"Unmatta" (means intoxicated in many languages including Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit) is Marathi movie released on 22 Feb 2019 across Maharashtra, India. It is one of the best science fiction ever produced in India and one of the most underrated too. In fact there is only one news paper which reviewed it, Times of India, and gave it 1.5 rating! I went to movie with my Marathi friend in Pune only because he really bragged about it. My expectation were very low, because science fiction in India are sleazy B-Grade or action/love material with big actors and almost zero science. I was in for a surprise.
STORY -
(SPOILER ALERT) - For those who haven't seen it yet, watch it before you read any further.
Movie starts with "Zenos Paradox" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes) which basically states that world is mirage and reality is just an illusion. A criminal commits brutal suicide in jail while drawing a big eye on the floor, with his blood. He screams that she is watching! Then there is a TV debate about the same, where we see a psychologist, spiritual guru, doctor and police debating on the suicide. Debate remains open ended with conflict between "aatma" (or soul) and consciousness (spiritual guru vs psychologist). Then we are in hospital room with girl (Aditi) in comma and title song takes us into flash back (i.e 1 year before).
Aditi is student of literature, who is new in college and meets 3 other science nerds via her close friend Nuha. The friends are working on a telepathic number guessing game. Where each of them writes down a number before sleep and next day Siddhartha (one who is actually experimenting with drugs) tries to guess the numbers.
Aditi has been raped as a child and is suffering from Post Traumatic Amnesia resulting in her rapists going Scot-free (as she could not recognize them). Her parents have committed suicide (by hanging themselves) due to loss of honor (yea welcome to India) and she is raised by her uncle. She suffers sleep paralysis regularly. Nuha has lost her mother in a boat tragedy (though boat is never shown!). It looks like her father saved her but could not save her mother and this is her recurring dream. She also feels guilt that her father choose to save her over her mother. Siddhartha is mostly without parents and raised by maid. That has made him introvert. Vijay and Chaitanya seem to be fine, except that Chaitanya has sleep walking disorder!
All of them meet in college canteen and Aditi comes to know about their telepathy experiment. Aditi asks her Uncle about Telepathy. This is interesting because statue of Lord Vishnu is shown in sleeping pose. He is supposed to be dreaming our world and news is running all evil happening in the world. Does it mean that this world is nightmare of Lord Vishnu?
Next night Aditi has sleep paralysis where demon (common to people who suffer sleep paralysis. Director of movie has actually suffered the sleep paralysis stroke and made demon exactly similar to what he saw), questions her how much will she sleep? It is not clear if demon is referring to real life (where she is asleep) as dream world and asking her to wake up from it (to what we call as dream world?). Also, demon travels from person to person (giving dreams?) and we see Vijay dreaming about pole dancing woman (Is she Aditi?), Chaitanya sleep walking. Chaitanya's sequence is little complex, he walks in sleep and as such reality is blended with dream. He opens the door and there is jungle outside (clearly a dream), he runs and some strange voices follow him (It is not shown what those are, but sequence ends with his mother catching up with him. So may be its dream projection of his mother following him!). He see's a tower and a Jeep wakes him up and he finds himself standing on a road with his mother chasing behind him!
Next we enter Nuha's dream (the boat accident) and come out of Siddhartha. This is actual telepathic connection, where demon travels from dream of one person to another through dream world connecting them?
Naturally, with success of telepathic experiment all 5 of them decide to try it again at Sid's farmhouse. Particular important scene is shadow boxing of Aditi, where she fights with imaginary faceless boxers. The boxers represent her anger at rapists whose face she had forgotten.
Four of them take the drug as part of experiment and Aditi is kept as sitter, in case something went wrong (like a designated driver). Late night, Aditi has her dream in which she see's herself getting raped, suicide of her parent and wakes up (into another dream?) only to find demon sitting on her chest. Demon invites her to dream world and seduces Nuha. He clearly states that he just fulfills wish of the people in the dream (Sigmund Freud as dream being wish fulfilling thing). But he also, being consciousness, generates the desires in first place! Aditi has no option but to enter the dream world (by drinking the drug) to save her best friend Nuha (from her own desires?).
