Starring: Hani Raj, K.K Chetty, Komala.

Producer: Dilip K. Shah.

Director: D. Siva Kumar.

Rating: ****

How do you review a movie which borrows influences from the Lynch, Boyle and Aronofsky School of movie making? As soon as the credits for Mazaa.a.a started rolling I knew that I had the most unenviable task at hand. 

The plot opens with a corpse being dragged and the camera panning ever closer to the blood trail left behind. Then suddenly, the focus shifts to a group of effervescent youngsters dancing to some form of ambient folk song, from where it traverses to two maidens playing badminton in the courtyard. A scream and a screech later it climaxes with the parallel plots suddenly intersecting which leaves you gasping for breath. I braced myself for a trip down the Mulholland Drive. 

Ignorant was I, because the plot suddenly u-turned on me and when I regained cinematic sensibility I found the effervescent group of youngsters indulging in no holds barred heroin and marijuana. True the dialogues lacked the panache of Trainspotting but then again this was pretty much uncharted territory as far as Indian cinema is concerned. 

In keeping with the hectic pace, the plot now moved towards the girls who had to sell their body and soul once they got addicted to the drugs and just like Requiem for a Dream, the scenes scar your memory for a very long time.

The director, keeping in mind Indian sensibilities, does include the normal love angle and murder mystery into the plot but that is mostly to make the movie marketable to the wider B-grade audience who haven’t yet seen the aforementioned Hollywood flicks. For those not interested in the plot, yes there is ample nudity involved and the staple bathing in undergarments routine has not been overlooked.

Write a comment