The Hills Are Alive:
A white tulip appears in the snow. A child who finds it, disappears during a magic show.
The boy’s father (Mir Sarwar) is a politician so a senior cop, Ridwaan (Manav Kaul), arrives in Baramulla, with his family– wife Gulnaar (Bhasha Sumbli), daughter Noorie (Arista Mehta), and son Ayaan (Rohaan Singh), to investigate the case amidst an atmosphere of hostility.
The family moves into a traditional Kashmiri home, and are immediately assailed by strange sights, sounds and smells.
The deceptively peaceful town, is a hotbed of militancy and Ridwaan is drawn into the hate-filled atmosphere, where kids are radicalized and indulge in violence, while also trying to protect his family from danger. What begins as a routine missing persons case escalates when more children vanish, leaving behind only strange clues—a lock of hair and an eerie air of terror.
Directed by Aditya Suhas Jambhale’s with a script by him and Aditya Dhar, Baramulla is a genre-bending supernatural, crime and political thriller, in which the town is like a character witnessing the atrocities the residents have suffered in the past.
After a terrifying climax, it becomes clear why the film is dedicated to Kashmiri Pandits, who were driven out of their homes.
The film a classic police procedural with a unique, folkloric style story of trauma and revenge, while retaining an emotional core of family bonds and loyalty
Jambhale (known for Article 370) eschews easy jump scares for chilling, psychological horror. The cinematography captures the snow-laden, mist-covered terrain of Kashmir in frames that are both breathtakingly beautiful and and also disturbing, with secrets the landscape seems to hold. The background score by Clinton Cerejo and Bianca Gomes, subtly builds a mood of dread.
Manav Kaul delivers an effective performance as a man who tries to make sense of the bizarre. The pace is unhurried, but the tension never flags.
Baramulla is an unsettling, but ultimately rewarding, watch– one of the best, or at least, one of the most enquisite-looking films of this year.
(This piece first appeared in seniorstoday.in)