Mainstream Bollywood rarely indulges in the horror genre so it’s heartening to witness the emergence of promising debut director Kannan Iyer and his flawed but worthy ghost-witch tale, Ek Thi Dayaan.
generally effective as an occasionally chilling supernatural work
Despite being largely unburdened by logic or reason, Iyer’s film is nevertheless a creepy exercise in atmospherics at the service of a plot steeped in loss, regret and fading memory. Bound by the region’s cinematic traditions, he pushes the story out to an unnecessary two-hour plus running time and refuses to resist the urge to indulge in dance and romance montages. But the resultant film is still generally effective as an occasionally chilling supernatural work.
The film opens on India’s greatest illusionist, the ridiculously-monikered 'Bobo the Baffler’, played with suitable intensity by leading man Emraan Hashmi. When an assistant is badly burned in an on-stage accident (incredibly, the third to suffer such a fate), Bobo reveals he was distracted by a child’s voice that may have been the ghost of Misha, his little sister who died under mysterious circumstances. Under hypnosis, we are transported back to Bobo’s childhood and here we learn he was tormented by his father’s new partner, Diana (Konkona Sen Sharma), who could be a shape-shifting 'Dayaana’, or witch-spirit, that followed young Bobo back from an elevator ride to Hell.
These scenes unfold with solid menace, with the young actors pulling off the creepy drama of an unwanted haunting job. The childhood flashback passage is structurally sound and leads into the interval featuring a convincingly shocking effects-heavy sequence.
Post intermission, the film unravels. Bobo and his partner, Tamara (Huma Qureshi), throw themselves back into the magic act, only to have a 'Canadian’ called Lisa Dutt (Kalki Koechlin) enter their lives. Is she the re-incarnated spirit of a child killer from the 1960s, returning to finish off Bobo? The ease with which she ingratiates herself into their existence is preposterous, as is the pop-folk musical interlude that brought giggles from the audience. By the time the film’s 'demonic confrontation’ finale comes around, much of the tension has been drained from the narrative.
Ek Thi Dayaan also fails to fully explore the mystical traits of Bobo himself. Audiences never learn how or why the Dayaan chose him and his sister, nor how the sleight-of-hand master is also able to connect with the Netherworld of an underground sanctum. A barrage of exposition in the final minutes of the film, including a Shyamalan-like 'big twist’ designed to explain away all that has gone before, will not be enough for the invested viewer.
The film does soar, however, in its technical prowess. The practical and make-up effects are first-rate; digital effects are used sparingly but they’re convincing. The use of shadow and diffused light by DOP Saurabh Goswami is superb, especially in his conjuring of a Hell filled with undefined coloured light sources.
