Mehsampur (2018)

By cleverashu

Imitiaz Ali's _Chamkila_ led me to hunt this down. Went in thinking this was a documentary on his life and death, and within like 5-10 mins you realise it's not. Sure enough, sites list this as either drama or docu-drama or docu-fiction or if you believe Google, it's drama/short. It's neither. It has real-life characters playing a fictionalised act, and fictional characters chasing the ghosts of slain real-life people. The legend or the ghosts these characters are after are very larger than life and this has an impact on the film we watch as it gets into a very surreal territory at most times, blending what is real and unreal... And as if it was predestined to, the film eventually mutates itself into a ghost story of its own. And this is just a tiny bit of many experiments this film has. As if mirroring the legend himself, the film is as raunchy as it needs to be, as mad as it can dare to be. And dare it does.