A few days back I was talking to some friends about coincidence’s in life. How certain events are unexplainable and yet how we deny them. “Coincidently”, later that night, I saw this really intriguing Hindi movie titled “Sau Jhoot, Ek Sach” (100 Lies, 1 Truth). A slow mystery drama, it starred Mammootty (the South Indian Superstar) and some renowned theatre actors like Vikram Gokhle, Lillete Dubey, Neha Dubey and Joy Sengupta. The drama revolves around a family and their sense of guilt. One late night, a police inspector (played by Mammootty) visits the family and interrogates each one of them. Apparently, all of them had a hand in the suicide of a girl, but as it turns out none of them were aware of each others role in the life of the girl. The inspector weave’s the missing end’s and suposedly solves the case under one-roof, but he leaves the family with some more strange questions. The events that follow are disturbingly provocative. The plot is unpredictable but while we were watching the movie – we had a sense of where it’s going. Even then, some of the events towards the end are a surprise.
A directorial debut by Bappaditya Roy, I must say that the movie is really thought provoking and very well made. All the actors, specially Mammootty and Vikram Gokhle, give a chilling performance. Song-less (*relief*) but the background music is as dark as demanded by the plots. Such films in Indian cinema are rare but I’m glad that Bollywood has exhibited several great films in the past year.
After some looking up on the internet, its evident that the movie is an adaptation of British dramatist J. B. Priestley’s 1945 play – An Inspector Calls. But that doesn’t kill it for me, because the Hindi movie adaption does justice to the script and the performances are excellent. The movie was made possible only because its entire cast worked at less than half their market prices.
Overall, its a nice movie — a different taste of cinema, although not everyone might like it. I highly recommend watching it!