1924: The Kakori Project (Short Film)

Early this morning, November 9th, 2024, an independent filmmaker named Prataya Saha reached out to me via email graciously asking if I'd watch and review his five-minute short film, a dramatic thriller/city noir titled 1924 - The Kakori Project. While a film of such miniscule duration and this genre are not exactly in my wheelhouse, I feel so humbled to have been granted the opportunity to uplift the voice of an emerging independent filmmaker. "I believe that your expertise and critical eye would greatly benefit my filmmaking journey," he wrote. Man, I feel so significant, like the fate of this ambitious, sobering, gorgeously crafted piece of work is in my hands. Mr. Saha may be overestimating my abilities, but as a young, aspiring film critic, I'll take the compliment any day.

Mr. Saha's primary intention is to help his movie reach as wide an audience as possible before it makes its International Premiere on the closing night of Big Apple Film Festival in New York on December 12th. I was fortunate enough to view 1924 early this afternoon, and it is without question deserving of such a broad audience. Admittedly, the subject matter is relatively foreign to my experience as an American. I'm not immersed in the political or cultural struggles of the country in which this short transpires. Therefore, I can't attest to the historical accuracy of Mr. Saha's representation of events (which purport to be inspired by true ones). However, those personal difficulties are rendered largely irrelevant against the technical craft on display, from Joydeep Bhowmik's crisply gorgeous black-and-white cinematography to Karthik Bhandare's hauntingly mesmerizing score.

In the tumultuous winter of 1924, India, a young man, while getting recruited for a clandestine operation, grapples with the moral complexities of the Indian Independence Struggle, entwined with the haunting plight of children caught in conflict zones. While the time period in question may be 10 decades in the past, Mr. Saha's thematic emphasis on children in peril and psychologically excruciating moral dilemmas imbue his creation with a timelessness and emotional resonance that transcend its narrow scope.

Saha opens his taut story with a wide shot of a man sitting with his back turned to us, staring out morosely at a lake. The first sounds we hear are the serene chirps of birds in the distance, only to be interrupted by a jarring foghorn that wakes the dog sleeping behind the man. A close-up of the side of this man's face conveys a load of discontent and internal suffering. He may be in a peaceful environment, but the state of this man's mind is anything but. When the foghorn sounds once more, another man is standing ominously behind him. He sits down, studies the disquiet on the other's face, and calmly asks, "Can you do it?" The man, gripping a note that reads, "The Abbey of Bliss," crumples the paper, tosses it angrily, and storms off.

While listening to a speech by Mahatma Gandhi on a loudspeaker, the man is confronted by the same man, this time holding the hand of a little girl. In the same tranquil tone, the man says, "This is his daughter. Can you do it?" Never has that one question, those four words, carried such a disquieting connotation. Looking into the little girl's uncorrupted, mournful eyes, captured in empathetic close-up by Bhandare, the man once again walks away. 

It's vaguely clear what this silent, taciturn man is being asked to do, and while I can't personally ascertain the political motivation behind it, the bleak atmosphere of impending doom is still palpable and suffocating enough to compel my attention. With very little sound, Saha builds the suspense and inner tension with the patience and precision of someone not far away from being ready to step into the world of feature-length filmmaking.

When the inevitable moment of violence materializes, Saha milks it for every last drop of steadily mounting dread, aided by Apurv Prasanna's rivetingly effective sound design. As two men simply stare at each other, with a look of horrified resignation on both their faces, and a little girl standing, uninvolved, near them, Prasanna accentuates the mood with a haunting whir that grows louder and louder until climaxing with an impeccably timed bang that, unusually, jolted this jaded critic out of their seat. Rather than displaying the carnage itself onscreen, editor Prasanth Ambili judiciously cuts to a close-up of the little girl's shell-shocked, blood-spattered face, her innocent eyes unable to process what she's just witnessed. We may have been spared the gruesome sight, but it will be implanted into the mind and memory of this child for the rest of her tragic life -- or what will be left of it. 

If there's one gripe to be leveled against 1924, it's in this particular moment, regarding the blood. Saha squirts a few specks when, in actuality, it's safe to assume there'd be much more. Then again, this isn't aiming to position itself in the splatter horror genre, so the skimp doesn't detract much from the visceral impact of what's been implied.

In addition to its International Premiere at BAFF on December 12th, 1924 will also premiere at the prestigious Nepal Human Rights International Film Festival in December -- an event powered by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). For anyone with an interest in narratives that have the potential to create social change, or fans of quiet, contemplative cinema that emphasizes internal, character-driven drama and gradually increasing suspense over an excess of dialogue and graphic brutality, 1924 is a beautifully composed, briskly-paced short. The five minutes may fly by, but Saha's unsettling glimpse into this little-known chapter of India's past will remain ingrained in your memory for quite some time. Something that little girl can probably relate to.