SISTER MIDNIGHT

(Check out Chris Reed’s Sister Midnight movie review. The film hits NYC theaters Friday, May 16 and expands in the upcoming weeks. Seen it? Join the conversation with HtN on our Letterboxd Page.)

The trailer for writer-director Karan Kandhari’s feature debut, Sister Midnight, promises quirky humor à la Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki (Fallen Leaves), with deadpan emotions wedded to outlandish hijinks. If that which unfolds on the screen is not quite as expected, there’s still enough of visual and dramatic allure to fascinate. It’s certainly a strange cinematic concoction.

Radhika Apte (Merry Christmas) plays Uma, newly wedded to Gopal (Ashok Pathak, Mahi Mera Nikka Jeha). As the film begins, they are on a train to the big city, where they move into a one-room shack at the end of a long row of such shacks. Every day, Gopal goes off to work, leaving Uma alone. This arrangement does not suit her at all. Especially since he won’t consummate the marriage.

“Why can’t you just be like other people?” he asks, presumably wanting Uma to accept a boring existence as a wife. She can’t cook, however, and has little interest in learning domestic ways. The fact that Gopal frequently comes home drunk further exacerbates their rising conflict.

Next-door neighbor Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) helps with cooking lessons and companionship, but she has to travel back to her home village for a while, leaving Uma once more alone. So she gets a job cleaning offices and seeks out new friends, including from among a group of hijra (trans) women on the street. She also becomes a night owl and develops a taste for blood.

Indeed, vampirism works its way into the tale, with larger metatextual resonances on parasitic relationships and codependency. Not all of the script makes sense, but the unusual twist and turns prove intriguing. The animations of dead animals (Uma’s initial victims) coming back to a sort of life are less appealing, and at first they merely confuse. So, too, does the obviously wax head of Uma’s eventual human prey. Though the lo-fi effects are clearly (one hopes) part of an intentional aesthetic, they nevertheless alienate the viewer, at least at first impression.

But what unfolds around them is so odd that there’s no alternative but to lean in and embrace the bizarre. Is it horror? Is it comedy? Is it tragedy? Perhaps all three combine in an unsettling mix. One thing is undeniable, though, which is that the circumstances leading to Uma’s transformation are unbearable. There’s no alternative but to break down or evolve. Uma does both.

Sister Midnight may be an uneven trip, yet the cinematic potholes are very much a factor in the movie’s charm. Its themes—of loneliness and desperation—resonate on a universal level, while its artistic approach makes the treatment highly specific. Perplexed? Bewildered? Baffled? Ride it out and enjoy the bumps.

– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)

Sister Midnight; Karan Kandhari

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