DARK, SINISTER, DEVASTATING

Prague

STARRING: Chandan Roy Sanyal, Elena Kazan, Kumar Mayank, Arfi Lamba DIRECTOR: Ashish R Shukla --lrl,clr.,'r;r here are the dark unexplored regions of the psyche that experimental cinema reifies, even for an audience that doesn't want to think while watching a fi l m.

Prague engages in the unexplored, taking us into a world of despair and anxiety. Shot with splendid serenity, the movie has plenty of visual beauty to savour of the Czech Republic.

But secreted in the splendour are the murky secrets of human foibles which come rushing to the surface in unguarded moments of desperate anxiety.

Standing at the vortex of this psychologically disconcerting treatise on a mind that doesn't follow what the heart says, is the enormously gifted Chandan Roy Sanyal playing an architect whose romance with structural precision mocks the crookedness of his inner world.

The more Chandan seeks symmetry in his life the more it eludes him, until there comes a time when the real and the illusory worlds come together in a stifling embrace.

Prague opens in India where the dynamics of Chandan's inner world are manifested in his relationship with an undependable Indian girl named Shubangi and his two closest friends Gulshan (Kumar Mayank) and Arfi (Arfi Lamba) one of whom, we soon realise, is dead.

This is when we begin to realise that Chandan is losing his mind As he and his two best friends move to Prague, the stage is sturdily set for Chandan's descent into hell.

Each step of the character's decline into a world of hefty hallucination is chronicled with compelling crispness The editor uses components from the real world and the 'reality' according to Chandan in a play of hide and seek.

Then there are the songs, so well used RD Burma n's Meri bheegi bheegi si in the Hindi and Bengali versions, and some achingly haunting Czech songs that recur in lovelorn loops of longing.

There are passages in the storytelling where the world ofthe imagination blends into the real world The collision point where the two worlds meet is well controlled by the director, although at times you fear the narrative lapses into self-indulgence.

There is plenty in Prague where the motivation is questionable. Why does Chandan act the way he does? He

TAKE Tl-IE WARNING... STAY AWAY!

Warning

STARRING: Santosh Barmola, Suzana Rodrigues, Varun Sharma, Manjari Phadnis, Jitin Gulati, Sumit Suri and Madhurima Tulii

DIRECTOR: Gurmmeet Singh --lrlr,)l--;r):{

Water waste of time! Slasher movies work best on terrafirma where girls in a state of disrobed desperation make a dash for safety Alas, here the characters have nowhere to run to Neither do we.

In Warning, the entire slasher genre is shifted to the aqua splendour of the Fijian water where true to its genre, characters start getting killed/ wounded/ slashed/maimed.

The ladi es of this uproariously funny slasher movie get to wear swimwear most of the time No censor objection since they are in the water. And surely you can 't swim in a burqa!

But yes, you can get killed in the azure acres of silence Water runs deep when it is marred by killer fish. Koi shark?!

The 30 format is used here in a strangely eccentric and miserly way. When you expect the water to surge towards you, there is just a flat si l ence on the screen. You are left wondering why those silly glasses were required in the first place.

Sigh, Life of Pi in the high seas, was so much more eloquent. Here, the water just seems to invite violence and not of a very convincing kind. The young actors seem to be in it for the all-expenses paid Fijian holiday with a bit of amateur shooting thrown in to legiti mise the vacationing costs.

Everyone connected with the film does a lazy, if not altogether a lousy job. I do like to encourage new talent. And I'd like to give these newcomers the benefit of the doubt. There i s very little plot only a whole lot of deep water to sink one's teeth and other body parts in. The intended tension gets suffocating after 20 minutes.

And 3D be damned!

How much and how many times can clearly embraces all the confusion, complexities, insecurities and insanity of his character.

The casting of Chandan's two friends is also of the utmost importance. The cocky self-centred Gulshan played by Kumar Mayank, is the most fatally charismatic character i n this intricate jigsaw of light and death. And the wimpy, whiny, overpossessive Arfi.

Elena Kazan, last seen in John Day, is forced to join her lover in his journey into hell, bringing a whole lot of tragic charm to the proceedings.

Not all of the events in the film make sense when judged against conventional populist elements The very powerful Chandan plays an artiste on the brink. As he topples over, we get a v iv id view into the abyss that separates man from madness.

Though not an easy breezy journey, Prague takes us into the heart of darkness.

What we see is a world manned by you watch the actors jump into the deep end without losing their bearings? Some of the intended terror is plainly bland. And worse when you are supposed to be trembling i n fear, you actually find yourse lf shaking with laughter.

Very honestly there are seeds of a killer thr i ller somewhere in this watery mess But while leaving for their Fij ian holiday, the crew forgot to take al ong the script.

Be warned Undersea thrillers don't work. Anthony D'Souza's mega-disastrous Blue should've been warning enough. The last and only really successful water scare-fest was Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

This one comes too late and with betrayal. As Chandan's world falls apart, the film gathers its strength from the rubble that he collects around himself. Sometimes seeing dead people is about attempting to remain sane in a world that is defined by eccentricity and death.

Prague i s a tough fi l m to digest. But who said life in the movies is only about the unbearable lightness of being stupid?

SUBHASH K. JHA too li ttle, in fact, almost nothing to offer.

If you like horror films please watch ground level slasher films. If you dig girls in bikinis please watch Baywatch.

But if you like to torture yourself with mid-ocean inertia, you know where to go!

SUBHASH K. JHA