Bulbbul review: A witch’s world of poetic justice

Bulbbul (Netflix)
Director: Anvita Dutt Guptan
Cast: Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwary, Rahul Bose, Paoli Dam, Parambrata Chatterjee
Rating: 4/5

A child bride, Bulbbul grows up in the mansion of the family which she is married into.

She climbs trees, plucks mangoes, listens to horror stories of a “chudail” and writes stories with her brother-in-law Satya. He is her only hope and love in the bungalow full of selfish people.

Everything else is duty for her. He is forcibly moved away once day so that this bond is broken. He returns five years later, and now, he is welcomed with the stories of a witch who kills men that are violent with women. Intrigued, the London-educated Satya seeks to unravel the mystery, which lands him in misery.

Tripti Dimri is a delight as Bulbbul, who moves from being vulnerable and innocent to an enigmatic and manipulative woman ruling her world. Rahul Bose is the only well-known face in the movie, but the lack of stars does not matter as the content and direction make up for it. The story has a lot of grey shades and dark layers.

But there is no scope for judgement here — it is Bulbbul’s story, told from her lens. Told with noir-ish feel, there is a sense of justice served by the end. Set in Bengal in 1888, Bulbbul feels like a pick from Anurag Basu’s ‘Stories by Rabindranath Tagore’ in the beginning.

There are even shades of Amar Kaushik’s ‘Stree’. The film them gains a life of its own. Intelligent dialogues and screenplay are just two of the fine traits of ‘Bulbbul’. Visual effects are another. You are likely to guess the suspense early on, but the film-making makes you sit and watch till the end. This horror film lasts only an hour and a half, but it is a lifetime in Bulbbul’s world, without a single boring moment.