Durgamati Review: A frame from the film. (courtesy of bhumipednekar)
To emit: Bhumi Pednekar, Arshad Warsi, Karan Kapadia, Mahie Gill, Jisshu Sengupta
director: Ashok G
Classification: 1 star (out of 5)
A ghost story that makes its way into a gruesome rural myth is the crux of Durgamati – The Myth, a remake by writer-director Ashok of his own 2018 Telugu film Bhaagamathi. The question arises: why? Wasn’t it bad enough that the movie was made in the first place that it had to be remade?
Durgamati – The Myth, which airs on Amazon Prime, sells a mix of ghosts, scares, and runoffs that are supposed to instill the fear of God and inadvertently the fear of bad cinema in us. I’m not sure I will achieve the former. The latter sure does. It dampens our senses so completely. The 155-minute film is an extended blur from whose depths unending and excruciating nonsense emerges. By the time it has run its course, the ghosts also retreat to protect their hard-earned reputation.
The film brings together everything you expect from a garish supernatural thriller: a noisy background soundtrack, an abandoned haveli, faded portraits on the wall, dust-covered mirrors, creaking doors, cobweb-covered chandeliers, dark-shrouded passageways, bursts of lightning. cold wind, a huge pair of doors with two large human eyes etched into it, and an armless watchman. Only the bats are missing! The movie itself is pretty wacky.
What’s worse, Durgamati – The Myth It has more history than it can handle. Ancient idols are being stolen from temples. Law enforcement agencies are in one flap as pressure builds at the top. The ‘catch the guilty’ mission takes the form of a conspiracy to implicate a politician who is so clean that he could pose as an incarnation of god. What follows is a bunch of monstrous things that are supposed to be entertaining. Everything the movie manages to be is exasperatingly infuriating as it talks endlessly.
The politician, the minister of water resources Ishwar Prasad (Arshad Warsi) and the robberies of temples are only part of the complicated plot. An IAS officer, Chanchal Chauhan (Bhumi Pednekar), who served as the politician’s personal assistant for ten years, is in prison for the murder of an activist, Shakti (Karan Kapadia).
A tough CBI interrogator, Satakshi Ganguly (Mahie Gill, who occasionally speaks Bengali, a few simple syllables at a time), takes it upon herself to pile dirt on the politician and lock him up for life. A serious police officer, ACP Abhay Singh (Jisshu Sengupta), is deployed to investigate the temple robberies and assist the CBI with logistical support. These three individuals orbit the spirit of a dead woman in a secluded mansion that no one has inhabited for decades.
One monumental irrationality piles up on another. At one point, a tantric man makes an appearance and delivers a ‘faceless’ rosary to the officers and tells them to run for cover if he turns black. If there is something that Durgamati – The Myth he will never be charged, he is under-conspiring. The writing is so hectic that the movie quickly becomes extremely tedious.
Yahaan kya shawl raha mujhe kuch samajh nahi aa raha (I have no idea what’s going on here), says one person. Exactly our point. Durgamati – The Myth it’s a horror story okay. It sells a bunch of tacky notions about revenge and the occult, all accompanied by an overdose of frenzied drama.
The plot makes the lead actress do some great heavy lifting. She has to scream, Hector, sob, grunt, moan, and wave her arms to show that she is up to the challenge. Pednekar throws himself onto paper with all the enthusiasm at his disposal. But, since I’ve never had so much unrestricted hammering, the tension begins to show when the movie hits the halfway point.
Durgamati – The Myth it actually has a sequence that, if the film had been released in theaters, would have foreshadowed the intermission. The heroine, possessed by the spirit of an angry queen, screams that no one will be able to enter or leave the mansion without her saying so. Fortunately, we are not “trapped” in a movie theater. We have the option to rescue ourselves.
If you’re wondering how the paths of an IAS officer and an evil spirit crossed paths, the setup is spectacular. Chanchal Chauhan IAS, due to its proximity to the politician everyone wants to smear, identifies as the Achilles heels of man. But the CBI interrogator abandons the idea of questioning the lady in prison. That, he infers, would be risky because everyone would come to know what is going on.
An abandoned and haunted mansion is chosen and turned into an interrogation center, although the cops in charge of preparing the place keep pointing out that it is not a good idea. So before long, the case of the missing idols takes the form of a haunting ghost mystery who decides to use the young IAS officer as a means to make his point.
When things start to get out of hand, a psychiatrist (Ananth Mahadevan) is brought in to work with the possessed woman. He decrees that “this place is not good for schizophrenics” and also, in the process, cites a mental condition known as kakorrhaphiophobia. It is the irrational fear of failure or defeat, explains the doctor.
But that is not all the psychiatrist does. To bring Chanchal Chauhan out of his hysterical state, he tells a story about a college girl gangrape in the haunted haveli. The lady contradicts him and paints an alternate scenario to explain why an angel of vengeance has been going mad in the deserted palace.
Believe it or not, it tries to inject some humor into the movie. The CBI officer asks the ACP to assign him three of its most incompetent inspectors. He takes her seriously and assigns three clumsy agents to guard the mansion. His presence and scary cat antics are meant to provide comic relief. Not funny at all.
If twaddle had a title, it would be Durgamati – The Myth. Say boo and move on. Take this true endurance test only if you’re a pain fanatic.
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