India, 2005
Review: JA Kerswell
Although despite its potentially misleading title, A FILM BY ARAVIND is actually a madcap Tollywood, Telugu language thriller that goes full slasher movie mode in its last 40 minutes. A director and his star actor embark on a road trip, during which they pick up a female hitchhiker who may or may not be a serial killer. Unlike other Indian language thrillers from the time, it avoids fully riffing on North American slasher movies by lifting whole scenes from them. Whilst it somewhat borrows the meta approach of the SCREAM franchise, it does something fresh with it.
Aravind (Rajeev Kanakala) and his star Rishi (Richard Rishi) have two hit movies on their hands, and the director is keen to start work on a third. He solicits scripts, and one catches his eye. He suggests to Rishi that they go to his home in the woods for the weekend to review and finish reading it. However, he is dismayed to discover that ink has been spilt over the last pages, and he sends his assistant to find the writer to discover what happens at the end.
The pair decide to still go on their trip, but disagree over the direction of the script, with Rishi baulking at playing a semi-villainous role. Distracted during an argument, they nearly run down Neeru (Sherlyn Chopra), a woman looking for a lift after her car had broken down. Aravind and Rishi are soon smitten by the beautiful young woman, but they have a growing realisation of just how closely the events on their road trip resemble the spec script they are carrying with them.
Neeru is briefly captured by a rogue lorry driver, but is rescued again by the pair. They stick together until they reach Aravind’s home in the forest at night. Neeru flirts with the two men, leaving them under the impression that she is romantically interested in them both. This leads to animosity and rivalry between the pair. However, Aravind becomes suspicious of Neeru’s odd behaviour and is further alarmed by TV news reports of a female serial killer preying on men along the highway. The police have warned men not to pick up female hitchhikers and certainly never to invite them into their homes. Aravind begins to fear that the warning has come too late …
Whilst it largely eschews the song-and-dance numbers that tend to derail the tension of many earlier Indian thrillers, A FILM BY ARAVIND shares the eclectic nature of many similar titles. The film veers between thrills and light comedy, with even a few brief romantic interludes. The bulk of the first half is a road movie, centring on Aravind and Rishi’s getting to know Neeru and the people and situations along the way. However, the film snaps fully into a slasher in its last 40 minutes or so, as a killer stalks the woods and dispatches various men (it is a rare slasher movie where all the victims are male). Aravind is convinced that Neeru is the killer, but the movie plays its cards pretty close to its chest as to whether she is or someone else is responsible for the killing (including two men travelling back from a wedding who are slaughtered after they have a car accident at the beginning of the movie). The answer—which, of course, I won’t spoil here—comes completely out of left field and ends with an outrageously acrobatic decapitation scene.
Perhaps not surprisingly, A FILM BY ARAVIND makes some pretty self-aware observations about the Tollywood film industry, which local audiences would get the full benefit of. The film pokes fun at Telugu cinema and its obsession, at the time, with romance and action movies over thrillers (something the film’s eventual success would itself buck against). The plot device, where the script eerily mirrors the unfolding events, is clever and adds a slight supernatural flourish (something not uncommon in Indian slasher movies). It adds suspense, as the characters don’t know the ending because the last few pages are illegible and, despite Aravind finding the scriptwriter, the outcome seems very much dependent on the scribe’s whims.
The film was a surprise sleeper hit on its release. It was promoted as a song-free thriller, which was something of a novelty at the time. Audiences found its meta approach refreshing, and it was seen as groundbreaking for a Telugu movie; it later gained cult status. Sherlyn Chopra, who plays Neeru, attracted much press attention and controversy when she became the first Indian actress to pose fully nude for Playboy in 2012.
A FILM BY ARAVIND was followed by an in-name-only sequel ARAVIND 2 (2013). Shot by the same director, Sekhar Suri, it plays more fully towards slasher tropes and has been dubbed the Telugu FRIDAY THE 13TH.
BODY COUNT 12:
Female 11 / Male 1
A FILM BY ARAVIND (Hysteria Lives! Video Review)
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