Despite usually enjoying success in local cinemas, India has rarely dived into the waters of pure science fiction narratives in their long history, with a usual emphasis on action or romance-driven films. Even though Hollywood blockbusters in the genre are hits in the country, it's taken until now for the country to truly try its hand at one of the stories with Mahesh Rajmane's first true solo directorial effort in “Unmatta.”
Suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder after being raped as a child, Aditi (Aarushia Vedikha) has become a student of literature and suffers from frequent sleep paralysis. Siddhartha (Vikas Bangar) is an inquisitive science student, who is experimenting on Telepathy using mind-altering drugs. He persuades his friends Nuha (Purneima Dey), Chaitanya (Sandeep Dhabale) and Vijay (Prasad Shikhare) to support him in his bizarre initiative. After initial success in his experiment with Nuha, all 4 of them decide to experiment together at a farmhouse. Aditi joins them as a sitter; however, the collegians' exciting weekend adventure soon turns into a string of nightmarish events when they are confronted with deep questions regarding their own desires and true nature of consciousness.
For the most part, “Unmatta” has a lot to like about it. Most of the positive aspects are based on director Rajmane's clever screenplay, which tries to pack in some ambitious concepts and ideas. While the nature of what they're researching and the logistics of telepathy can be debated eternally, there's little doubt that the manner they're used in here makes for an intriguing experience. As a means of exploring the subconscious of each other using shared brain waves while sleeping, the ability to uncover past experiences or thoughts is conveyed in an interesting manner. The scenes of the group partaking in the first round of experiments are some of the film's best, with the rest of the group living out past memories while Aditi encounters the demonic figure standing over her get this going on a nice note.
As well, the second half here picks up considerably once the group arrives at the farmhouse. This becomes a far more psychedelic section where shots of characters appearing as if they were created with day-glow coloring and clothes, flashbacks to the past rape and trauma Aditi experienced done in slow-motion sequences or the terrifying encounters with the shadowy creatures lurking in the darkness. These are extremely chilling in the way in which the creatures appear to tease and torment the group, which seems to be solely Aditi's visions. When they turn into actual threats as everyone but Aditi gets stranded in a separate reality and forced to battle the strange creatures in supernatural combat, this becomes fun with the martial arts battles and unfair advantage they have, creating some frenetic action scenes as a result. With a nice technical polish to accompany the action and ambitiousness, there's a lot to like here.
However, there are problems with “Unmatta.” A lot of those issues come from the tangled and misguided theories that are presented. The main concept of connecting up to another persons' psychological nature while on the verge of sleep and using that to enable themselves to enter into their mind makes little sense. It's presented as a simplistic formula that can be accomplished by anyone without much in the way of special training or outside equipment which would make the experience more commonplace were it really to be an applicable practice. Dealing with the results of the process in such a flippant manner with everyone ignoring what's going on and just going with the flow of the situation seems illogical as well, seemingly accepting the changes in reality without question or worry about anyone else. These issues aren't detrimental, though, and don't hold this back too much.
Despite sometimes reaching a bit beyond its bounds with a storyline that's not structurally sound, “Unmatta” succeeds quite often with ambition, technical talent and quite a bit of fun when approached in a specific mind-frame. Take a look if you find yourself intrigued by the storyline or a fan of ambitious sci-fi/horror thrillers, while those who don't appreciate these styles might have more problems with the film.
