Skip to main content

Netflix’s Ghoul: Watch (or Don’t) as Anurag Kashyap unloads unhindered propaganda in this wannabe Handmaid’s Tale


"...I am willing to go out on a limb to assert that the second season (of the Sacred Games), scheduled to coincide with the 2019 elections, will be aimed at the end-game of showing the ruling dispensation in a negative light..."

For someone resuming writing after a hiatus, predicting the story arcs to be crafted by one of India’s most skilful bunch of film-makers was a bold little assertion made on this very portal earlier this month. Thankfully, Anurag Kashyap, Vikramaditya Motwane, et al. didn’t make this writer wait an entire year to feel vindicated and returned to spew their toxic leftist propaganda within a month. Only this time, any pretence of a primary plot to ship the propaganda with appears to be gone.
At the outset, I would begin by clarifying that horror is not my cup of tea. Pennywise the clown, who was beaten (literally) by a bunch of fumbling kids, haunted my nights for weeks after I watched IT, and a friend has had to pester me for days to agree to watch Annabelle: Creation. Seeing demonic spirits feeling from Christian symbols in the latter though, does beg the question as what were people doing to get rid of evil for centuries before Christianity usurped native religions. So, while I cannot claim to be an authority when it comes to the genre, but I can vouch for myself as being one of the easier guys to scare-off and Netflix’s Ghoul fails miserably at it!
While we are not told what year are the events of the show are unfolding in, but the fascist India in the series is shown stuck with Maruti Esteems and landline phones in an alternate reality where intellectuals and free thinkers are being hounded for their espousal of country’s secularism by a totalitarian regime. The constitution and the idea of India is in danger as Muslims are selectively rounded up and lodged in high security prisons, and extra-judicial killings are rampant. A few Christians who toe the line of a majoritarian government though are surprisingly rewarded with high-ranking postings. The show even uses the oft-derided phrase “wapsi” to refer to Muslims that have been tortured into re-orienting their allegiance to the state. Now, where else have the viewers read stories of such dooms-day scenarios before? Answer: In every other leftist rag that carries the rants of intellectuals, that the show fondly refers to, who claim they are being hounded for something as justifiable as stopping them from leeching public wealth.
What is appreciable though, is the series’ mention of themes — Aramaic Language and the Goan Inquisitions — that would never find even a fleeting mention on Indian television. One just wishes the show makers had the galls to tell the viewers how the language they pertain to was erased to extinction during the bloody and deceitful subjugation of its speakers by the community shown as persecuted in the show. Or how it is the supposed villains of the series, the Hindus, who have historically been persecuted in episodes such as the Goan Inquisitions. The writers of the show seem well aware of the history (which is one of the only two saving graces of the show) but the brief but motivated references to history, otherwise aptly used by the writers to lend some credence to origin story, is what this writer takes exception with.
Coming back to Netflix’s Ghoul — this utterly underwhelming three-episode series, which I learnt to my surprise, took three years to make is helmed by a greenhorn director with nothing of note to his credit previously. The trailers of the show, though, bandy about the name of the production house of Jason Blum (“the makers of Insidious and get Out”), but since Blum’s company has produced more than ten films and TV series in 2018 alone, one can imagine the level of his involvement in a project that tries to piggyback on his reputation. While it cannot be anyone’s case that a debutante director cannot make a good show, using Blum’s name to sell the show does smack of dishonesty. It also turns out that it was fairly recently that Netflix came on board and turned the intended feature film into a web-series, according the makers “creative freedom” from the censors. Despite the association of the two deep-pocketed production houses with unrivalled experience and expertise, the make-up, the prison setup, the props and the uniforms leave a lot to be desired.
One can’t help but sympathise with the amateur British director’s failing attempts using eerie background music (the second saving grace of the show) and resorting to patchy lighting, shaky camerawork and jump-scares in the make-believe Indian Guantanamo Bay like setup (in a country which famously released the largest number of PoWs in history, almost entirely Muslims, honourably) to add some horror to the mix. But he is let down by his dialogue writers and Indian assistants who should have been tasked with making the alternate dystopian reality narrative believable. The aforementioned Esteems and telephones preclude the timeline from being a dystopian future to more of an alternate reality set in the 90s. The writers would have done good to give us a background on how India ends up in that fascist reality, if only they weren’t already deluded into believing that we are already living in it. A half-decent origin story is least one can expect from a show that has been three years in the making.
Sacred Games, for all its discussed flaws, was a well-made show and an engaging watch. The social media was abuzz with praises for performances of its lead actors. For Ghoul though, I have already seen a number of tweets calling out the comically exaggerated and ill-placed leftist references. We have already lamented losing creative talent to the communist echo-chamber that Bollywood has become, but after watching Netflix’s Ghoul I can cheer this bunch on as they continue to peddle propaganda and lose the love they earned laboriously into an oblivious obscurity.

Comments

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Al-Qaeda’s offshoring to India aimed at staying competitive: Al-Zawahiri

Explaining the recent announcement of setting up regional jihadi development centers in India, al-Zawahiri, CEO – al-Qaeda, cited intense global competition as the primary motivator behind the tactical shift. “We have to evolve our business model and hiring strategy in order to stay relevant in a dynamic market. We can’t forever rely on a brand name and cult image of our brand ambassador Osama ji alone,” he is reported to have told the industry analysts who have been surprised at this sudden change in the strategy by the erstwhile iconic exporter of terrorism, which has failed to find media space for any of its recent endeavors. This downturn in the exports of the company’s brand of terror was accompanied by waning confidence in the Wahhabi investor community, which has seen the company’s valuations tumble as it faces difficulties in raising fresh funds. Experts also attribute Zawahiri’s move to India to the meteoric rise of its rival spin-off – ISIS, on the back of a potent ma

A tale of Netflix's two titles

How media brands a fact based feature film as jingoism, while remaining blissfully oblivious to real propaganda based on lies and manufactured guilt. Having finished watching Netflix's new sensation in Indian — Sacred Games — the other day, I was in search for something less intense to unwind on a lazy weekend, when I chanced upon the thumbnail for John Abraham's Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran. The movie, to this writer, appeared to be the latest in a list of movies inspired from the most up-voted answers on Quora to the questions like “What are some of the most fascinating stories about India?”. Any Quora visitor would attest that the platform introduced thousands to the Dashrath Manjhis and Neerja Bhanots before their inspiring lives were lapped up by Bollywood and turned into (well-made) blockbusters. It was Quora where people first read about the struggles of field hockey star Sandeep Singh, felt proud about the Indian evacuation from Kuwait, or read about the