot of it, but it strikes me as being perfect for the novice, you know, introduction to the genre.

And you mentioned it the flavor of India, what you know. The cinematography is beautiful. They shoot Pune in a way that I mean, Pune is considered to be the most livable city in India. So, uh, you know what's funny is my wife, at her job, she works directly with people in Pune, of all places, So it was kind of funny to see the movie taking place in Pune, of all places. But no, it's you know, that's the that's the thing.

You know, when I mentioned the idea of an American make like, it would lose all that flavor. It would be just taken out immediately. There would be no musical numbers. They would take that out. That would get the movie under that two hour time limit that I guess Americans don't like watching anything over two hours other than Marvel movies because now all of those movies are over two hours almost across the board.

But when there's CGI explosions and an amount of strobing lights to give you a seizure, I guess it doesn't matter. But you know, I think, you know, you mentioned the subtitle thing and this being a good entry point, I think it kind of just goes back to this cultural shift that a lot of people have been dealing with subconsciously or consciously in my case, of when you put on a movie, you're putting it on to watch it, not to fuck around, not to be on your phone, not to be on iPad. And if it's again, I'm not saying like not, I'm not saying like that's what it is, but like theoretically, realistically, you put on a movie, it's to watch the movie. Otherwise, don't put it on. I feel like the sentiment in Western society is Okay, I'm gonna put it on in the background, I'll be doing something else.

This is not the kind of movie. No movie with subtitles can you do that with? And I wonder if that's just the like subtext as to why people don't want to watch subtitle movies, and nobody wants to say it or doesn't realize it is I want to be able to do something else while I'm watching a movie because like this, this deserves your attention because it's a great movie, but also because it is a film in a foreign language to us, as Americans or Westerners who speak English, it you have to read the subtitles. Otherwise nothing makes sense. It's just people going through motions and you don't understand the context.

I feel like that is now part of it less So people don't like to read because that's what everybody would always joke about, right, like a bunch of you know, I mean, that is part of it, but it's less the act of reading and more the act of active participating as an audience member in film is a fucking shame, frankly, as someone loves movies as much as I do and as much as I know you do, it's an absolute shame. And even putting aside the subtitle thing, which I think again, like if you choose not to watch a movie because of that, then you're just missing out. There's I don't know what else to tell you, but like choosed to eat one kind of food your entire life and never go try anything else, That's what's boring.

But even if, like let's say for a moment that this movie was either dubbed or it was in English natively, let's just say for a minute, like, but this is a movie that because so much happens, like moment to moment, like if you're on your phone and you miss the part where they you know, they kidnap see me and now she's in our you know, like, there's so much that happens that you have to be on your game as as a viewer to understand like, Okay, now he's in this clinic, but it's not a clinic. Now I understand that it's an organ harvesting operation. And now you know, now it's two years in the future. Now we're flashing back to this rabbit that we saw on the first You've got to pay attention, Like this movie demands that, but it's but it's not.

It doesn't demand it in a literary sense where important things are happening and you must pay attention as you know, you're going to be lost if you don't, like maintain focus on what's happening, because so much happens so quickly. Imagine if you missed him taking his contacts out, the whole one would change for you. Well yeah, like what a completely different movie. This is huh seriously, because then he would be you know, you would you would think as a viewer, he's legit blind to the whole thing, and you're wondering why. I don't know why.

It would just the movie wouldn't make sense, right, But again, like, and I see this too. I I you know, I can't escape it when you have kids, and attention span is a tough thing to manage because you and I Chris, we were raised pre you know, for the most part. I mean I was certainly raised pre cell phone. I don't know exactly in your life when cell phones entered the picture. Maybe a little bit sixteen seventeen, so, but that's still like you were still you had made it through early adolescents, and I think that period is so crucial.

But when you are when you see children who are raised and I don't want to make this into a rant against like cell phones and screen time and all that stuff. That's not what we're here to talk about. But again, I worry sometimes, like when I'm at when I'm at a restaurant and I see a mother and a child and they're both literally on their phones sitting here, not talking to each other at all. It makes me wonder about, like what is that doing to Like would a movie like this even be made twenty years from now when all of these kids that are raised with zero attention spans eventually now we're talking about like like TikTok's, they're raised to see things in little thirty second bursts. So the dope it'll be dopamine.

