In times like these, a movie like Batsorik might hit you with its ambiguity. Directed and written by Mainak Bhaumik, Batsorik has two central female characters, Brishti (Ritabhari Chakraborty) and Sapna (Satabdi Roy), who get you follow into their own loopholes of remembrances of Neel (husband of Brishti, brother of Sapna).
The film shuts you up at the very first genesis, with an accident, and Neel dies. Brishti, who was his companion, comes out as a survivor and now is living with her husband’s anamnesis. One year to it, her ‘nanad’ (sister-in-law) Sapna is with her, as the two plan to perform ‘Batsorik’ (one-year death anniversary) of Neel. However, the two get into an entanglement, an entanglement of evil. But what I could question after watching the movie was whether it was ‘evil’ in its real sense or the memories that we deny to let go.
Grief is flabbergasting. It is. Pardon my perception, but that’s how I feel. It comes in stages. One of them is ‘denial’ of ‘death.’ We tend to hold onto that last straw, that last very bit of catastrophic catharsis following the dismissal of one’s life, not realising that if we do not liberate ourselves, we might reach a point of self-harm.
That’s what you see in Brishti. While Sapna constantly warns her and makes her aware of her denial, Brishti gainsays. Sapna, who dedicated her life to science, smells ‘evil’ in the house and believes it propelled Neel’s deteriorating mental health and substance use. Brishti, however, dissented. She constantly holds on to the past memories, and especially the day the massacre happened.
Sapna carries out different rituals to get rid of the evil forces, the “pishach,” and you see a strange set of incidents occurring to both of them, weird sounds, and a lot of disturbing, nauseating visuals. Eventually, both the women fight their haunting grief together, acquired from Neel’s death.
Excruciating watch. That much ambiguity did not look very coherent in terms of what we perceive as cinema. But what calls for an applause is the comprehension and merging of the concept that the ‘dark forces’ are nothing but our own ‘thoughts.’ Something we feel like holding onto. You see in the climax that how Sapna, after the farcical exorcism of Brishti, burns Neel’s clothes in order to ‘let go’ of him and the ‘pishach’ the haunting grief, the haunting memories that Brishti holds in her.
We saw fair participation and partnership between the two prime characters. The tonality looked fantastic, and it gets you to the grind. The flickering of lights (a common element) everything summed up to make it a wishy-washy watchable watch.
IWMBuzz rates it 2.5 stars.
