Bulbbul (2020)
Bulbbul is an Indian thriller that came out in 2020 in the language of Hindi.
How I watched: Netflix
For the short of it: This movie is about a series of murders plaguing the village which also unveils the forbidden history between 2 people who were never meant to be.
The long of it? Buckle up, buttercup.
Because this is a Netflix exclusive, I will discuss spoilers due to their new policy of preventing password sharing that is slowly being rolled out. I watch so you won't have to!
Taking place in the 19th century a young girl named Bulbbul has an arranged marriage to Indranil who is of royal blood and also hella older than her! Ew. Her life gets flipped upside down and she now has to embrace a new life married off to some old man and live in this estate with the rest of his family. There is another woman who is apparently married to Indranil's twin brother, Mahandra, who is...mentally challenged. She begins to have a playful relationship with Satya whom is much closer to her age and is the youngest brother of her husband. Bro-in-law.
Jealously takes form of sis-in-law when she sees how close these two have become over the years so she manipulates Indranil's seeds of doubt which ultimately separates the two. He sends Satya to law school abroad much to Bulbbul's discontent.
20 years later, Satya returns as a decorated grad but he isn't here to chit chat, he's here to solve a MURDER!!
You see, when they were kids, he told her stories of a demon woman who would prey on the unsuspecting people in their village. Scared the shit out of her. So these current murders have people thinking it's this demon woman! He ain't about that life so he sets out for real answers, boi!
I will say though, the best experience is watching this movie with 0 distractions to fully absorb the themes. Like I said, fuck Netflix with slowly rolling out the ban with password sharing so I will continue to keep talking about it!
All in all, this was a beautiful movie. I honestly didn't expect to even like this movie a whole lot but glad I stuck with it because it's such a powerful movie and a rather unorthodox love story of sorts. What we got was the immediate implication of the love story between the young little tikes since Bulbbul took satisfaction with her closeness to Satya. What I eventually noticed is that Satya seemed to recognize this as a platonic relationship only. It was never implied that he returned any romantic feelings towards her. This could be due to his loyalty to his much older brother. Even then, he never gave me the impression that he was repressing any other love for Bulbbul other than familiar love. He's not even deemed as a villain whatsoever, nor a sociopath nor a narcissist or any of that sort. He literally is just a good guy that just happens not to have romantic feelings for his sis-in-law.
Weird, right?! For that, I love that I finally see a movie that is not so fucking predictable. So, is this really a love story? Looked like at the end it may have been implied there was some romantic interest in her doctor who is also a very good guy. However, the small scene isn't exactly concrete and is never referenced ever again.
Must be warned though. If you proceed to watch this movie there is an unexpected brutal domestic violence scene. Also a very triggering rape scene. So terrible. She was an adult in both but it still unnerved me that I had to look away and mute it.
With the exception of those 2 scenes, I love this movie and what it stands for. It has such an avant garde ending! Bulbbul and Satya are never romantically linked, even as adults. Most importantly, I love the female empowerment theme that did not come across as fake woke or some shit. In the ending, it is revealed that our main character is indeed the new "demon lady" that has done these recent murders in the form of justice for the victims of spousal abuse, rape and child abuse. I did come across one article who had a problem with this movie that it implied a woman has to be broken in order to become empowered. Seems very negatively biased and overlooking the main point of the movie in my opinion as this is just simply one woman's story of how she overcame trauma. Nothing should take that point away.
Great movie. This movie definitely kept my attention from the very beginning but then again I was exercising while watching this movie to ensure I had no other distractions.
With that being said, what is my verdict?
So here was your Indian horror movie of the day, head on over to my sister blog to check your Indian Metal Band of the Day!
