The Bait

Movie to move the heart, mind and soul

Where do I start with this one? A beautifully shot story set in rural India where cultural notes are sometimes told through comedy. Some audience will appreciate and maybe even love it while others will leave the theater lost and less than satisfied.

The opening scene has Raja, the self-declared expert tiger hunter dancing to his old gramophone. It is not till later or towards the end that the significance of this scene becomes clear. The gramophone will make its appearance several more times in the movie including the last scene, connecting the beginning and the end poetically.

In the beginning, the movie seems disconnected with focus on three separate characters, their lives vastly different from each other. Raja, the aristocrat who lives in his mansion with his bored and unhappy wife or mistress, Rekha, who dreams often of a stranger who swims with her. Goja, who lives in a tree with the monkeys, disguising himself as a seer but has only been relating the news he read from the letters he stole instead of delivered. And finally, Munni, a teenage street performer who leads a nomadic lifestyle with her impoverished parents but wishes to have beautiful trinkets for the wedding she dreams of.

The three lives that normally would not intersect eventually starts to entwine, culminating in the tragic end that I dreadfully felt coming as soon as the two lives met. What I thought to be a reprieve turns out to be perhaps a ruse to lull my instincts. The bait becomes sadly clear in the next frame.

The ending can only be inferred. Nothing dramatic about it. Though it did resolve the uncertainty I had about what happened to Rekha.

My appreciation and understanding of this film are much amplified after pouring my thoughts and impression of it on paper. I can see much clearer the brilliance that is Buddhadeb Dasgupta.     

Trailer here.