Movie Review: VASNA KI AAG

aka VENGENCE
Directed by Madan Sinha
India; 198?

This is a wild one. A Hindi rape-revenge number gussied up with cut-rate psychedelia and red stuff by the bucket. A pretty young thing gets hooked on drugs as an attempt by her mother to get her to stop dating a young, handsome doctor. I know, I don’t understand either (full disclosure: my print sported no subtitles of any sort). A sleaze-guru with a sleaze-goatee introduces her to the “stuff”, whatever it is (heroin, maybe? Again, no subtitles) and upon each hit she has blissful visions of butterflies, time-lapse photography flower blossoms, fireworks and other related psych-effects. Groovy! But soon enough she’s suffering from brutal hallucinations featuring wild snarling beasts, striking cobras and footage stolen from cheesy monster flicks. Not-so-Groovy. After this it’s but a hop, skip and a jump to the local brothel where she ends up being abused by the local vice-lords.

Not all that original, no. But it’s got enough freakishness and foreign oddity about it that works pretty damned well. By the end our violated heroine seeks her body-fluid gushing vengeance on all those what done her wrong and the film really launches into awesome ridiculousness. She uses her seductive charm (the actress here is quite the looker I must admit) to woo her tormenters and then plugs ‘em using axes, guns, horses – whatever happens to be available. And you know she’s serious when she comes out sporting pants (gasp!) and a headband and riding her dead doctor lover’s blood spattered motorbike. VASNA KI AAG is lively, pulpy fun. Mindless, exciting and kinda silly. The drug visions are a hoot and the rape scene, while hardly a blood-curdling disturb-a-thon, is rendered in enough perspective distortion to make it seem heady and bold, even if you don’t really buy the gravity of the events being depicted. And of course it really splatters things up, for a South Asian film anyway. In the end, our heroine, her bloody vendetta complete, throws herself upon the mercy of the gods, and, having accomplished all she can with her shit-smeared life, tragically expires, vengeance spent. All in all, a worthwhile riot of Bollysploitation and thick with the kind of weirdo details we just can’t get enough of ‘round here.

Print provided by Electric Larvae.