Psycho Raman goes beyond Ugly

Indian film maker Anurag Kashyap is back at the Director’s Fortnight in Cannes. Kashyap, following up on his film Ugly in 2014, with this dramatic thriller describes his movies as genre.

'Raman Raghav' by Indian film director Anurag Kashyap Quinzaine des Réalisateurs

Raghav Raman 2.0 feels more gory than it actually looks. The booming sound track coaxes fear in the mind of the spectator.

Anurag Kashyap is careful to explain in the opening credits that this film is not about the real life Indian serial killer of the 1960s whose name was Raghav Raman. The main character in Raman Raghav 2.0 also known as Psycho Raman, is however a serial killer.

Played by Nawazuddin Siddiqi, he kills nine people as he stalks a police officer who is being sucked into his own hell and who Raman Raghav 2.0 has identified as his alter ego.

He’s terrifying as he destroys his sister’s life, literally, but first psychologically. Kashyap throws the dysfunctional family to the wall again.

"The character has a warped sense of the world and his own logic. He sort of shows what we are becoming. We all get angry but the fear of hurting someone makes us stop. It’s a limit, that’s the difference between us and animals," says Kashyap.

However, the victims are not seen as the act occurs, and much of the fear is created by Siddiqi’s edgy character, who appears lucid and ordinary at times, and feverishly deranged at others.

The sound of grating metal or thumping music à la Bollywood and the language, reinforce a perception of extreme violence.

Kashyap working with a team of newcomers, spins his tale around undesirables and pouty women. Psycho Raman twists and turns. He sets himself new challenges, he says. It helps him polish his style.

Raghav Raman 2.0, a film that’s more brutal by way of suggestion than it is in images, is not for the faint hearted.