Chutney Review

422 views
Priyamvada Rana
  • 4/5
Savour the suspense driven taste of Chutney!
[contains spoilers]

If you haven’t seen an edgy suspense story for a long while then be ready to savour the taste of Chutney- a 17 min critically acclaimed short film by Jyoti Kapur Das which is performed by a great ensemble cast with not so meaty but yet eerily spicy roles. How a grotesque act of murder is unfolded through an agrarian Indian paste - Chutney which is used as a metaphor to convey revenge is very spine chilling!

Tisca Chopra as a timid, seemingly naive and a domesticated wife( Vanita) will leave you in splits with her fear-invoking storytelling of Chutney. Her under confident demeanour in the beginning visible through her meek presence at the Model Town garden party could rarely make us think of how dubious she could be from inside. On finding his husband’s affair with flam buoyant and flirtatious young married woman (Rasika) she instantly decides to seek vengeance in her own strangely unique style by inviting Rasika over a cup of tea to chit-chat over Pakoras and Chutney. The plot explicitly brings out key themes like betrayal in marriage, infidelity, insecurity and subtle way of taking revenge.

The viewer can see the status quo and power relation between Anita and Rasika changing by the end of the conversation. The bold and beautiful Rasika who was enjoying the Pakoras remains wide eyed-pale faced and totally frightened to hear the Chutney’s shady back-story which directly relates to the heinous murder of which feeble and shy looking Anita and her husband were a part of. Tisca’s covert screen presence is very transcending and keep intact the suspense element till the end. The most appreciable element is that the face of the protagonist (Vanita) is the prologue and if you have succeeded in reading it correctly then you are going to get what’s in the plot before you reach the edgy climax. A true suspense thriller indeed!

422 views
Loading...