Film Review| Treasure Hunt Gone Wrong: 'Bhoot Jolokia''s Supernatural Misfire
The film’s title Bhoot Jolokia, is not only an attempt to reflect its local and indigenous context but also hints at the central theme of the narrative. There are so many associations that we can make of the term ‘bhoot’. It might simply refer to the past or the haunting spectres of the past like - the memory of loved ones, the weight of unfulfilled dreams and you name the rest. Or it might suggest the wild affirmation of supernatural elements. Or taken collectively, ‘Bhoot Jolokia’ itself represents an important part of the culinary heritage of Assam.
So, by grounding the narrative in the region's cultural identity, the film Bhoot Jolokia takes us back to the stories of a dark and unsettling past of Assam - stories that are partly true, partly fiction but absolutely terrifying. At least, they were terrified when our elders used to share about the times and their experiences during the turbulent political climate of Assam’s past.
Some of these stories have become fascinating local lores. Some of them also question the nature of reality and the metaphysical boundaries between the living and the dead. This is where the film had to make a crucial choice - the choice of its tone - how to balance the present, the political and the lore. This is where the film faces a significant challenge.
Bhoot Jolokia, released on 27 September 2024, is the story of Jibon and Mainu who are connected by a shared past. In a journey to unearth a secret, they face an enigma of characters who might challenge them for the worse. From here, readers who have not yet watched the film should read the review at their own risk because there are major spoilers ahead!
To introduce the characters, Jibon (played by Mintu Baruah) is a retired insurgent and Mainu (Atanu Mahanta) is the son of his rebel friend, who died in army crossfire. The rebellion ultimately proved fruitless, but it did result in a significant loss of life. Jibon now spends his days alone in a bordering village near Assam. However, his peaceful life is disrupted when Mainu unexpectedly arrives at his doorstep, urging him to plan a visit to the house of Ujjal, a fellow rebel and a mutual friend of Jibon and Mainu's father, in Assam. Although initially hesitant, Jibon later agrees to visit Assam with Mainu.
The film’s official trailer and synopsis suggest a treasure hunt plot and such a plot typically involves a journey. Hence, Jibon and Mainu's journey to Assam, through green fields and deep rivers sets the stage for the adventure to come. Upon arriving at Ujjal's home, Jibon and Mainu learn that Ujjal's widow and daughter are now living alone, serving the blind, elderly mother who believes that Ujjal is still alive and will return.
Up until this point, the nature of the treasure and its location remain a mystery. However, the following day, the cook who comes to prepare a meal for Ujjal’s elderly mother, reveals a shocking truth: Ujjal’s widow and daughter have long disappeared from the village, and their current whereabouts are unknown and the elderly mother lives alone. This is an absolute shocker for Jibon and Mainu and as well as for the audience! The question arises: who were the women (the mother and the daughter) in the house who greeted them the previous evening?
Yes, they are ‘bhoot’ (ghosts) and our first assumption is – Ujjal’s wife and daughter are now dead so it must be their spirits who is living with the old mother. However, Jibon and Mainu seem unconcerned by the revelation that the women they had met are ghosts. They show no fear or hesitation and instead focus on their plan to find the hidden treasure that night.
At this point, the story becomes somewhat unconvincing. It's unlikely that any character, upon discovering the presence of ghosts, would remain completely unaffected. Curiosity would naturally lead them to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of Ujjal's wife and daughter, or fear would prompt them to flee the location. But Jibon and Mainu's undisturbed reaction, treating the ghosts as everyday occurrences, seems unrealistic and under-cooks the tension of the situation.
There can be other questions in the minds of audiences – as to what Ujjal’s elderly mother was doing in a house with two ghostly women? The film offers no exposition regarding this but it's possible that Ujjal's elderly mother, due to her blindness, believes the ghostly woman to be her son’s living wife and daughter. Moreover, even if she were to mention the existence of the women to the cook, her words might be dismissed as the ramblings of a confused elderly woman (who thinks her son is alive).
The fact that Jibon and Mainu are unbothered by the revelation of ghostly presence and instead focuses on the treasure, points out that the film introduces the supernatural element early in the narrative. The revelation should have been postponed to focus on the treasure hunt first. Meanwhile, I will try to mention a point where this twist reveal would have made the most incredible impact.
After Jibon and Mainu successfully retrieve the treasure and return back to the village, there is another major plot twist just before the interval - the real wife and daughter of Ujjal arrives at Jibon’s doorstep. So, yes, they are alive!
But then who were the women in Ujjal’s home? The film offers no immediate answer for this question. This, right here, was a good point in the narrative for the filmmakers to have introduced the ‘ghost’ reveal. The mother and the daughter back at Ujjal’s place have their own identity and a story which is shown towards the end of the film but at least, this is a point, where they could have been established as ghostly imposters. This would have provided more time for Jibon and Mainu to react to the fact that they stayed in a house with ghosts and shared a meal with them.
