Filmed almost entirely on location in the dense forests of Sikkim, the northeasternmost state of India, Bhargav Saikia’s Bokshi is a wildly ambitious debut feature, mixing folk horror, a teenage coming-of-age story, Sam Raimi-esque splatter, and intimations of post-#MeToo feminist allegory into one overflowing stew. It’s a film full of big ideas and dreamy, woozy visuals, replete with blood-red filters and creepy figures chanting incantations. It’s also frustratingly long, often narratively inert, and largely devoid of scares.
An extended prologue introduces us to 17-year-old Anahita (Prasanna Bishit); she suffers from extreme nightmares, often awakening drenched in sweat after wetting the bed. Her father is aloof, more embarrassed by his daughter’s accidents than he is concerned for her mental health. Anahita’s grandmother seems more amenable, until the woman discovers that the family maid has instructed Anahita on certain rituals meant to protect her from unwelcome spirits. Distrustful of such superstitions but also in possession of a pronounced class resentment, Anahita’s grandmother harangues the help and rants and raves about the teenager’s deceased mother, hinting at some dark secrets in the family’s closet. At school, Anahita is mocked by her classmates for using peculiar oils in her hair, and when she finally lashes out and assaults a particularly cruel boy, she’s shuffled off to a boarding school. Here, Anahita seems to settle in reasonably well; she’s standoffish at first but finds a few friendly students and seems particularly interested in the history class taught by Shalini (Mansi Multani). Shalini also sponsors a history club, and Anahita begs to be allowed to join them for their annual field trip, a long hike through the woods to explore ancient temples and various religious statues. After much cajoling, Shalini allows Anahita to tag along, and so begins their journey away from civilization and into ritualistic violence and matriarchal mythology.
According to reports, Bokshi was entirely financed by the filmmaker and his family, taking roughly five years to develop and produce, including a long layoff due to COVID. The screenplay by Harsh Vaibhav has all the hallmarks of an overstuffed passion project, as if the creators were determined to get every idea they had into one film in case they never got to make another. The proceedings are downright languid, at least at first; the mixed-sex group seems to be enjoying nature, camping under the stars, and keeping each others’ company. Locals regale the students with stories of ancient traditions and the peoples who originally settled the lands, and the students are particularly interested in the strange statues they keep discovering on their hikes, all of which depict female anatomy in celebratory, ritualized fashion. There’s much talk about faith versus reason — as well as tension between “city folk” and the rural denizens — and how the figure of the Bokshi (“witch” in Nepali) could be viewed as a figure of empowerment rather than horror. Anahita also embarks on a burgeoning romance with one of her female classmates, which seems to suggest that some of her troubles are a sort of allegory for her repressed urges. But ultimately, the long march gradually turns into a slog, the film recapitulating the same themes and ideas over and over again, with only the occasional bout of spooky imagery to goose the audience. Moods soon sour and our intrepid students start to turn on one another; Shalini butts heads with the other chaperone, a male teacher who feels emasculated by the constant talk of feminine agency and divine power that these lands and symbols possess, while Anahita’s classmates start to turn on her as well. How does all of this relate to Anahita’s nightmarish visions and long-dead mother? What exactly is Anahita repressing in the dark recesses of her psyche? Is Shalini a witch herself?
All is eventually revealed, and it will only be a surprise to someone who’s never seen a movie before. Saikia and cinematographers Siddharth Sivasankaran and A. Vasanth do nice work with the more overtly horror-tinged imagery, bathing sequences in red gels and ominous, slow camera movements, but much of the dialogue scenes are static and uninspired. The whole thing is an extremely long trip to a mostly foregone conclusion, interrupted only by a miraculous, lovingly detailed hand-drawn animation sequence that reveals the origins of the Bokshi and the struggle of an Earth-bound goddess versus the masculine-coded Sky gods. It’s absolutely beautiful, so much so that one wishes they were just watching a movie built around that instead. The final act finally crescendos into full-blown horror territory, with possessed people chasing and murdering various characters, although it also inadvertently reveals how little we know about any of these characters (despite spending what feels like an eternity with them). And it all climaxes with a sequence seemingly inspired by, of all things, Midsommar (whether a film aping the Aster/A24 aesthetic is a good thing or a bad thing is ever up for debate). The performances are at least all quite good, particularly Bishit, who is in virtually every scene of this near-three-hour behemoth. But everyone on screen feels less like a fully realized person than a pawn that the plot moves around according to its needs. There’s a general sense of incoherence to everything, a bunch of disparate parts that never come together properly. So while there’s plenty of undeniable talent on display in Bokshi, there’s simply a fatal absence of cohesive vision that would have allowed for anything interesting to be done with it.
Published as part of IFFR 2025 — Dispatch 2.
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