It’s refreshing when an Indian film dares to challenge conventional folklore in cinema and breathe new life into familiar narrative tropes. First-time director Bhargav Saikia has created an atmospheric, chilling, and sensual folk horror film in Bokshi. Using few special effects and subtly presenting the supernatural, the film maintains an elegantly restrained tone. Sound and visuals create a captivating experience, immersing us in an idyllic and nightmarish world. Skillfully navigating the lines between horror, bullying, psychodrama, and trauma, it is a satisfying work, marked by an impressively fluid visual style and anchored pivotal performances.
Anahita (Prasanna Bisht), a teenager who lost her mother at a young age, struggles to overcome the lingering trauma of her death. In a private act of remembrance, she gets a religious tattoo her mother wore, but this triggers disturbing dreams and a physical ailment of bedwetting. At home, her grandmother is a dominating figure, while her father remains preoccupied with his work. One day at school, after witnessing a private moment between Anahita and a classmate, a pair of boys bully her. She reacts by brutally attacking her tormentor. Consequently, her grandmother sends Anahita to a boarding school. In this new environment, she finds connection, and even a sense of belonging, with her classmates, and forms a bond with her teacher, Shalini (Mansi Multani). Learning of a class trip to an ancient forest, Anahita feels an inexplicable draw to the location and requests Shalini to allow her to join. Students, both male and female, an instructor, Avinash (Sandeep Sridhar Dhaabale), and a Shaman (Bhasker Pradhan) become part of the excursion. As they journey deeper into the forest, the atmosphere grows increasingly unsettling, and a supernatural, terrible force begins to make its presence felt.
Bokshi centres on a troubled young girl who comes to believe she is a vessel for supernatural powers and Saikia deftly employs numerous familiar folk horror elements and focuses on how this belief manifests, exploring the isolation of a character alienated from the world, for whom the chaotic nature of religious expression resonates as a form of rebellion. The surrounding forest and its wildlife serve as potent metaphors, but it’s human aggression that inflicts the most devastating wounds. The film suggests that unseen evil crystallizes, becomes entrenched, and transcends centuries of mistreatment, suspicion, and dread, and acknowledges human arrogance, cruelty, and selfishness, subtly orchestrating these themes within its narrative. In the beginning, at the school Anahita previously attended, she is bullied for the smell of oil in her hair and her habit of bedwetting. Upon arriving at the boarding school, the girls are friendly, and her teacher, Shalini, is caring. Her desperate search for connection is thus seemingly fulfilled. But beneath this veneer of tranquility lies a darker undercurrent.
By setting most of the film in the remote Maria Lyang Valley of Sikkim, Saikia makes life for the group of students and their teachers as isolated and unsettling as possible. Their brief encounters with the outside world are mostly harsh and unforgiving, making any sort of adjustment seem impossible. But Saikia also avoids leaning into caricature, especially with the portrayal of the Shaman, who could have so easily been painted as a villain. We are in fantastical territory, and just when we think we understand the story, its characters, and the source of their trauma, Harsh Vaibhav’s screenplay delivers a shocking twist, casting a protagonist in a new, unsettling light. This moment of stark reality proves more disturbing than any supernatural element, forcing us to confront our desire for retribution. We can never comprehend Anahita’s pain, nor the lengths she will go to for survival and to honour her love for her mother. Ultimately, we are left with the sobering realization that trauma will always occupy a space beyond our full understanding. It’s rooted in the tangible pain of Anahita’s grief over her mother’s death and the crushing weight of survivor’s guilt, a burden carried by both those who remain and those who are gone.
Prasanna Bisht as Anahita and Mansi Multani as Shalini deliver performances with subtle nuances that make them credible as two women bearing a dark past. Their portrayals, etched with the weight of their shared trauma, resonate with a force as scary as the ominous creatures that haunt their lives. The cinematography by Siddharth Sivasankaran and A. Vasanth conjures a strangely timeless, shadowy netherworld, a macabre realm where the protagonist’s destiny, like a dark tide, inexorably unfolds. Advait Nemlekar, whose eerily prowling score weaves in and out of Dhiman Karmakar’s affecting sound designs, blends to create a truly immersive and unsettling atmosphere. Himanshu Chutia Saikia‘s editing skillfully balances the narrative, yet the film’s 166-minute runtime detracts from its overall impact. Even so, the film’s thought-provoking themes and Saikia’s creative vision are compelling enough to outweigh this weakness.
