Rating: *** ½
One of the names for our hero in Srijit Mukherjee’s beguiling study of life and debt is Anand, Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s timeless hero who goes with a smile on his face. Ontorip/Mrityujnay/Anand in Kill Bill Society goes even further. He actually dares to scoff at death. It is a tricky slippery character played by Parambrata Chatterjee as a mix of hope and despair, a fusion, without confusion of Anand Sehgal and The Joker.
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OntoRIP sings when he wants, sulks when he feels like it, kills when we least expect him to and dies when all fails. But unlike the prequel Hemlock Society, this is not his film. Kill Bill Society is about Poorna Aich, a media influencer with one big success as an actor, and a boyfriend (played by an actor who seems more like a contortionist) so toxic he makes Ranbir Kapoor in Animal look like Mickey Mouse.
The initial chunks of the chimeric tale seem aphrodisiacal: success is shown to be exhilarating sinister and dangerous. Poorna (played with a lingering wistfulness by Koushani Mukherjee) as a victim of online shaming, is portrayed with a kind of concentrated ardour that makes her, at once, a character and an illustration.
The spunky screenplay exempts Poorna from scrutiny even as people around her don’t spare her: catty actresses, vulture-like media, and an unforgiving mother(Tulika Basu, excellent). But most of all, Poorna is not willing to forgive herself. Guilt-stricken and mortified she hires a killer to finish her life as she is unable to carry off the self-annihilation.
This is where the storytelling acquires its muscles even as the sinewy OntoRIP gatecrashes into Poorna’s life with all the vigour of an adrenalized Yama.
There is a constant tug at the narration’s heart from extraneous emotions. But Srijit, always more interested in what goes on in his characters’ hearts than extraneous forces, remains resolutely committed to Poona’s pursuit of peace. The choicest moments in the plot are devoted to her healing, especially in her interaction with her sister Sunayana(Sandipta Sen), though I can’t for the life of me understand why the character must be shown smoking to appear free spirit (I wouldn’t like to use the word ‘liberated’).
Given the economy of space, Srijit allows all the complex relationships in the screenplay, the two sisters Poorna and Sanyana’s bonding comes across as fragile yet firm.
The last movement in the storytelling plays out like an independent film, with Poorna and the mysterious OntoRIP locked in a passionate relationship which culminates in tragedy. The last shot of them in a bathtub silhouetted against a louring skyline conveys a spiritual majesty far above what the rest of the film manifests.
Original, probing and enthralling like the best works of Srijit, Kill Bill Society is further edified by the character of a constantly eating movie buff gangster Petkata Shaw, played with lip-smacking relish by Biswanath Basu. My favourite moment in the film occurs when one of Shaw’s henchmen tells his boss he wants to kill himself with the guilt of killing so many.
It’s not easy to smile in the face of death. Kill Bill Society does it with a disarming fluency.
