Sometime in the year 1902, 20 years after a six or seven-year-old child named Bulbbul is married off to a middle-aged landlord, a demon witch with inverted legs — a churrail — attacks men under the thick, fogged gaze of a bright red moon.

Like the stereotypical use of the colour red — the universal tint of ominous activities — washing over thick forests and barren manors and temples, at first glance there is little mystery in this supernatural thriller written-directed by Anvita Dutt and produced by Anushka Sharma.

Even stronger than the colour-heavy atmosphere is the uninhibited exhibition of girl-power at play. To put a spin on the old adage, the women in this story aren’t scorned… they are wronged, by antiquated customs, male oppression or general masculine-minded imbecility — no matter how noble or single-mindedly righteous the intention (remember, the setting is 118 years ago; what we deem morally wrong or gender-biased today was considered time-honoured in the past).

Being a work of fiction, one that is at the utter behest of its filmmakers, if Bulbbul’s tone was any gruffer, the men in the film wouldn’t be far off from well-dressed cavemen. Beneath the reserved demeanour of cultured gentlefolk, most solemnly delivered dialogues from the male cast sounded (at least to this reviewer) as: Me man. Me feel, me right. Me bad. Me dumb — and to further shove the point across — Me also mentally challenged. There is, however, always one exception to the rule, so we also add: Me man, me sympathetic.

Even with the dramatic, albeit brilliantly camouflaged female chauvinism in Bulbbul, one can’t help but be swept away by the sure-handed screenwriting and direction of the film’s somewhat simple premise

If these dialogues were really a part of the film, they would perfectly identify each man in the cast: there’s the authoritarian landlord, his mentally challenged twin brother, their simple-minded younger brother and the sympathetic doctor.

Even with the dramatic, albeit brilliantly camouflaged female chauvinism in Bulbbul, one can’t help but be swept away by the sure-handed screenwriting and direction of the film’s somewhat simple premise. Clocking in a little over 90 minutes, this ephemerally brief tale comes at the viewer with a fast and ferocious drive, punching ever so slightly above its weight.

This is what great filmmaking is about: compact, ardent, deliberate perspectives that grab one in an unyielding chokehold…despite one’s personal reservations.

The young Bulbbul we see in the first minutes of the film grows up as the landlord’s wife (played by Tripti Dimri, excelling from her brilliant debut in Laila Majnu). Between the story’s present and flashbacks, one can see conspicuous changes in this young woman. The once naïve Bulbbul’s hastily tied hair and the lack of make-up are swapped by piercing, all-knowing gazes, and an immaculate, high-brow taste in attire and cosmetics. The persona is so subjugating that one can smell the perfume she wears from the screen.

She is a dominant governor of her townfolk in the apparent absence of her authoritarian husband (Rahul Bose; as perfect as he has ever been). Her decrees over her subjects aren’t dictatorial. As befitting a minor deity, she dismisses her subjects’ not-so-serious dilemmas with a wave of her hand — as we see in the case of her driver, who has married for the second time.

Did he piss her off, the driver asks sitting in front of Bulbbul when the scene opens; his first wife and son beside him. “Too late for that,” Bulbbul answers. “And what will your poor first wife do?” she asks. “They’ll live together like sisters,” he says, to the bitter surprise of his first wife. “Dafa ho [Get lost],” Bulbbul says, adding that if he hurts the first wife, the driver will answer to her.

This hardly over-a-minute-long scene is so precisely handled, from the camera placement to the dialogue delivery and the edit, that connoisseurs of intelligently made cinema may be able to gauge the story’s exact path and the film’s temperament by the time the scene cuts.

Giving so much away, and at the same time stuffing so much dramatic context in, the identity and origins of the supernatural becomes a secondary aspect of the story.

Bulbbul laughs away the slowly creeping panic created by the murdering witch. The demoness has been selectively killing men, without an apparent motive or a link between the dead. One of the slain is Bulbbul’s aforementioned mentally handicapped brother-in-law (also Rahul Bose), whose widow (Paoli Dam; excellent), is a shrewd schemer with a pitiful past.

With so much mystery in their midst, Bulbbul’s younger brother-in-law, Satya (Avinash Tiwari, Dimri’s co-lead in Laila Majnu), whom she fancied before he left the country to study, takes it upon himself to play Sherlock.

Satya is a bad detective, who singles out the local doctor (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) as the murdering villain because he shares a mysterious, flirtatious vibe with Bulbbul.

As I earlier wrote, all male characters carry little depth and a general lack of intelligence to think things through. This is a wittingly written shortfall in Bulbbul. The two women — Dimri and Dam — bear a greater sense of anguish, despair and purpose. No wonder, the witch only hurts bad men in this picture.

Bulbbul, available to stream on Netflix is rated 16+ (for ages 16 and over). The film has scenes of high-strung drama, sexual molestation and visual effects-laden supernatural scenes of a demon witch with inverted feet. This well-made film is not suitable for young children.

Published in Dawn, ICON, July 5th, 2020