A Death In The Gunj (2016) ‘Mashup’ Review: Of Shutus and Stereotypes

Review by Deloret Imnidian

The Horror of Emotional Abuse

There is a strange kind of fear that every man faces at least once in his life. It’s the fear that arises from the constant need of proving his masculinity.  In this fetid jungle of manhood, the young sensitive boys often become the prey. They are forced to obey certain rules i.e. ‘You are not man if you can’t drive car flawlessly in the first attempt’, ‘Your manhood is disqualified if you get startled by the sound of creaking door’. It starts with teasing and taunting and soon turns into torture. Such is the case with Shuttu (Vikrant Massey), a fragile man who is subjected to emotional abuse.

The film starts with two men trying to fit a dead body in the trunk of car. And then it cuts back to the seventh day before the death occurs. This passage of time adds to the suspense. With each day, we get closer to solving the mystery. The mysterious part is not what is going to happen but how it is going to happen.

The film is set in misty woods of McCluskiegunj in 1979.  A family reunion takes place in the house of uncle Bakshi (late Om Puri). They celebrate New Year’s Eve with drinks, games and little mischief.  But without their knowledge, they’re involved in another game that includes eight bourgeois adults, a modest servant, a neglected child, her puppy and a gun hanging on the wall- it’s the game of death.

Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) represents the hyper-masculinity in terms of ego and aggression. He’s kind of guy who’d kill someone to protect his ego. Every time he visits the house, he brings new objects, i.e. tape recorder, motorcycle and lastly a revolver.  All these objects somehow disrupt the balance of the house. He is chaotic evil. If it weren’t for him, the party would’ve been the usual dinner and dance. Nandu (Gulshan Devaiah), on the other hand, is mischievous but not mean. Shuttu represents hypomasculinity, a man with artistic sensibility and childlike innocence. Vikram causes him to feel afraid, and that fear, that insecurity drives him to the brink of madness.

One of the most intriguing scenes in the movie involves the game of summoning the noble spirit. They form a circle, burn the candle and wait for the spirit to answer. Vikram asks the spirit who is going to die first. This scene cleverly establishes characters, allowing us to know each of them. Despite being overcrowded, every character is well developed and brilliantly performed.

Vikrant Massey (Shuttu) has delivered one of the finest performances of the year, one that will linger in your mind and haunt you. For a debut, Konkona Sen Sharma’s direction is astounding. Despite being a murder mystery and spooky thriller, the film has the right amount of humor. The film is gorgeous to behold. Every frame is shot with perfection and is accompanied by playful score. Even in her debut, Konkona’s artistic sensibilities are on display.

Watching Konkona Sen Sharma’s A Death in Gunj is like reading your personal diary from the days of childhood and discovering a beautiful butterfly stuck between the pages of rusted memories. The sad thing is, the butterfly was burnt with a magnifying glass just to become a bookmark in your life.

Review by Nafees Ahmed

A Brooding Atmospheric Mystery-Drama

“A Death in the Gunj” is an apt title that raises an occult curiosity which compels us to examine each character closely and probe their subtle behavioral changes, in a way to seek an obvious answer, and possible repercussion(s) of their every action.

Actor turned director and screenwriter, Konkana Sen Sharma, opens her debut film with a scene that apparently reminds you of “Reservoir Dogs” & “Pulp Fiction” car trunk scene. A singular shot from inside the car trunk capturing  Nandan (Gulshan Devaiya) and Brian (Jim Sarbh) trying to adjust the unexplained dead body in a car trunk, just outside the morgue. Then the film rewinds a week back to show each day leading up to this ghastly event.Not only does it multiply the anxiousness but also sets the tone of the film. You start observing things cautiously and expect worst at the slightest hint of something going awry.

Konkana Sen Sharma smartly fiddles with your mind. She takes advantage of the opening scene and the title and infects our brains with suspicion around every little thing that could prove fatal. Like reckless bike riding after being drunk, picking old rifles for target practice, CGI wolf, a girl who goes missing, the dark closed rooms, and worse of all: the ever-changing moral force of human emotions and simmering pensive tension. Gradually, somberness creeps inside and mystery keeps you at the edge.

The characters are sketched patiently and they develop with time in this slow-burning & melancholic drama. Bonnie (Tillotama) and Nandan are happily married with the 8-year-old daughter named Tani (Arya Sharma). They are visiting Nandan’s parents in a small town of  McCluskieganj in Jharkhand along with Nandan’s reserved cousin Shutu (Vikrant Massey).

The character of Shutu is a driving force in the film. He is sensitive and fragile who is looking for matured emotional resonance. Trying hard to fit himself in the group of grownups gathered in the house, he is given the job of babysitting Tani. Tani and Sutu develop a beautiful relationship, and for the most part of it, Tani becomes an anchor for Shutu’s profound emotional baggage without him sharing deep scars.