Nuha, Sid and Chaitanya wake up in single connected telepathic dream. They don't realize that its dream and go out for a walk. Chaitanya realizes that it is his dream and he starts running towards tower (which he had seen many times before in his sleepwalking dreams). He had never reached the tower before but this time he manages it with Nuha and Sid (may be because they are in farmhouse and his mother is not there to wake him up. Just his experience about her acts as voices in dream?). Once inside tower, they are trapped in some kind of twisted space with exit and entrance being same. Chaitanya has secret lust for Nuha and dream enhances it. Since it is Chaitanya's dream, the demon (consciousness?) seduces Nuha. To stop the embarrassment, Chaitanya put knife through his neck (knowing it is dream and only way to end it is to die i.e wake-up). This has tragic result in real life, where he actually commits suicide (due to his sleep walking habit!).
On other side, Vijay and Aditi enter a telepathic dream, where they fight with shadow boxers (rapists!). Clearly this should be seen as attempt by Aditi to remember the faces of rapists. Vijay dies in the fight (because he wished to die for Aditi!). Another significance of this scene is the questionable intent of Aditi. Is she really trying to remember faces of rapists or is she trying to detail out the rape (some kind of derived pleasure?). The question is raised by demon in the mirror and is echoed by one of the rapist.
With death of Vijay, Aditi enters another dream where she finds herself in cave. Lord Vishnu is sleeping in the cave (again what we had seen in her house) and a Sadhu (she has seen a different Sadhu in one of the scene, it is just dream image of him). Sadhu tells her not to wake up the Lord or world (real-world?) that is his dream will vanish! Interestingly she asks that if real-world is Vishnu's dream then where does Vishnu sleep? And answer is that he sleep here (which is her dream world!). What it means is that we dream of gods and gods dream of us. We both create each other in our images and those are the two different worlds! This must be enlightening moment for Aditi and she leaves the cave only to find herself connected with Sid and Nuha, in Nuha's dream.
Nuha is trying to save her mother, Sid is waiting on bank (he can't swim). Mother converts to demon and takes Nuha down (guilt of Nuha wanted her to die instead of mother!). Aditi tries to save her but she can't (and she doesn't seem worried about it. May be she by now understands that death is just waking up from one dream to another!) With Nuha dead (out of the dream), Sid and Aditi are now in Aditi's dream. There is a long fight sequence, where Aditi defeats masked shadow boxers with help of Sid (again this is actually trying to recover memories of past i.e fighting with memories). She finally remembers that rapist was her neighbor (friend of father) who actually died last year. So her only revenge is to kill his memory! She kills him in the dream (i.e forgets her?).
The impact of this is that she doesn't want to return to real world and decides to stay in the state of sleep (comma) forever, being in love with demon (attaining full telepathic power). Sid understands the danger of this and wake-sup to find himself in farmhouse with Chaitanya dead and Vijay and Nuha crying. Vijay tells him that he has informed police about Chaitanya's death. In an attempt to destroy his experiment (Aditi+lab+drugs), Sid blows up the house. But Nuha and Vijay escape. Vijay also carries still sleeping Aditi with him, thus defeating the attempt of Sid.
We are back in current scenario in hospital where ward boy tries to take advantage of Aditi in comma. He suddenly becomes violent and tries to kill himself (TV is still debating about suicides among rapists). It only means, Aditi has become very powerful telepath and can make people do suicide from her dream. She is punishing rapists and getting them killed! What Sid suspected has become true!
Production - Whole movie fits in 1 hour 40 minutes. No wonder it is so complex to understand. But it is still very entertaining to watch. The budget is low (approx 100K $ including marketing as per various sources) and that shows in some scenes. With proper budget this movie would be one of the most talked about in India at-least. Still compared to regional movies, it looks very good. Fight sequences are very good and are one of the best done in Indian movies. No wire-works are there and stress is given on reality (though fights are in dreams).
Acting - All actors in this movie are new. But, no where it feels like there is acting going on. The movie blurs line between art and commercial (if there is such thing).
