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Paap
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'Paap'

By ApunKaChoice Bureau
Film critic, ApunKaChoice.Com

Pooja Bhatt makes a promising start as a director. Paap, her directorial debut proves that she has inherited the traits of a good director from her father Mahesh Bhatt who has written the movie’s script.

The movie begins in the beautiful mountainous valley of Spiti in Himachal Pradesh. Kaya (Udita Goswami), a quiet and reserved girl, is given an important task by her community.

It

happened that the religious head – Rimpoche – from a monastery in Spiti had a vision about his master's reincarnation in New Delhi as a six-year-old boy Llahmo (Madan Bhiku). Kaya is given the responsibility of bringing the child to the monastery.

Kaya has been raised in a disciplined environment by her stern Father, who believes that one must resist one’s desires and temptations to reach to the ultimate truth. Her has conditioned her to believe that she must sacrifice in this life to have a better next life in reincarnation.

So, Kaya comes to New Delhi but things become tougher for her after Llahmo becomes a key witness to a case involving the murder of a key police officer. The case is under Shiven (John Abraham), a righteous police officer. He is a practical man who doesn’t believe in superstitions and reincarnations.

He finds is difficult to believe that Llahmo is the reincarnation of Rimpoche’s master. On these issues Kaya argues with Shiven many times, but deep inside she also agrees with him. She feels drawn towards him, but she keeps repressing her emotions because of the values and principles she has imbibed from her father.

As the case gets more complicated, Shiven decides to help Kaya and manages to get her and Llahmo to Spiti. He even sustains few serious injuries in the process and is asked by elderly in the village to stay there for some time until he gets well again. But this stay will only increases the intimacy between him and Kaya, much to the chagrin of her priggish father.

Paap recently became the first Bollywood movie to make it's premiere at the Kara Film Festival held in Karachi. The strong point of the movie is its offbeat story which is refreshingly different from the usual Bollywood pastiche.

Pooja tackles the serious theme of the movie with the dexterity of a veteran director. Without making the emotions mushy, she deftly goes inside the life of a girl torn between her desires and her conservative values.

John Abraham shows signs of a matured actor and handles his character with amazing ease and conviction. The kind of maturity he reflects in his third film is rare. Dr. Mohan Agashe as Kaya’s father is superb. The man says a thousand words with just a single expression on his face.

And last but not the least, debutante Udita Goswami surprises with a polished performance that is likely to put many of her contemporaries to blushes. She is successfully able to convey the inner dilemmas of her character with the acting that is punctuated with restraint and outbursts.

On the whole, Paap is engrossing, visually stunning and thematically moving.

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