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Cara Canellas
Ram Gopal Varma is set to go ahead with a sequel to his just-released spooky thriller Agyaat that has garnered mixed reviews. The director says in part two the story will shift from the jungles to the city.
Agyaat, says Varma, was made at a budget of Rs 5 crore. "The sequel would be marginally costlier to make. But again it would feature no major stars. The jungle will again be the star of the film," said the director.
"At the end of Agyaat my lead pair Nitin Reddy and Priyanka Kothari come out of the killer jungle. Agyaat 2 will begin with the pair telling the police what happened. Nitin accompanies the cops into the jungle and shows them how brutally the other members of his team were murdered. Now when he returns to the city, the creature follows him."
"In Agyaat, the challenge was to not show the murderous creature and still create panic and horror, as in The Blair Witch Project or John Carpenter's The Thing. I think the power of cinema lies in the power of the imagination. I've used the jungle as a sub text for the entity."
Critics have complained about the insubstantiality of the terror and horror in Agyaat. But according to Varma, that is its USP. "The challenge was to create horror from nothing. Ridley Scott once said that if you try to explain a supernatural experience, you lose the thrill of it."
"I like to leave my options. Most of my films are open-ended. I like to carry the story forward. I thought, I'd make a sequel to Phoonk. But now I've decided to do a sequel to Agyaat instead. As for the sequel not being received properly, I don't think that matters," said the director.
"I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. It'd be a treat working with Ramu again. It was tough shooting in Sigiriya jungles. We had a couple of injuries. Let's see what happens this time," said Nitin.
I hate the faces made in the movie. They look nothing other than constipated and make no sense. RGV needs to be forcefully shown this movie hundred times at a stretch to make him understand what pain he has caused to the mass and why he should not make such movies.
Reporter: Any new movies in the offing?
RGV: Next, I am going to make a movie inspired by a real incident. How an indian movie star (who is more popular in the USA than Bob Dylan and Al Gore) is detained at Newark airport. In my movie, he will also be sexually assaulted.The movie will be called Agyat 2 since it will explore the agyaat body parts and reveal the cross dressing habit of the great movie star.
Agyaat (transl. Anonymous) is a 2009 Indian Hindi-language horror film[1] directed by Ram Gopal Varma, starring Nithiin, Gautam Rode, Rasika Dugal, and Priyanka Kothari in the leading roles.[2][3] It follows a filmmaking crew stuck in a forest and struggling to survive after becoming the target of an unknown entity.
The film was released on 7 August 2009.[4] It was dubbed and released simultaneously in Telugu as Adavi. The film was shot mainly at Sigiriya jungle in Sri Lanka, with some scenes in the Athirappilly forests in Cochin, Kerala, India.[5] In order to combat piracy, the film's DVD was simultaneously and exclusively released internationally.[6] It was a commercial disappointment, and the sequel Agyaat 2 teased in the end credits never materialized.[7][8]
A film unit goes for a shoot in a forest but breaks down deep in the jungle. Resulting in a four-day delay, the 9-member cast and crew of a Bollywood movie, including leading lady Aasha, and her egotistical co-star, Sharman Kapoor; decide to relax and take an outing with their guide, Setu. They end up at a picturesque spot and decide to spend the night there not realizing they will soon be stalked and brutally killed by an invisible and unknown beast and/or an extraterrestrial entity.
Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave 3/5 (Watchable) for director Ramgopal Varma's Agyaat; Masand states "At a time when special effects and digital tricks can be used to create just about anything, here's a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see".[9]
Nikhat Kazmi of Times of India gave 3/5 and noted "It neither thrills nor chills with its repetitive running-for-life sequences and its absolutely infuriating end which offers no explanation whatsoever for the scurrying and screaming".[10]
Subhash K Jha (IBOS) gave 3.5/5 noting "Jungle fever has never been more contagious. Every corner of the Sri Lankan jungle as shot with mesmeric skill by the cinematographer Surjodeep Ghosh is filled with danger."[11]
Taran Adarsh gave this movie a rating of 3/5 saying "Ramgopal Varma thinks differently. This time too, the maverick film-maker defies the stereotype and takes to the dense forests of Sri Lanka to meet an 'unknown' force" and explains further "But let's clear the misconception at the very start. Agyaat is no supernatural thriller (like Phoonk) or a horror fest (like Bhoot). This one's more of an adventure thriller that doesn't scare you at all, but makes you a participant in a pulse-pounding journey".[12]
I just got back from Agyaat and I am not done laughing yet.
