Kagbeni (2008)

Nepalese cinema has not exactly been what one could call flourishing, but Tsering Rhitar Sherpa's 2000 film, Mask of Desire, and more recently, Bhusan Dahal's Kagbeni, Nepal's cinema has shown promising signs of good things to come. Based on the short horror story The Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs, Dahal transplants the tale to the rural mountain village of Kagbeni. When Krishna returns to Kagbeni after working abroad in Malaysia, he meets up with his childhood friend Ramesh, who has started his own home distillery, but is struggling to get started. On their way to the city to sell the latest batch, the two friends meet an old holy man who gives Krishna a monkey's paw that supposedly has the power to grant wishes, but it cannot be used by anyone other than its rightful owner. When Ramesh finds out that Krishna has been arranged by his parents to marry Tara, Ramesh's love interest, he finds himself thrown into despair, despite Krishna's being disinterested in Tara, and steals the paw to make a wish. On their way home, Krishna falls to death. A decade later Ramesh has everything he could possibly want, he has married Tara, had a child, and his business is prospering, but very soon, strange and tragic events begin to transpire. Though billed as a horror movie, Kagbeni is more of a psychological drama, and Dahal takes the slow-burn route to tell his story. I am not usually a fan of HD video, and still prefer the look of film, but Dahan uses the HD visual qualities to his advantage, by giving the film a very kind of muddy color palatte; the landscapes are harsh and jagged, but there is also a ravishing physical beauty to them. He excels at really planting the viewer into the remote world of the Himalayas, and at conjuring an atmosphere of dread and melancholy. If Dahal occasionally slips into the cliche, he can be forgiven, because he has a firm grasp of the elements needed to tell a compelling story. He also avoids the pitfall of too literally adapting the source material, and instead uses it only when necessary. Kagbeni is a very satisfying film, and hopefully we will see more to come from its director.