1920 (2008) begins by placing a gun, or in this case a chalisa,
on the mantel. Novice architect Arjun Rathod (Rajneesh Duggal) is a
devoted son and a devout worshiper of Hanuman. He’s also in love with
Lisa (Adah Sharma), a Christian girl with a dubious family background.
Arjun knows that his family will never accept Lisa, so the couple try to
elope. His father and brothers express their concern by trying to burn
Lisa alive, while accusing Arjun of dishonoring his family and
religion. Arjun beats his brothers up, publicly rejects both family and
religion, and takes his wife away to Bombay.
After a quick musical montage to establish how happy the couple are,
Arjun gets his big break. He’s hired to supervise the demolition of a
mysterious old mansion, and to supervise the construction of the luxury
hotel that will take its place. The job requires that Arjun lives in
the mansion (though I still can’t figure out why) and his new employers
neglect to mention the previous two architects dying horribly, so the
couple move into the huge, creepy, isolated mansion.
Soon after moving in, Lisa goes a bit Yellow Wallpaper;
she spends more time than is healthy wandering the halls at night,
hearing voices, seeing shadows, and obsessing over a locked door.
For a horror movie husband, Arjun is surprisingly supportive. He
isn’t willing to move, but he does listen to his wife, tell her he
believes her, and encourages her to get out of the house and interact
with other people. She goes for a walk and strikes up a friendship with
Father Thomas (Rajendranath Zutshi), a priest who lives nearby. Father
Thomas blesses the house, and Lisa feels much better.
The movie’s not over yet, though. Arjun goes to Delhi for a business
meeting/gratuitous item number, leaving Lisa alone in the house. After
a few supernatural encounters of his own, Father Thomas tries to warn
Lisa, but he’s too late. by the time Arjun returns, she’s confined to
her room, dividing her time between catatonia and scary demonic ranting.
Father Thomas insists that she’s possessed. Medical science
(represented by Shri Vallabh Vyas) insists otherwise. Arjun, being an
embittered atheist, decides to go with medical science.
The ghost in
1920 is fairly unusual for an Indian ghost
story. Bollywood ghosts tend to be women, and at least vaguely
sympathetic avengers of past wrongs. That’s not the case here. The
ghost (as we learn in a flashback to the Indian rebellion of 1857) is
definitely male, and more interested in hurting people than in avenging
his death. The ghost is perhaps the most actively malevolent movie
character I’ve seen all year, combining sadism with an impish sense of
humor like a Satanic Woody Woodpecker. Adah Sharma deserves a lot of
credit for the physicality of her performance as the possessed Lisa; she
is at once silly and menacing.
1920 is obviously very derivative, both of Western movies like
The Exorcist and director Vikram Bhatt’s own
Raaz.
On the other hand, there aren only so many ways that a ghost story can
play out, and while the plot is hackneyed and predictable, it’s also
well executed. I can live with that.
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