Customer Reviews

9 Lives of Mara

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This film was screened at the HP Lovecraft Film Festival in Portland Oregon in roughly 2007 and was well received by the audience. It is not an HPL story but it captures a mood of psychological horror and mystery and deals with the lines between fantasy and reality and sanity and madness, well-suited to the festival. It stood out as a sophisticated, well crafted, written, shot, acted, and edited film. I was disappointed and surprised that it was not quickly picked up for broad release at that time. It is a montage of mixed time and place as our young protagonist wrestles with the presence of a mysterious new woman in the household. It's a dark and deliberately paced (i.e., slow, but suitably so) film and a somewhat quiet movie. The dialogue is superior and the performances are so natural that you are pulled into the story with the characters. Shadowy visual images contrasted with subtle sounds are memorable. There was an especially engaging performance by one of the young actors, who managed to spew out the lines of explitives given him and achieve the intended disarming humor and endearment. If I recall correctly, this was the first feature film by the director (Bilaji) Kumar,who fielded some Q&A and showed himself to be a downight nice guy on top of the obvious talent displayed with the film. I became an immediate fan, but unfortunately, apparently the film still awaits release and sadly has not found its way to the mainstream yet, which further suggests that we may not see another from this director for some time - our loss. I hope its listing here (as of 2011) means that it will soon be released. My recollection puts this at 5 stars, one that I yearn to see again, but I leave it a 4 until I have a chance to see it again.

I saw this movie some time ago (without having any expectations), and I was pleasantly surprised.
I Totally recommend this movie!