It's a dopamine cycle, that's all it is. It's so it's it's crazy. So again to the point where it's speaking of music, it influences the way artists are making music now, like Sam Smith making his song and it's like a minute thirty seconds, Like that's not even a song, man, that's that's some. That's some. That's some music you threw together for somebody to use.

Like on TikTok, because like you said, now the taste is changing and everything. It's really YouTube, and then it was snapchat, and then it was vine and now it's like TikTok, which is god damn. Again. I have no problem with TikTok. I get it as a source of entertainment, but yeah, it just it is.

There is a constant fear in my mind that serious narrative film will be less important twenty thirty, forty years from now because people just don't care anymore because like the reasons you've said and things like this, things like so many things that you love that I love that you listening to this show may even love, may not stand up to like you've said, a limited attention span person, which again that's I always wonder who is going out and seeing transformers and driving those movies. Budgets and you know, box offices through the roof, just like with Avatar and other things like that. And it bothers me. But at the same time, I'm glad movies are still being made. But yeah, it does.

It kind of erodes the It erodes the need for quality when nobody's paying attention exactly, but gratefully, like, this isn't a movie that is is a you know, it was made a lot of this was made in twenty eighteen, yep, so you know this is this is still a fairly and not only that, but we have all these remakes that you discussed, So this, gratefully this isn't We're not talking about a movie from a bygone era necessarily. Like that gives me hope that, you know, like I couldn't sit there and say, well, they don't make like they used to. Well they did. They made this, you know, four years ago. So that's a hopeful thing as a as a movie goer or someone who enjoys watching movies that this isn't that old.

And clearly there's an audience sport because this movie was hugely successful and made a lot of money and they won a lot of awards. So that's a really that's a cool things as a someone who who loves cinema, and you know what, as as a Westerner, I don't know culturally. I don't have any friends who are living in India right now anymore. I don't know culturally if they if they deal with the same issues that we do in terms of how we consume media, because again, these movies are two and a half, sometimes even three hours long. Western audiences can't sit still that long.

These some of these movies have intermissions. People don't expect that when they go to the movies. They expect that when they go to the theater, this is an event to go see a movie in India. That's the way that I've perceived it. That's the way it's been told to me.

That's the way I've seen it when I was there. It's it's important. Cinema is important to the fabric of India in a way that, yeah, it's important to American culture. But I think, at least the way I perceive it, cinema in India is a true expression of Indian culture and an American cinema is in a way, but the voices are so all over the place in America that it's not just one thing. I'm not saying it is in India either, but it feels more culturally important.

Yeah no, and but it used to. I mean, if you think about a movie like The Ten Commandments, like that movie had an intermission, like this is something that was an expectation that an American cinemago or would would take with them when they went to the movies. Like the movies was a big deal back then, right like john Ford movies. These all these movies were long sweeping epics. Which is not to say that that this movie is a long sweeping epic.

But I was thinking about it after the fact, and when I first brought it up on Netflix, like my I thought, Okay, this will be like an hour and a half, this will be no problem. And then I'm like, well, this is over two hours. I wasn't expecting that, but it didn't feel like a two hour like I just it was over, and I went, wow, that two hours would buy like that? Right, So I mean, that's that's truly skilled filmmaking in my opinion. Well, and you know, like we mentioned at the top, you know, normally Indian cinema at least not normally, but there are plenty of an in cinema films that don't have musical numbers.

But you throw four to five musical numbers in a movie that are three to four minutes each, that's twenty five thirty minutes that you have increased the length of your film. That Western cinema and Western filmgoers don't expect there to be musical numbers, so you don't have to worry about thirty to forty five minutes of your movie being occupied with music. But I love that. That's something that I love that I wouldn't trade for anything with Indian cinema because that's what makes that's one of the things that makes Indian cinema Indian cinema. Sure, I mean, that's that's a when when a Western thinks of that, that's a cultural signifier, right right, like you know it's you.