Lack or say his inability to come as a strong person for his age makes him a soft target. The game of spirit calling – shot terrifically – instills fear in Shutu that ultimately makes him vulnerable. Nandan’s extrovert and alpha male friend Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) leaves no opportunity to bully Sutu. He is loud, control freak who nurtures ego more than relationships. The gradual progression of the tension between them takes shape of a violent fight in the field of Kabbadi that fractures Shutu’s confidence but garners him some sympathy. The gradual progression of the tension between them takes shape of a violent fight in the field of Kabbadi that fractures Shutu’s confidence but garners him some sympathy.

But Shutu is not looking for any empathy. He is not consciously trying to mold himself and chain free to adulthood, but he is fascinated by the dynamics of adults around him. He takes a wistful glance at seductress Mimi (Kalki Koechlin). He is reluctant at first to join any game, but eventually, give in to taste a life for himself.

Mimi is a sharp manipulator, who looks to rekindle sexual intimacy with newly wed Vikram. The sexual tension quite evidently exists whenever Mimi and Vikram are in the same room. Mimi comes as an alpha female. She manages to toy with Shutu to make Vikram jealous.  The only redundant character is Brian (Jim Sarbh), which eventually turns into one of the flaws. He is there for sake of it, adds no value to the thin plot.

Charminar cigarettes, audio-tape, bell bottom pants, chetak bike,  manual gear below the steering, vintage clothes: the retro set up of  ‘A Death in the Gunj’ has a brooding atmosphere wrapped in persistent melancholy that stays in every frame, like a dust particle in the air.  Even with minor flaws, the film is a brave effort by Konkana Sen Sharma to look at family dynamics while taking a microscopic look an introvert individual grieving over the loss of his father and failure in exams.

Review by Souvik Saha

An Intricate Character Study

In the winter of 1978, a happy elite Bakshi family meets their parents for a reunion, who live at a remote place called McCluskiegunj, somewhere in the Chota Nagpur region at present Jharkhand. The husband Nandu (played by Gulshan Devaiyya of Hunterrr fame) is an accomplished big boy of the family, well settled at Calcutta with his wife Bonnie. Ranvir Shorey’s Vikram is a local family friend from a royal family, who is brazen in his demeanor. He loves his masculinity (read Enfield bikes and flirting with women), which gets threatened easily, like losing a Kabaddi match or when someone jokes about his balls. Kalki’s Mimi is a friend of Bonnie, jealous of Vikram’s marriage, on whom she had something more than a crush. But central to the story is the character Shutu, cousin of Nandu, a misfit in this collection of successful and unabashedly flamboyant characters. He has a profound love for language, but studies applied mathematics. He sniffs the sweaters of his recently passed father for traces of love. He is at the fringes of the family, almost invisible to others (the metaphor in the last scene was spot on), stutters in front of brash confident extroverts. His only call comes in times of menial jobs or when jokes need to be made at the expense of someone.

Vikrant Massey plays Shutu with low-key brilliance

Shutu might have been a great puppy to pet, but as a fully functional adult human being, he is of not much worth to the family. (Ironically he ends up like one the pets of the family, lost and forgotten). Either you feel pity for him or you find him pathetic, based on the kind of person you are, and he has no way of realizing his true worth in this world laid down by the societal norms. Bakshi family reeks of Anglo elitism, they treat the house servants and locals as second class citizens, but talk derogatorily of Mimi as “these foreigners you know, always seeking attention.” Oh, the irony!

Gunj’s screenplay and dialogue writing is spot on and truly believes less is more. The heartlessness of this apparently warm family is brilliantly exposed by a short conversation about the continuous deaths of pets due to negligence. In another piece of brilliant writing, Mimi tells Shutu “You’re pretty. You could be a girl”. Konkona leaves many things unsaid; leaving clues here and there, to explore the psyche of Shutu. The kabaddi game was a hat tip to the memory game from Satyajit Ray’s “Days and Nights in the forest”, but the lack of editing prowess failed to immortalize it like the later. The cinematography could have been better but kudos for the last few minutes of the film along with the end credits. With such a strong script and direction, if the frames were infused with meaning, this would have been a flawless film. Also, special mention to Konkona starting her directing career with a trunk shot!

Konkona started her directing career with a trunk shot

Gunj can also be explored from the POV of Shutu’s loss of innocence – a man lost in the pages of fantasy, preserving moths, burying dead ants with his 8-year-old friend; who then tries to realign himself with adulthood and in the process loses the only thing which he had to cherish, his friendship with Tani. The process of coping up with adulthood is extremely disorienting, and builds up to the neurotic climax, which though not a surprise, works out brilliantly. The film uses Chekhov’s gun principle quite literally and blood sheds on the family tree (again, literally). The actual wolf in the story doesn’t kill Shutu, the insensitive human wolves do.

Konkona’s Gunj is a scathing critique of the culture of casual bullying and the absurd monochrome societal demands of masculinity, something to which we have already succumbed to, at some point in our life, and whose corpse we carry somewhere in the trunk of our mind.