Berlinale 2024, Post # 9: Raam Reddy’s ‘The Fable’ is a wonderful follow-up to ‘Thithi’, and it had its world premiere at the Berlinale

The film stars Manoj Bajpayee, Priyanka Bose, Deepak Dobriyal, Tillotama Shome. It is best described as a metaphysical mystery, and in many ways, it is a companion piece to ‘Thithi’.

The Fable, Raam Reddy’s long-anticipated follow-up to his debut feature Thithi, opens with a black screen, and we hear the familiar sound of what appears to be someone brushing their teeth. As the image appears, it turns out that someone is indeed brushing their teeth. That someone is Dev (Manoj Bajpayee). Filmmakers usually go for memorable opening visuals to suck you into their story dramatically, and it’s hard to imagine an opening more mundane. We go to the movies for flights of fancy – and here, we see one of our greatest actors doing what we all do when we wake up? But wait. After brushing, Dev dabs a bit of ointment on both shoulders. Instantly, there is intrigue. What is that all about? Is he hurt? As we wonder about the answer, we get a single-take shot that follows Dev. Along the way, we meet key characters (including a dimly lit outhouse), and at the end of the shot, we get a bridge that leads to nowhere. There is a valley below, and the Himalayas in the vast beyond. Raam Reddy makes us wait for that memorable opening visual. Dev does something that makes us look back and see that – along with him – we have travelled all the way from a most mundane act to an act that is the most fantastical. And the film begins to soar.

You can read the rest of the review here:

https://www.galatta.com/hindi/movie/review/the-fable/

You can watch the trailer / video review here:

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