It's almost an expectation when you when you when you think of an Indian whether that's true or accurate, it's probably more of a stereotype than anything, but you're expecting these quote unquote Bollywood dances, highly choreographed singing like a musical, like like you know you would see in like a Broadway musical with this movie. You have a touch of that. But I have to applaud them for making a movie. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the I mean, I don't know how successful it was, because I certainly never heard of this before you invited me to do the show, but that could have been a part of their scheme when they're doing this, like let's make something that's a little bit more palatable to a non Indian audience, and let's see where this goes, because that's just smart.

Expand your audience. It grossed one point three million dollars in the United States. That's how much it made when it came to this country. It grossed thirteen million in China. In the excuse me, it grows thirteen million worldwide, and then it grows forty two million alone in China.

It's interesting, and I mean, Indian cinema is is pretty big in China. Amir Khan has a very big following in China. There there there are plenty of kind of crossovers, obviously due to also you know, proximity obviously, but yeah, you know, I think for me, that's the one thing that I keep coming back to with this show. Is there is no easy way to introduce people to Indian cinema. A lot of people, there's no easy way because it doesn't get any play here, at least not I don't even know what like this foreign film really get play in the United States anyways.

Well, you know, I can't I can't speak of like as as a as a nationwide thing, but I can tell you that I know that there are movies because there there I don't know how sizeable, but there is. There is a significant Indian population, at least around where I live here, to the point where I know there are some of the local theaters will have like on a Saturday morning, they'll play whatever the big blockbuster is in India. Like you'll see posters for Indian cinema like movies all over the place. Uh, it's just they don't They're played for Matteney's usually, So there must be like there's an audience for them. They're they're they're taking and it's good for the theater because you know, it brings in an audience that wouldn't necessarily be represented as well.

So they're probably getting like you know, if the local Indian population is aware that they're showing local movies that are of interest to them culturally, then they probably I would assume it brings a lot of Indian you know, folks to the theater that wouldn't normally have the opportunity, you know, otherwise they're left too. I mean, maybe there's like a movie channel that's devoted just to Indian cinema that I'm not aware of, or Netflix too. Yeah, eros, now it's good. But honestly, Netflix and Prime Video are the like places. They're repositories for Indian cinema as Westerners.

You know, you mentioned a movie theater near you in Dallas where I grew up. There, cinema arcs are everywhere and they're very large movie theaters, you know, twenty thirty screen type thing. The one that's near my parents house never showed Indian cinema when I was growing up. They have like ten screens devoted to it now, like all the time type thing. Like not like you're talking about on a Saturday when it's slow.

This is like they're showing it at eight o'clock on a Friday night. Because the population in North Texas is so you know, predominantly at this point, at least in Northwestern Texas or northwestern North Texas, Indian Southeast Asian, and again that's awesome. But the question that I have is Westerners going to see those movies or is it just Indian Americans and Indian transplants, because that's you know, I would love for more people like myself and yourself to be into Indian cinema because it is just another opportunity to see movies you've never seen, as opposed to watching the same thing or only having one small piece of a pie here to eat from. So yeah, it's my hope is with the advent of things like streaming and the Internet and you know, more people, more culturally diverse people living in our country, that we will start to see a more mainstream adoption of Indian cinema.

But we haven't really seen a mainstream adoption of any other foreign cinema other than maybe Japanese cartoons. Because I've we've seen waves of the things that catch on, like like I think in like anime has never been more popular, like just as a as a blanket term, like you go to Barnes, you know, you got to Barnes and Noble and there's realms and realms of it. It used to be at one little section and now it's like expand it's now it's aisles of manga. Yeah, it's yeah, it's huge. But like but I will say, like I mean, it's like any any any sort of I don't want to call it a fad because that's doing a disservice to a particular genre of film, right, But just for lack of a better word, better term, like I know, I've we've seen like Japanese you know, Japanese pictures come and go, like things like you know, like or Chinese cinema.

When Jackie Chan had his Fastball and that became then all of a sudden, he started appearing in American movies like that was a thing. Then when you had like Old Boy and this wave of Korean cinema that kind of came and swept through. It bought an Oscar, it won an Academy Award in twenty twenty, yeah or twenty men. And I mean there was a whole thing in the mid two thousands of like Jay Horror being huge, ring Goo Y Rudge, just and not only just the originals, the American language, the English language remakes of you know, Juan and the Ran Ringoo like those end up being you know, a ring movie came out two or three years ago, a Western ring movie, as opposed to a you know, Ring Goo sequel, which they're still doing in Japan.

