Movie: Machli Jal Ki Rani Hain
Director: Debaloy Dey
Cast: Bhanu Uday, Swara Bhaskar, Murli Sharma, Reema Debnath, Deepraj Rana, Hemanth Pandey
Rating: *1/2
Every time you find an example to say that Hindi cinema is marching ahead of times, there’s an example like Machli Jal Ki Rani Hai in store to showcase its regression. Not only does it pick up the worst possible inputs from the works of Mukesh Bhatt and RGV but also insults the sound-play with slow silence to build a namesake spooky atmosphere. The film still needs a haunted house, spirit destroying sadhus, a kaamwali who suspects of a ghost to give its horror genre enough justification.
Back stories are the heart of thrillers. As a viewer, you are ready to digest all the outwardly reactions and situations provided you are elaborated enough about why the scenario is as mysterious as it is being depicted. If you have an absolutely normal lady singing Machli Jal Ki Rani Hai in the middle of the night (a lady who detests fish in reality) who later makes a dish killing all the fish in her aquarium, you are dying to know why. When there’s every medium on the earth to take revenge, you have every right to question the spirit’s choice of water to do so. An example like Eeram took the entire story to narrate that.
The director of the film, Debaloy Dey is so generous to give you an idea about the Sadhu’s past but not of the traits of the central protagonist. Some incidents just unravel and the purpose behind them is unnecessarily delineated while for the others that actually contribute to the story, you are left waiting for the answers. When a doctor and another believer in age-old methods sit together to discuss about shooing away spirits, you expect some mix of intelligence and mythological references, say alike Chandramukhi in the worst case. The film’s funniest line enroute to the catastrophic climax that even an admirer of 1920 would like to shy away from goes this way. ‘If you ask me as a doctor, I can deny that there are no spirits. But as a friend, I better warn you, there are’.
To make a mockery of the absent tension or possible suspense, the narrative has so much leisure to slip into a rave party and an item number in a dhaba. The reason ? A ploy by the pals of Swara Bhaskar’s husband to relieve the stress caused by the spate of unfortunate deaths. In an another incident, when the leading lady causes an accident in the early part of the film, she is totally unsettled for being the primary cause behind the mishap. All she needs is a dose of anti-depressants to let the shady incident be a matter of minutest significance. The scene shifts to Jabalpur and she conveniently says, Yeh Ghar Theek Nahi Hai smelling something fishy. You wonder if the former incident has any psychological connection with this, but there’s none.
The forced comedy arrives in parts, but you aren’t in a position to care. With the half-baked performances not withstanding, the maker flounders in establishing crucial links between scenes. When you honestly want to portray the sensual equation between a couple, how they deal with a child and an aftermath of a death, why do you need a rain-sequence to enhance it and most importantly, why scale it as a horror film ? This is a work that’s happy to defy everything that it intends to say. An unintentional comedy ? Sorry, not enough consistency to attain that status either.
Review by Srivathsan N. First published in Cinegoer.net