Written & Directed by Rajaram Rajendran / 96 Minutes
Review by Rob Deb.
The Pitch: For Rani (Tannistha Chatterjee), the caretaker at an abandoned factory, in an almost-abandoned Indian village, it’s just an ordinary day, trapped in a struggle for survival between a feckless husband (Asif Basra) on the one hand, and his brother and ruthless sister-in-law on the other. But when she happens upon a group of opportunists (led by Danny Sura) seeking to prove the efficacy of their mysteriously-acquired device to a potential buyer (Alexx O’Nell), her fortunes seem set to change. All they need is a ‘volunteer’, and for a small sum of cash, she’s lured into their machine. While she emerges seemingly unscathed, a violent turn of events makes Rani realize that changing the trajectory of her life might just be a matter of a second chance, or a third… or maybe just a little more time…
Time travel is unknown and complicated. It's high brow stuff with consequences and tensions for reality and mortality. This plays heavily in the film’s atmosphere as the great unknown. Fortunately Rani is such a defiantly pragmatic lead she cares for none of it other than her ailing husband, her future prospects and the care of her children. It is this rugged determination that brings such a potent sense of purpose to the film one can’t help but be drawn into her Orange Sari and wrapped in her forthright ability to tell everyone whos not helping to fuck off.
The film has a great sense of industrial decay and the green landscape as the new wave of Indian business comes crashing into her more traditional life. The entourage of typical startups and their new sponsors bicker back and forth looking for a suitable subject to test their latest device… The dynamic between the three entrepreneurs and their sponsor holds well and shows the snobbery that pervades their forward-thinking notion. Unusually we get to see the language barrier within the communities and generations to great effect as their limited understanding of Hindi racks up the tension while Rani makes it quite clear English is meaningless to her.
Finding Rani at a vulnerable moment they convince her to go along with their experiment. This opens up an almost Sisyphean fate for her as she tries to better her situation within a limited amount of time, each return showing more of her family life and heightening the tragedy at each turn. Fate seems unavoidable. The ending also leaves a great twist and a chance to see the mythos build further. The soundscape also helps fill the experience in the film’s necessarily sparser turns. It’s a film that is meditative but not pretentious and worth the journey.
Definitely one to watch for the hard sci-fi fans, and those who want to see such subjects handled with a very distinct and individual sensibility. An enjoyable journey through time and diaspora against a verdant and industrial landscape bringing a desi Darko story to 2022.