‘Bhram’ roughly translates to delusion in English. For various reasons, your mind can make you see things that do not exist in real. Some of these visuals, which occur in mind, can be horrifying and leave a lasting impact on your brain. ‘Bhram’, the new digital show directed by Sangeeth Sivan, traces the journey of an individual who sees /experiences strange things and in a bid to find out whether what she is seeing is happening for real or a pigment of her imagination, treads on a dangerous path which leads her towards discovering things that get her into trouble.
Alisha Khanna (Kalki Koechlin) is a young woman who is popular because of the romantic novels she has written. Alisha’s husband (Omkar Kapoor) passed away recently leaving behind a huge void in her life. Yash lost his life in a car accident; Alisha was driving the car at that point of time and she feels responsible for her death. Ridden by guilt and sorrow, Alisha leaves for a hill station to spend a couple of days with her elder sister Ankita (Bhumika Chawla) and Ankita’s husband Peter (Sanjay Suri). While Alisha had hoped to find peace in the retreat, things do not turn out the way she had hoped to. Soon enough, we are introduced to a bunch of people and given a glimpse of their past which holds several secrets.
Is ‘Bhram’ a psychological thriller or a horror? That I leave for you to discover or decide when you finish watching all the eight episodes of the show. The biggest challenge for a thriller, be it a show or a film, is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats and compel them to keep guessing the next twist or turn in the narrative. At the same time, one has to ensure that every twist in the plot comes across as convincing and plausible and is not the kind that is forced into the narrative as a gimmick. Every episode of ‘Bhram’ is packed with a plethora of twists, most of which successfully manage to keep you hooked to the narrative. The visuals compliment the writing very well and every episode throws up a couple of moments when your heart starts beating a little faster in the anticipation of doom.
In the very first episode, Sivan manages to set the tone for the show and gives the audience a fair idea of the kind of world they are about to venture into in the subsequent episodes. He strikes a fine balance between the present-day scenes and the flashback portion throughout the show. While he establishes a link between the two, he leaves a lot of loose ends for the audience to untie themselves or discover by the end of the last episode. The show maintains its pace very well throughout the eight episodes though it dips at certain points in a few episodes in between. The big reveal in the climax left me with mixed feelings. Could a better conclusion have been chalked out? Perhaps, yes. But, the one served to the audience is not too bad either. The cult of the ‘monster’ has been devised and built-up throughout the episodes quite nicely. The reason given behind Alisha suffering from the hallucination and the images she sees is very convincing. Most importantly, it is believable and thus, works as a strong, cohesive plot point in the story. The way Yash’s death/accident is shown in quite commonplace and the writer (K. Hari Kumar) could have come up with some other alternative for this particular sequence.
Sangeeth Sivan makes a remarkable debut as a director in the digital space. The ace director had directed an atmospheric horror film called ‘Sandhya’ in 2003. The film, starring Jackie Shroff, Raveena Tandon and Ashutosh Rana, never saw the light of the day but from what one had heard about the film, it was in a similar space, as far as the genre is concerned, as ‘Bhram’. Now that he has made his foray into the digital space, it would be great if he and producers Jackie and Ayesha Shroff find a way to release ‘Sandhya’ on a digital streaming platform. K. Hari Kumar, who had earlier collaborated with Sivan on ‘E’ (2017), a Malayalam film the latter had produced, maintains a firm control on the written material he has produced for the show. As stated above, there are a few shortcomings in the screenplay but for the larger part, he manages to keep the narrative tight. The camerawork by Vidushi Tiwari, Suman Sahu and Sandeep Yadav is good. The editing (Saju Chandran and Pratik Chitalia) is crisp and contributes greatly in adding a sense of grim and tension to the narrative.
Kalki Koechlin puts across a decent performance as the central protagonist in the story. She leaves a mark in a few sequences but overall, it is not a performance that stays with you. One feels she did not really understand the nuances of the character she was playing here. Bhumika Chawla brings in a certain amount of warmth as the protective figure in Alisha’s life. Sanjay Suri, as always, delivers a very natural performance. Eijaz Khan brings out the various layers in his character very effectively to the fore. Chandan Roy Sanyal does complete justice to his character of a playful yet efficient police officer. Satyadeep Mishra is very good as Father Alfred Joseph. Vikram Kochar does not hit a single false note as Avtar. It is high time the talented actor gets the kind of role he deserves. Anjali Tatrari leaves a mark as Ayesha. Ansh Sinha and Mir Sarwar, both, deliver very effective performances as the younger and the elder versions of Yakub. Omkar Kapoor is good in a cameo.
‘Bhram’ is a sufficiently thrilling and wonderfully eerie show which keeps you hooked throughout most of its duration. The suspense plays out well and you get a good amount of shivers in the process too.