Conclusion - Making intellectual film in India is not easy. I wrote all this because I respected and loved the movie. It has so many ideas that makes you think. No wonder Times of India gave it 1.5 star, they are addicted to Bollywood "masalas". Science fiction according to Indians is Kirsh or Robot. It is sad to see lack of appreciation of real intellectual stuff. Why there are no movies like "Inception" in India? Well there is now!
STORY -
(SPOILER ALERT) - For those who haven't seen it yet, watch it before you read any further.
Movie starts with "Zenos Paradox" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno%27s_paradoxes) which basically states that world is mirage and reality is just an illusion. A criminal commits brutal suicide in jail while drawing a big eye on the floor, with his blood. He screams that she is watching! Then there is a TV debate about the same, where we see a psychologist, spiritual guru, doctor and police debating on the suicide. Debate remains open ended with conflict between "aatma" (or soul) and consciousness (spiritual guru vs psychologist). Then we are in hospital room with girl (Aditi) in comma and title song takes us into flash back (i.e 1 year before).
Aditi is student of literature, who is new in college and meets 3 other science nerds via her close friend Nuha. The friends are working on a telepathic number guessing game. Where each of them writes down a number before sleep and next day Siddhartha (one who is actually experimenting with drugs) tries to guess the numbers.
Aditi has been raped as a child and is suffering from Post Traumatic Amnesia resulting in her rapists going Scot-free (as she could not recognize them). Her parents have committed suicide (by hanging themselves) due to loss of honor (yea welcome to India) and she is raised by her uncle. She suffers sleep paralysis regularly. Nuha has lost her mother in a boat tragedy (though boat is never shown!). It looks like her father saved her but could not save her mother and this is her recurring dream. She also feels guilt that her father choose to save her over her mother. Siddhartha is mostly without parents and raised by maid. That has made him introvert. Vijay and Chaitanya seem to be fine, except that Chaitanya has sleep walking disorder!
All of them meet in college canteen and Aditi comes to know about their telepathy experiment. Aditi asks her Uncle about Telepathy. This is interesting because statue of Lord Vishnu is shown in sleeping pose. He is supposed to be dreaming our world and news is running all evil happening in the world. Does it mean that this world is nightmare of Lord Vishnu?
Next night Aditi has sleep paralysis where demon (common to people who suffer sleep paralysis. Director of movie has actually suffered the sleep paralysis stroke and made demon exactly similar to what he saw), questions her how much will she sleep? It is not clear if demon is referring to real life (where she is asleep) as dream world and asking her to wake up from it (to what we call as dream world?). Also, demon travels from person to person (giving dreams?) and we see Vijay dreaming about pole dancing woman (Is she Aditi?), Chaitanya sleep walking. Chaitanya's sequence is little complex, he walks in sleep and as such reality is blended with dream. He opens the door and there is jungle outside (clearly a dream), he runs and some strange voices follow him (It is not shown what those are, but sequence ends with his mother catching up with him. So may be its dream projection of his mother following him!). He see's a tower and a Jeep wakes him up and he finds himself standing on a road with his mother chasing behind him!
Next we enter Nuha's dream (the boat accident) and come out of Siddhartha. This is actual telepathic connection, where demon travels from dream of one person to another through dream world connecting them?
Naturally, with success of telepathic experiment all 5 of them decide to try it again at Sid's farmhouse. Particular important scene is shadow boxing of Aditi, where she fights with imaginary faceless boxers. The boxers represent her anger at rapists whose face she had forgotten.
Four of them take the drug as part of experiment and Aditi is kept as sitter, in case something went wrong (like a designated driver). Late night, Aditi has her dream in which she see's herself getting raped, suicide of her parent and wakes up (into another dream?) only to find demon sitting on her chest. Demon invites her to dream world and seduces Nuha. He clearly states that he just fulfills wish of the people in the dream (Sigmund Freud as dream being wish fulfilling thing). But he also, being consciousness, generates the desires in first place! Aditi has no option but to enter the dream world (by drinking the drug) to save her best friend Nuha (from her own desires?).
