Human fears are universal, but the expression of those fears is different in every culture – which can be a lot of fun for horror fans. There comes a point where delving too deeply into one’s culture’s horror stories can undermine the sense of strangeness and surprise that the genre depends on. Look to another country for culturally specific, fresh takes on spooky tropes – like Japan’s The ringof Europe The orphanageIceland lambor Taiwan’s incantation – lets horror fans experience familiar shocks dressed in vibrant new ways that can dig under even the most jaded skin. In the process, they can also learn fascinating things about how many different ways there are to shape and share the same fears.
This is one of the great joys of tumbling bath, Rahi Anil Barve’s stunning 2018 Hindi horror story about gods, greed and blood. The raw bones of this film are well known: man gives in to his vices, man faces a supernatural reckoning. But the specific form this story takes and the imagery used to craft it will be unknown to Western audiences. And the graphic, chilling details hit particularly hard because they’re so unexpected. It’s a great find of the Halloween season.
India has one long but relatively narrow history of horror moviesand tumbling bath was a hit there when it was released, probably because it’s so sinister, persistent and streamlined, yet so thoroughly an Indian story, rooted in the country’s history and its specific traumas. The three chapters of the story each contain different main mysteries and discoveries, and they each have a slightly different flavor of horror.
The first is a simple bump-in-the-night fable packed with sudden shocks and gruesome practical effects. The second feels a lot more Lovecraftian, with a protagonist knowingly infecting himself with terrible knowledge and accepting the effects on his psyche. It helps that the story revolves around a forbidden, lost god named Hastar, a Name that doesn’t actually come from Indian mythology
In the first – set in 1918 against the backdrop of Mahatma Gandhi’s early rebellions against British rule – young brothers Vinayak and Sadashiv Rao resent the poverty in the rural town of Tumbbad. They live in the shadow of a vast, decaying mansion owned by a seedy hermit named Sarkar, who is secretly their father. But he has never acknowledged her or his connection to her mother (Jyoti Malshe), who has been his servant and lover for decades.
Sarkar’s mansion is said to contain a hidden family fortune. Vinayak, in particular, feels entitled to a share of the money, which means not only an escape from his family’s hand-to-mouth life, but also the respect and proud place he craves as a rich man’s son. Instead, his legacy is a mysterious obligation to a monstrous old woman chained in his home in his mother’s care. The family speaks of her with fear and awe, the way they would speak of a boogeyman in need of placation – and, it turns out, with good reason.
The second chapter begins 15 years later, during a turbulent time for the British Raj. Now an adult (and played by Bollywood producer Sohum Shah), Vinayak returns to Tumbbad seeking the happiness he never found as a child – and the old, chained woman he sees differently as an adult. Shortly thereafter, he returns to his wife in the vast, sprawling city of Pune, bringing with them mysterious gold coins. To sell the coins, he strikes an ill-fated deal with Raghav (Deepak Damle), a friend, moneylender and trader who hopes to bribe himself into a lucrative opium trading license. Both men are driven by greed and a desire to improve their position, and both suffer as a result.
The final chapter begins in 1947, shortly after the division, which shook India but barely touched Vinayak and his family. Vinayak is aging at this point and must decide what to pass on to the young son, who adores him and constantly tries to please him. Vinayak is reluctant to part with the family secret, but as always, greed makes it impossible to dismiss the idea entirely. Anything goes tumbling bath extends over three generations – and implicitly over many, many more. The unanswered question that writer-director Rahi Anil Barve poses—the question he began investigating in 1997 when he wrote his first draft of the film at the age of 18—is what it takes to break the cycle of greed stop destroying families and countries with equal rapidity.
All three chapters work seamlessly together as a kind of dark fairy tale about greed – where it comes from, how it continues and how it can act like a drug that overwhelms the senses and intoxicates its victims. Shah plays Vinayak as a contemptuous, abusive man who thinks mostly about his own little pleasures and expects everyone to serve him. Cruel and selfish, he is as much the villain of the play as the dark god his family serves.
But Barve and his team also suggest sympathy for him given his origins. The fable that opens the film states that the gods cursed Tumbbad because of Vinayak’s family and that the eternal rain that engulfs the place is a form of divine wrath. These storms feature prominently in Barve’s sharp, lurid imagery throughout the film: whether they’re visiting Tumbbad’s mansion or huddled in their own shack, Vinayak and his mother and brother are constantly soaked to the skin and smeared with mud . (Barve says he shot the film over several years during the monsoon season to get the right atmosphere.) The family doesn’t comment on the rain because it’s the eternal backdrop to their lives, but they all look cool and watered down, and on the verge of being completely washed away. It is perfectly clear why Vinayak dreams of escape and the wealth to live as he pleases.
but tumbling bath sets out a rich metaphor for how these dreams suck most of the freedom and happiness from Vinayak’s life, leaving him in a perpetual nightmare in which he dwells on the cost of his wealth and annoys everyone around him who partakes , without paying the price he pays. He can’t let go of his wealth, but neither can he fully enjoy it, leading him to ever worse excesses. Crucial history is happening all around him, and his country is suffering, changing, and strengthening, but he isolates and isolates himself, focusing only on his own benefit. It’s a beautifully crafted trap built into the heart of an equally beautifully crafted story where the supernatural horrors are downright terrifying, but Vinayak is far scarier.
Barve ensures all of this resonates at home, presenting it with a visual richness and richness that will keep his viewers’ eyes glued to the screen. He shot in truly desolate rural locations to give the Tumbbad surroundings their lonely but stately texture, and wherever possible he relies on practical effects to lend weight. When CGI is present, particularly in the film’s explosive climax, it is deliberately contrasted with physical effects to make the plot more sinister and disturbing, rather than trying to blend in with the rest of its world.
The colors inside tumbling bath are unbeatable, especially the ghastly raw reds that are the secret of Vinayak and its price. And the visuals are just as vivid, leading to unforgettable moments that even long-time horror fans have never seen on screen before. All horror is meant to take the audience out of their comfort zone and make them feel threatened by the unknown and the unfamiliar. tumbling bathwith his reliance on the flavor of Indian myth and the form of Indian history, just takes it further than most horror stories. It leads to stranger, darker and more jubilant places.
tumbling bath will continue to be streamed Amazon Prime Video.