Yeah. I don't want to say fat either, but it's not sustained, and I would like sustain with Indian cinema as someone who's you know, you know, very biased about how good it is. But again, you watch a movie like this and there's there's no there's no biased here. Just watch this movie and you'll get it, Like you'll you'll be able to understand the heights that they can get to because like any other form of cinema or form of art, the heights are really only dictated by reality, like ability to actually execute on an idea like this is as high concept as it gets, and they nail it. Yeah, the highest compliment that I can think of is that this isn't just a really good Indian movie.

This is the really good movie. Like you don't have to be somebody who's going to seek out and become an Indian cinephile. All you have to be as a fan of good movies, and you will have a good time watching this like that's maybe That's the one message I want to convey to anybody listening to this show is like, don't and hopefully we've already made this clear, but don't like, don't be apprehensive because you don't know anything about Indian cinema or its conventions. Just if you like movies, go see this movie and you won't be you won't be dissatisfied. You'll enjoy it.

Believe me, I was gonna say, I give you a moment to give your final thoughts, but I think you already did. I think you beat me. Do it. I appreciate I appreciate a good I appreciate a good wrap up as much as the next guy. You know, to give my final thoughts, you know I'm with you.

You know I'm so glad, and it makes me, It actually really makes me happy when I sit down with someone like yourself who had never really seen Indian cinema in any kind of like. I'm not that I'm like being told to watch it, but more it's like, this is a thing that I'm going to sit down and give my full attention to in a in a critical way. And I always appreciate having people on the show who I've never watched an Indian cinema film with before, and hearing them just be like not in shock, but just like wow, like wow. Like you said, it's not just a good Indian film, it's a good movie. And that is boundary, crossing language barrier destroying on its own.

People love Star Wars around the world, not because it's a fucking American movie. It's because it's Star Wars, and people like it because those first four, first three movies are pretty goddamn good. But it's cross cultural barriers because it's a good movie. That's why. And yeah, there are three remakes in the pipeline.

Two have come out, one's on its way. For this movie in India alone, I should give you an idea of the quality of this movie if you have to be further convinced at this point. But like you said, if you're already at this point in the episode, there's no convincing. You're with us, You get it. This movie's fantastic.

I may even go out and watch Brahman, which is the Amazon Prime Video malay excuse me, Malayalam version of the movie, which is another language in India, not Telugu and not Tamil. And it's on Prime video right now and then supposedly not bad, just you know, kind of more of the same. But if you like the actors, that's why you would watch that one, if you're into those actors versus these actors, because mind you, these are Hindi speaking actors and those actors would be speaking another dialect in India. So it's you know, like there are some things that we don't have in this country, like regional cinema in a way where it's different dialects and different languages. But they're you know, again speaking a very close version of one another's language.

We don't really have that here. So it's interesting to look at that. But at the same time, you put it best, it's not a good Indian cinema film. It's just a good movie. And I'm excited to watch more of his films, him being Siri Armarragavan, more Tabu movies, more Ashman Koyana movies.

This is just this movie. You know, I didn't pick this movie. This movie wasn't a pick of mine. It was actually suggested to me by who other than the projection boothsone Mike White. So he told me to watch it.

He said, it was amazing. He said, don't look into it, don't research it, just watch it. It goes all over the place. And he was right. This is just this movie is fun.

It's just a fun experience and one that will leave you guessing up until the final frame. And I hate that term, but it is aprile it is. But it's not a who done it though. That's the interesting thing, like when usually when a movie is described like that, like oh, you won't know what, Like, it's not you, there's no guessing, there's no mystery about these crimes that are having and there's mystery about maybe his retelling of the of the tale. But this isn't like who done it, where you're always guessing who did it or what you know.

This is just you never know, like we've made this clearity like what's going to happen from scene to scene and it goes in a lot of to a lot of interesting places, but it's always you know, look, a lot of awful stuff happens, but it's fun to watch the filmmakers, you know, take you on this journey. That's the best thing about it. It really feels like it's it's an interesting journey that you're taking on and the setting is novel because to a Western or its novel. But like I said, and like like you, like you you've said as well, like this is just like it would be a pity for somebody not to seek this out because they're afraid of it being a non English movie, because it's just a really good movie. It's well made, and we couldn't be any more effusive in our praise for it.

