Naina (2005)

With Easter coming up,I decided to search around for a Bollywood Horror DVD that I could give to a friend as a present.Searching round on Amazon Uk,I was surprised to stumble upon a Bollywood chiller,which had only come out on Region 1 DVD,which led to me getting ready to look into Naina's eyes.The plot:Sitting in the back seat of her parents car, Naina Shah gets caught up in a car crash,which kills her parents,and leaves Shah blind.20 years later:Since she has become blind,Shah's aunt has looked at every option possible for Shah to regain her sight.Close to giving up,the family suddenly receive news that a suitable donors have been located,and that surgery can be performed on Shah.After living for 20 years blind,Shah has mixed feelings about regaining her sight,but decides to make her family happy,by agreeing to the operation.Opening her newly put-in eyes,Shah is told by Dr. Samir Patel that she may see strange "illusions" as she adjusts to a new vision.Laying in a hospital bed,Shah hears a strange noise.Looking across the room,Shah is terrified to discover that she can now see the tormented spirits of the dead.View on the film:Taking (uncredited) inspiration from the Pang brothers Horror film The Eye, the screenplay by co-writer/(along with Sagar Pandya & Anjum Rajabali) director Shripal Morakhia disappointingly fails to show any hint of the 20 year toll that Shah (played by a very good,eye- catching Urmila Matondkar) spent blind,which blinds the viewer from being able to fully experience the horror that Shah now faces,and also stops the relationship with her caring relatives to be fully explored.Whilst they fail from building a back story,the writers give the swift 104 minute running time, (with no songs!)a very creepy atmosphere,thanks to keeping Shah in an increasingly disorientated state,and also showing the ghosts/spirits as figures for sympathy,rather than fear.Backed by a silky score from Salim & Suleiman,director Shripal Morakhia reveals Shah's visions in scatter-shot whip-pans soaked in metallic dark blues & whites,which unveil with a piecing clarity the horrors that Shah is seeing.As Shah begins to undercover the origins of her new set of eyes,Morakhia lights up the title with bursts of vivid reds & yellows,as Shah aims to uncover the truth,at first sight.

I wonder why this movie had three writers since all Shripal Morakhia did was rip-off almost every frame of the Pang Brothers' captivating movie 'Jian Gui'. Not only does it copy the aforementioned movie, but it does so terribly. Morakhia Bollywoodizes it by making the main character an NRI (non-residential Indian) based in England where everybody seems to speak Hindi. There are no songs but the romance between Naina and her psychiatrist looks rushed. The jump moments are laughably bad while the special effects are mostly adequate. Urmila Matondkar is competent. This is far from her best work but she is terrific in the non-'jump' scenes. What made her choose to do this? The rest of the actors are passable at best. I'm surprised the film was accepted at the Sitges Film Festival because I hardly see any appeal in it. It's a bad movie that has an Indian Hollywoodish B-grade feel to it.

