Directors: Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi, Adesh Prasad
Starring: Sohum Shah, Jyoti Malshe, Anita Date-Kelkar
mythological story about a goddess who created the entire universe. The plot revolves around the consequences when humans build a temple for her first-born.
“The World has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” How true!
Hastar was the first-born of the Goddess of Prosperity, who created the Universe. (…and already I can hear Christians calling the film blasphemous…). Because of Hastar’s greed, he was to be forgotten, but eons later Man built a shrine in his name.
The film starts with young brothers Vinayak and Sadashiv along with their mother looking after an old woman, who is chained in a room. Their mother is mistress to Sakar, who lives in a mansion, and the old woman is his ancestor. When Sakar dies, and Sadashiv dies shortly thereafter in an accident, the mother and Vinayak leaves the town of Tumbbad, vowing never to return.
However, with rumours of a treasure in Sakar’s mansion, Vinayak returns years later. He finds the old woman – a hideous creature and hardly human – alive still, and she tells him the secret of the treasure. He sets out to find the treasure, and to find it he climbs down a well into the Goddess’ womb, where the creepy Hastar still dwells. To distract Hastar while he steals the gold coins, Vinayak feeds it a dough doll.
Vinayak prepares his son to collect coins with him, but with greed comes a price to pay. ‘Tumbbad’ is an unusual horror film with excellent cinematography, good performances and creepy effects. I wouldn’t call it scary and there are few to no jump scares, but it certainly would make a scary bedtime story!
‘Tumbbad’ received 43 award nominations, winning 17 including Best Film, Best Cinematography, Best Production Design, Best Sound Design, Best Special Effects, and Best Make-Up & Hair Styling.
In Hindi.
Would I watch it again? Maybe.
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