But go see it. Just stop listening, go see it and enjoy. Sure, I've ever been this effusive about a movie on any show that I've done, Like this was. So it's energizing, isn't it in a way that I haven't really frankly haven't been energized watching a movie recently. You feel the same way.

I'm right there with you, Like it was just it was a it was an experience. When the end of it, I was just like I want to like I don't know, like I just I want to be involved in making things because like watching other people getting to make things awesome like that, Like it makes me want to be involved in the creative process. That's That's what it always feels like for the creative types, right, Like when you watch someone else's amazing thing, You're like, I just want to do that too, Like I want to do something as good or better. You know, they watched Hitchcock and Cohen Brothers movies and saw those movies and said, we can do this, and we can do this our own way and really fucking nail it. And man, they really fucking nailing it is not even far enough.

So now they they they beat they beat the Cohens at their own game. They made a movie that it can stand toe to toe with a movie like like Fargo. I mean that sounds that's maybe a little hyperbolic, because Fargo's you know, incredibly think it's remotely hyperbolic, frankly, but but this is, you know, I just I can't say enough good things about it. Like I said, that charge that I got that any I think any real you know, fan of film gets when they see something and they feel like they've watched something unique and interesting, and like you said, a creative type gets that charged. Like Wow, these guys like they they fired on all cylinders and I just feel so energized at the end of it, like like I want to just like it's the kind of thing that makes you want to seek out the rest of that filmmaker's catalog, right, yeah, like I like I.

Now I've had this introduction to this, to Indian cinema such as it is, and now I know I love the actors, I love the filmmakers, I love the writing. I'd be more likely to go out and seek that out instead of just kind of because that content is out there. I'm sure Netflix is filled with movies like this. Amazon Prime probably has a ton of movies like this. I just haven't put it put in the time and effort to find them.

But they're there, and to be fair, the algorithm hasn't known that you wanted to watch them yet either, Right, that's always great. That's always the kicker. So but now it does so so uh so so HP until the next time you're here with me, because this doesn't sound like this is a singular event. Now, thankfully, absolutely, I would. You know.

I'm glad that it wasn't like a bummer, because then it might have been like a hard sell to get you back. Think, hey, you want to watch another two and a half hour movie that may or may not be good. No, this, this, this I was entirely like I said, not it was perfect that I didn't know what I had no preconception and I just allowed it to cast its spell. And I really I can't thank you enough for for giving me the opportunity to see something I wouldn't have seen otherwise. So thank you, Chris.

You're most welcome. So, like I mentioned at the top of the show, but I'll give you the opportunity now, HP, where can people find you if they want to? On the internet? So right, so, so you can find me. I am a musician.

You can hear some of my compositions on various sprinkled across various podcasts, not the least of which is Wolfrin Raisin, the Bannet Check podcast Night Mister Walters, a taxi podcast which I co host with my erstwhile partner fatherm Alone. I am also an occasional contributor to Culture Cast and now this very fine spinoff, which I'm very happy to have done me too. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad of Major Queen's HP. I really, like I said, I really appreciate you know, being introduced to I love doing these podcasts with you.

Not to get too far into this, but I love the opportunity to talk movies with you, Chris, and I look forward to more and more of that in the new year. I agree. So you can hear me and Harris, like you mentioned over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, which is where all the shows that Harris mentioned, along with all of the shows that I've talked about mentioned off hand, and this one all there Weirdingwaymedia dot Com. New shows coming out oh seemingly every month now at this point. And yeah, Harris, HP and FM and HD all have a show together called NJ So go and just go figure how could I I'm sorry, how could I leave out?

By the time this show drops, we will already have started the Noise Junkies podcast, which we are all very very excited father alone, HD and myself, and look for that as well. Yeah, and that's where you can find us. As for this show, Bollywood Cinemaclub dot Com on all platforms, but like rate review on iTunes and Spotify or wherever you find this show, because that helps us get to more people who aren't watching Indian cinema but should be. HP. Thank you so much for joining me.

This has been a blast. It's my pleasure. Chris thank you, and as always we'll catch it on the next episode.