Ram Gopal Varma's thriller is seriously, decidedly, indisputably funny -- in the ridiculous dialogues recycled by the characters (seems the writers ran out of words), in the forced, schmaltzy romantic interludes, and even the way almost all the characters in this ensemble cast are hurriedly bumped off or turn suicidal so that the lead pair can carry on with their lives.
You want to know what a reputed director does in his spare time with his spare group of lackeys and technicians. Well, he goes to a jungle and makes his characters play Ringa-Ringa-Roses around the same spot, dunks them in water and bumps them off. The more irrelevant you are, the earlier you die.
You want to play the guessing game with your friends in which everyone will be a winner. You know when a motley crew gets stranded in a jungle, they will all be bumped off one by one. You know when frogs croak loudly and bees buzz angrily, something is not right. You know, when the camera sneaks up on a character from the back, he/she either dies or it is a false alarm. The list goes on and on and on...
You want to see how a director gets to bastardise a classic scarefest such as the Predator, and have the gumption to promote it the way he did. No self-respecting filmmaker will ever want to claim credits for as shoddy a product as this. You are curious to know what Varma was on when he made this.
You are a fan of Priyanka Kothari, and want to see for yourself what a spectacularly bad actress she is and how Varma has the innate ability to make all his leading ladies look the same, move the same way and strip at the slightest excuse -- this time, it is the damn leeches. But small correction, when a leech latches on to your body, you don't feel a thing. Not until someone else spots it. Law of the jungle Mr Varma.
You want to see what Varma does with an elephant, a monkey and two snakes in his cast. They make guest appearances, because they are friends with Varma, whose forest fixation had endeared him to the inhabitants. In fact, you can almost imagine him swoop down on the audience from the tree tops with a George of the Jungle-yawp!
You want to play along with the makers of this travesty in the name of a thriller, whose sole intention seems to make a fool of the audience and make you part with your money. You don't know a better way to blow up 200 bucks.
And finally, you want to know how to put your audience to sleep, as you waste precious minutes showing your characters form a single file and walk through the jungle, looking very, very scared and make startling, insightful observations such as, "Raat hone wala hai!" (when the sun is waving at you cheerfully!), "Hum ek ek karke mar rahe hain!" (thanks for pointing it out mate, since the audience has lost count already, and interest!) and the likes.
NEW DELHI: If the year started off on a spooky note with "Raaz - The Mystery Continues", the first film from Ram Gopal Varma's stable this year is also an adventure thriller called "Agyaat". Releasing Friday, the film is inspired by Hollywood thrillers like "Predator", "Anaconda" and "Alien".
Shot mostly in the Sigiriya jungles of Sri Lanka and the Athirapally forests in Kerala, the film is not only inspired by Hollywood thrillers, but also by real life, eerie incidents that Varma's unit members experienced while shooting his 2000 movie "Jungle" in the Bandipur reserved forest in Karnataka.
Produced by Varma and Ronnie Screwvala, "Agyaat" tells the story of a film unit on a shoot in a dense forest where the crew members start getting killed one by one under mysterious circumstances by an invisible creature.
"Hollywood has made thousands of such films about people stuck somewhere and getting killed under unknown reasons. I thought what if this time people don't see what is killing them... the idea was to compel them to use their own imagination as a weapon, which is more lethal," the filmmaker said.
"I had to live with eight creepy lizards who used to roam around in my room. I can say that I'm braver now. Earlier, I used to be petrified if I used to see even one lizard in my room... but I had so many in close proximity in the same room in the jungle," the actress said.
"A lot of things happened with me during the shooting - like my ankle injury, elbow injury, then so many scratches, insect bites, et al. It's a part and parcel of a film like this," said the 25-year-old.
The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) asked Varma to re-edit a music track "Jai Shri Shambhu" from the film as it may encourage substance abuse. The track shows leading lady Priyanka puffing a 'chillum' (pipe) while she sings "Dum Maro, yeh hai Sahara".
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