Ahalya (2015 film)

Ahalya
Directed by Sujoy Ghosh
Produced by Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films
Screenplay by Sujoy Ghosh
Story by Sujoy Ghosh
Starring Soumitra Chatterjee
Radhika Apte
Tota Roy Chowdhury
Release dates
 20 July 2015
Running time
 14 minutes
Country India
Language Bengali

Ahalya is a 2015 Bengali short film directed by Sujoy Ghosh with Soumitra Chatterjee, Radhika Apte and Tota Roy Chowdhury playing the lead roles.

Plot

A young policeman Indra Sen comes to the home of a famous ageing artist Goutam Sadhu investigating a case of a missing man Arjun. There he is greeted by his young and beautiful wife Ahalya. The missing man's doll-version is placed on the mantelpiece, along with four other dolls, who Sadhu tells him had been modelling for himself. A stone is also placed there in a glass case. Sadhu tells the policeman that the stone has magical qualities and that anybody who touches it turns into whosoever he or she wishes to. He tells the policeman that Arjun knew about it and suggests that he might have used it. The policeman does not believe him initially but agrees to try it when the old man dares him to. He goes up to hand his mobile over to Ahalya, who addresses him seductively as her husband. She asks him to shoo away the policeman and come back to her. He plays along with her only to find himself cast in stone like other dolls placed on the same mantelpiece.[1][2][3][4]

Cast

Inspirations

The film takes elements from the mythological story of Ahalya from Ramayana but crafts a modern version of it with a spin. In the original tale the young and beautiful Ahalya is seduced by Indra (the king of the gods), and is cursed by much older husband sage Gautama to turn into a stone. But in the retelling of the story in the film, the punishment is visited on the character based on Indra alone, while the woman is shown to be an accomplice in the seduction game.[1][2]

The film has shades of The Collection, an episode from The Twilight Zone TV series and of Satyajit Ray's short story Professor Shonku and Strange Dolls and also of Alma, an animated short film.[4][5]

References

  1. 1 2 "Radhika Apte and Somitra Chatterjee's haunting performances in Sujoy Ghosh’s Ahalya". DNA. 22 July 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Radhika Apte stars as a modern Ahalya in Sujoy Ghosh’s new short film". NDTV. 22 July 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  3. ↑ "Sujoy Ghosh’s bone-chilling short film Ahalya starring Radhika Apte will give you the creeps". First Post. 22 July 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Ahalya review". India Today. 22 July 2015. Retrieved 22 July 2015.
  5. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irbFBgI0jhM

External links

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