The focus at Ujjal’s home should have simply remained on the search for the treasure (since the movie is designed as a treasure hunt film), allowing the supernatural revelation to unfold at a more dramatic point in the story (which is right before the interval). Also, the simultaneous reveal that the women living in Ujjal’s home are spirits and that the actual wife and daughter of Ujjal are alive, could have been more impactful and worked as a perfect cliffhanger, dramatic enough to pull back audiences to the screens after the interval.
Also to note, the early introduction of the supernatural element in the narrative didn’t provide any additional value to the story, but its near-interval revelation could have divided the film into a realistic first half and a mysterious second half. And this division was required because the film had failed to maintain a consistent tone across all its sub-plots otherwise. The logic being when you can’t merge it well, keep it separated.
To explain it better, the film had the task of balancing three tones - the past, the present and the political. The presence of the political undertone is constantly felt as it operates as a slow undercurrent in the story. The past is basically the lore which combines with the political and has the traces of some unfortunate incident. Meanwhile, the present is designed more like a treasure hunt plot but with a supernatural twist - the source of which lies in the past.
So the film fails to find a cohesive tonal framework which can support the telling of these three different stories in their own way yet manage to be unified by a common feel and mood. In its current form, Bhoot Jolokia feels like a different film when it moves to the past (a political crime drama), and in its present-day timeline, it feels more like an uninspired attempt at a treasure hunt adventure.
I am calling it uninspired because the ‘treasure’ is always central to a film about treasure hunt. But in Bhoot Jolokia, we didn’t feel that the treasure Jibon and Mainu find was so crucial and central to the plot (until after the interval). The writer has failed to establish it as a driving force, or ‘MacGuffin’, of the narrative. At the beginning of the film, when Jibon and Mainu travel to Assam, the audience was completely unaware of their motivation or purpose. It’s like watching Indiana Jones but you don’t know why he is suddenly travelling to the Middle East.
And when it comes to the lore, the reveal felt abrupt, as the supernatural element was introduced without any prior foreshadowing or build-up. A subtle hint of a mysterious element was introduced in the opening scene of the film, when Jibon observes while fishing that a fish he had caught has mysteriously disappeared. It was a blink-and-miss hint and probably overlooked by many viewers. Perhaps a bird or a reptile might have taken it! Moreover, it didn’t connect to the actual supernatural context of the film.
In films like Talaash (2012) and The Sixth Sense (1999), the revelation of a character’s supernatural nature doesn’t feel out of place due to careful pacing, foreshadowing, and the creation of a cohesive tonal framework that extends across all the sub-plots of the film. In Talaash, for example, the narrative establishes a metaphysical framework in which the living can feel the presence of the dead - which is how the character of Rani Mukherjee attempts to connect with her dead son. It is within such a premise that it is revealed that the character of Kareena Kapoor is a ghost!
And the fact that in Bhoot Jolokia, we got to know the characters just minutes before they are revealed to be ghosts also lessens the impact. In films like Talaash (2012) and The Sixth Sense (1999), the characters are introduced and developed extensively before their supernatural identities are revealed which creates a stronger impact on the minds of the audiences. But the case was not so with Bhoot Jolokia. Wish we could spend some more time in Ujjal’s home (without learning about the ghostly presence) as Jibon and Mainu search for the hidden treasure (which now they easily find).
But despite these shortcomings, I admire the film’s non-linear structure, which alternates between the past and present timelines. This approach avoided flashback sequences and the melodramatic tendencies that are often associated with it. Compared to recent Assamese films like Rongatapu 1982 (2023) and Eti Tumar (2024), which struggled with non-linear storytelling, Bhoot Jolokia represents a significant improvement.
There’s an admirable commitment in writer-director Chinmoy Sarmah in telling a story based on local myths and legends which can be sensed from his choice of subject matter. While not an effective genre piece, Bhoot Jolokia does try to tell a different story - a story that also speaks for human greed. It utilises the belief that – treasures can be cursed if someone dies for it and the spirit of the dead will linger around it – to tell a story that reveals the selfish nature of human beings. This explains the presence of the dead mother and daughter’s spirits around the treasure, both in Ujjal’s home and Jibon’s home towards the film’s climax.
With the themes of loss and longing, Bhoot Jolokia tells the story of the loss of loved ones, the collective loss of a dream of independence, a son trying to right his father’s wrong, a wife and daughter fleeing from a past, the tragedy of innocent lives, and human greed. But that doesn’t save the film from a rushed and a messy climax. Yes, I get it that the real danger lies in the actions of human beings and not the existence of ghosts but right now I don’t know of a better ending for the film. But I do know that in between all these, there was no need for the blossoming of a love story to be forced into the narrative.