Nuha, Sid and Chaitanya wake up in single connected telepathic dream. They don't realize that its dream and go out for a walk. Chaitanya realizes that it is his dream and he starts running towards tower (which he had seen many times before in his sleepwalking dreams). He had never reached the tower before but this time he manages it with Nuha and Sid (may be because they are in farmhouse and his mother is not there to wake him up. Just his experience about her acts as voices in dream?). Once inside tower, they are trapped in some kind of twisted space with exit and entrance being same. Chaitanya has secret lust for Nuha and dream enhances it. Since it is Chaitanya's dream, the demon (consciousness?) seduces Nuha. To stop the embarrassment, Chaitanya put knife through his neck (knowing it is dream and only way to end it is to die i.e wake-up). This has tragic result in real life, where he actually commits suicide (due to his sleep walking habit!).
On other side, Vijay and Aditi enter a telepathic dream, where they fight with shadow boxers (rapists!). Clearly this should be seen as attempt by Aditi to remember the faces of rapists. Vijay dies in the fight (because he wished to die for Aditi!). Another significance of this scene is the questionable intent of Aditi. Is she really trying to remember faces of rapists or is she trying to detail out the rape (some kind of derived pleasure?). The question is raised by demon in the mirror and is echoed by one of the rapist.
With death of Vijay, Aditi enters another dream where she finds herself in cave. Lord Vishnu is sleeping in the cave (again what we had seen in her house) and a Sadhu (she has seen a different Sadhu in one of the scene, it is just dream image of him). Sadhu tells her not to wake up the Lord or world (real-world?) that is his dream will vanish! Interestingly she asks that if real-world is Vishnu's dream then where does Vishnu sleep? And answer is that he sleep here (which is her dream world!). What it means is that we dream of gods and gods dream of us. We both create each other in our images and those are the two different worlds! This must be enlightening moment for Aditi and she leaves the cave only to find herself connected with Sid and Nuha, in Nuha's dream.
Nuha is trying to save her mother, Sid is waiting on bank (he can't swim). Mother converts to demon and takes Nuha down (guilt of Nuha wanted her to die instead of mother!). Aditi tries to save her but she can't (and she doesn't seem worried about it. May be she by now understands that death is just waking up from one dream to another!) With Nuha dead (out of the dream), Sid and Aditi are now in Aditi's dream. There is a long fight sequence, where Aditi defeats masked shadow boxers with help of Sid (again this is actually trying to recover memories of past i.e fighting with memories). She finally remembers that rapist was her neighbor (friend of father) who actually died last year. So her only revenge is to kill his memory! She kills him in the dream (i.e forgets her?).
The impact of this is that she doesn't want to return to real world and decides to stay in the state of sleep (comma) forever, being in love with demon (attaining full telepathic power). Sid understands the danger of this and wake-sup to find himself in farmhouse with Chaitanya dead and Vijay and Nuha crying. Vijay tells him that he has informed police about Chaitanya's death. In an attempt to destroy his experiment (Aditi+lab+drugs), Sid blows up the house. But Nuha and Vijay escape. Vijay also carries still sleeping Aditi with him, thus defeating the attempt of Sid.
We are back in current scenario in hospital where ward boy tries to take advantage of Aditi in comma. He suddenly becomes violent and tries to kill himself (TV is still debating about suicides among rapists). It only means, Aditi has become very powerful telepath and can make people do suicide from her dream. She is punishing rapists and getting them killed! What Sid suspected has become true!
Production - Whole movie fits in 1 hour 40 minutes. No wonder it is so complex to understand. But it is still very entertaining to watch. The budget is low (approx 100K $ including marketing as per various sources) and that shows in some scenes. With proper budget this movie would be one of the most talked about in India at-least. Still compared to regional movies, it looks very good. Fight sequences are very good and are one of the best done in Indian movies. No wire-works are there and stress is given on reality (though fights are in dreams).
Acting - All actors in this movie are new. But, no where it feels like there is acting going on. The movie blurs line between art and commercial (if there is such thing).
Conclusion - Making intellectual film in India is not easy. I wrote all this because I respected and loved the movie. It has so many ideas that makes you think. No wonder Times of India gave it 1.5 star, they are addicted to Bollywood "masalas". Science fiction according to Indians is Kirsh or Robot. It is sad to see lack of appreciation of real intellectual stuff. Why there are no movies like "Inception" in India? Well there is now!
