Friday, 19 April 2013

Ek Thi Daayan

Most of you are familiar that I have been making reasonable attempts over the past year or so, to overcome my morbid fear of Horror.  And most of you are also aware that I have done a good job out of it.  I am still a “fattu” (scaredy cat) but it takes more than what it used to, to scare me.  There are enough and more instances in Ek Thi Daayan that scared me and will scare quite a few of you as well.

What I liked a lot about the way Kannan Iyer has directed the movie is his minimal use of gore and creepy horror throughout the movie.  Instead, he has kept building the eerie factor through some wonderful use of silence, music, light and camera angles.  I would not be mistaken if I were to say that there was a lot of Vishal Bharadwaj for a better part of this movie.
 
But then there is also a lot of Ekta Kapoor in the last 15 minutes where everything just goes totally downhill.  The entire effort made in the hour and 45 minutes of the movie nearly comes to naught.  And I am willing to give leeway on the predictability aspect of the plot because not too many people will crack it soon.  But the temptation to convert an eerie movie to a zombie movie was just too much for Kannan Iyer to resist I guess.
 
Bobo (Emraan Hashmi) – that’s his name and I did not keep it.  His father (Pawan Malhotra) probably did. He was called Bijoy at birth.  But I guess his magician name – Bobo the Baffler stuck to him.  He is world famous as a magician.  He is in love with Tamara (Huma Qureshi) but something is stopping him from opening up to her.  They are planning to adopt Zubin, an orphan from the local school.
 
However, when a 3rd accident occurs on the sets of his performance, Zubin gets really perturbed.  The accident is caused by an apparition that he sees repeatedly.  The apparition is one that shows his kid sister (Sara Arjun) who died when she was six along with a Daayan (a witch) who he believes is responsible for her death.
 
Other than the good parts as mentioned above, we have some very good performances from pretty much everyone in the cast.  Emraan Hashmi is one of the most under rated actors of our time as I have always believed.  Huma Qureshi is growing in stature with every outing.  Kalki is good as always but stealing the show as Diana is Konkona Sen Sharma who gives you the creeps like very few I have seen before.
 
If there was more attention given to the finer details, and more so, the last 15 minutes, I would have stuck my neck out and said that this one is as good as Kai Po Che.  But it was not to be.  There are several errors throughout the movie that could have been avoided.  The finishing is average.
 
Vishal Bharadwaj’s music coupled with Gulzar’s lyrics is atypical of the combination and therefore very good. But not sufficient to move the movie from the 6 on 10 that I am giving it.  Definitely watchable but you may come out feeling disappointed at the end of the movie.  Like an IPL game between Mumbai Indians and Rajasthan Royals that promised a lot but turned out to be a damp squib.
 

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