Let's be perfectly honest. "The Eye 10" was bad. The fart jokes may have been an excellent opportunity for the Pang Brothers to thumb their noses at the film-making establishment (especially of the genre-kind), but farting did nothing to enhance the ghost story they were trying to tell. Anyone who disagrees...is lost.But "Naina," a "had to be licensed or else there's a lawsuit a-brewing" remake of the Pang Brothers original "Eye" is a real stinker. Let me qualify for a moment; I'm a sucker for any kind mimicry or remaking, as long as it's good. I'll watch the same derivative sequel-like Asian ghost story over and over and over again (Eye, Ringu, Dark Water, Phone, Red Shoes, Red Eye, One Missed Call 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) as long as it is well done. But "Naina" busts the bank. The film has no fart-jokes, but its got the same flatulent problem--namely, hilarity, that doesn't smell too much like hilarity, that's been inserted into the script with a crowbar made in India.Being a Bollywood remake of a serious ghost story, the "comic relief" (term used lightly) and distinct style of overacting isn't surprising in "Naina." Watching this film is a bit like watching "The Eye" (a heartwrenching, small, personal film) trying to bust out into a Broadway-style song and dance routine. Oil and water. For example, early on the hilarity comes in the form of Naina's (cornea transplantee's) grandmother. She harasses hospital personnel, inappropriately burns incense in the hospital lobby, and continually barrages the doctors with "hilarious" questions about her poor, poor granddaughter. The "funny" character got tiring real, real fast and completely served to deflate any tension the director may have been trying to attain. Maybe he should watch the original one more time.The same kind of Bollywood-like, paper-thin character qualities flowed into the protagonist Naina as well. Her eyes bulged out of her head like Popeye when confronted with supernatural occurrences, and the voiceovers were always overacted. For example, check out Naina's string of monosyllables meant to convey horror and exasperation ("Uh-Ah-No-Wha-Uh-Ah-Huh-No") while she witnesses "the other side" from the backseat of a taxi (and her lips aren't even parted). Attack of the voice-over from hell! It is the typical cartoonery found in Bollywood films. No subtlety anywhere.And yet I am perplexed. Overall, I'd say the film was lensed very lushly. Nice colors and camera angles; on the whole, the photography is top notch. Yet, when the director fills the frame with the baldheaded young-boy-cancer-patient who befriends Naina, things explode into utter wrongness. Somebody seriously needed to check this kid's makeup. As someone else pointed out in a review on IMDb, the skullcap the kid was wearing (head shaved due to brain surgery) wasn't fitted or finished properly. And again, allow me to explain; I'm no perfectionist when it comes to genre films. I'll put up with just about everything. As long as I'm entertained, I can look past the biggest plot holes, rubber monster suits, and rattling background sets. But this skullcap gets the award for the Worst Ever Makeup Job I've Seen In My Life. The color of the cap doesn't match his head; when the child actor emotes by raising his eyebrows, the ends of the skullcap wrinkle up unnaturally; the cutout around his ears is clearly visible, as well as how the skullcap is not properly attached to the back of his head--and I think I saw some hair protruding through the back around his neck. It is atrocious. Unbelievably so, especially when you take into consideration the overall professionalism of every other aspect of the film. Who on the crew had a three-martini lunch that day? Hmmm...Final word: Even if you are a "I'll watch any derivative film just because it's horror" person like me, trust me and skip "Naina." You've seen it all before, only it was actually good the last time.

It would be rather absurd to say that the movie was just good. I fail to recall the last time I saw a flick as commendable as this. I'm no avid bollywood-fan but I can confidently say that once a while, a movie so brilliant as this, comes along and I cannot say no.Flaws are hard to detect. The following are the various complaints I received about the movie :- a) Poor Plot. The movie has a well defined story. It is about a girl, who loses her eyesight at a very tender age. It is about a girl, who must wait for 20 years to get a cornea donor (which, I assure you, is realistic. How many people are you aware of presently, who would be willing to donate their eyes or those of their departed loved ones?) It is about an unfortunate girl who receives the cornea of an extra-ordinary girl, from a distant land, who had the gift of seeing dead people/people about to die. This may, again, sound ridiculous but how many horror movies out there make sense? Even if there was a poor plot, I wouldn't mind it so much since the superb direction more than made up for it. b) Too much Discontinuity. I couldn't disagree more. The movie attempts to reduce two and a half decades to 2 hours, which is not an easy task. It is a thriller.... not a romance flick, nor a cheap sex comedy. It is assumed that the viewer must utilise his/her brains to co-relate one event with another. (The Indian audience is yet to grow more mature when it comes to theater. Why else is Drama so unpopular?) c) Poor acting. One of the reviews I read clearly stated that Urmila's acting gets better with each flick. I too was expecting to be tortured by her horrible screaming, but that (thankfully) didn't quite happen. Though she got annoying at times, her performance was on an overall quite mature and quite commendable. d) Poor copy of Hollywood Flicks. If one tried hard enough, it would be possible to relate every movie that has been released till date with another. Agreed that ''Naina'' has certain elements which closely resemble ''Sixth-Sense'' as others believe, and ''Ghost'' as well as ''The Ring'' if I were to be believed, but every movie resembles another. All ideas out there have been utilised. Now, we can only recreate, reinvent and reproduce.Moving on, the film is for a very mature audience and quite daring attempt. The direction is the best I've seen till date and the effects are astonishing. The show of dead bodies, charred bodies and internal organs may be sickening, but are possibly vital to the plot. There isn't much I could say without spoiling the movie for you, but I'll conclude by stating that the cast is well chosen, the direction is magnificent and the movie seems to be quite free of cons.The background score deserves a special mention since it was very much in sync with the theme of the movie and doubled the pleasure of watching it.