Netflix's Mandala Murders Is An Ambitious Series That Sabotages Its Own Potential | Led by Vaibhav Raj Gupta and Vaani Kapoor, this series about murderous cults and ritualistic murders intrigues, but never quite inspires. Manik Sharma reviews.
| IN A SCENE FROM Netflix’s Mandala Murders , an older man walks into a police station to inform the incumbent detective that the next death in the spate of serial murders happening around town will be his. “I’ve seen death,” he coyly declares to the officer. In most stories, policemen embody our sense of rationale, the reluctance at least not to be manipulated by the mythology of what’s being built around us. In this show, however, not one but two troubled investigators fail to question the surrealism that is both the show’s mystery and its chief creative device. It’s why a series so ambitious and intriguing in parts, fails to rise above the narrative flagstaff of a game of dungeons and dragons. For all its promising ideas, and courageous world-building, what Mandala Murders could have actually used — ironically enough — is a bit of realism. Stream the latest films and shows with OTTplay Premium's Power Play monthly pack, for only Rs 149. The story is set in the fictional Charandaspur, a town where modernity and tradition live at Banaras-esque odds. The locals hang on to superstitions while their dilapidated homes are rented by hippies from the West. Vikram (played by a committed Vaibhav Raj Gupta) is visiting Charandaspur with his father, years after a personal tragedy led to the disappearance of his mother. Torn and traumatised, his arrival is complicated by a spate of mysterious murders in town. As if Vikram’s plight weren’t dire enough, his fiancée is in a coma back in the city. With her older sister Ananya (Surveen Chawla) — who nurses political ambitions — he shares a tepid but tantalising romantic history. It’s one messy life alright. Vikram is joined by city-reared Rea (Vaani Kapoor) — an upright, near-expressionless detective with little time to waste. The two join hands to get to the bottom of what ought to have initially been pushed back in theory, before being chased as procedure. | After the first body floats up to the ghats of Charandaspur, severed and put together in the ugliest of ways, a myth as old as the place arrives with it: The myth of the Yasta cult which features a band of women, a machine that grants wishes in exchange for a thumb, a world where sword-wielding assassins walk the earth, middle-aged men talk of cults with the self-seriousness of Indiana Jones, lives are spared with as much ease as they are sacrificed, and police officers readily believe the hyperbole they are sold. The investigation into the symbols that denote the chain of events itself is interesting, but it is dragged down by the unspecific nature of some of the interpersonal dynamics. Vikram’s chase for his missing mother is swept aside by a barrage of sub-plots. His relationship with Ananya, and her political journey, feel misplaced. Rea’s presence gives the sense of a sparkling paperweight, a needless accessory that fails to even add an outsider’s dimension to this intimate view of a conflicted world. Her gaze is airtight, but she’s just as gullible as the insiders. | Directed by Gopi Puthran and Manan Rawat, Mandala Murders has a promising lineup of performers. It’s ambitious, has a sense of scale and can conjure an emotional wave when needed. What it lacks is the maturity of balancing its mythology with the realism of its many troubled characters. It’s a minor miracle that Vikram keeps his head, after being savaged by the encore of one disastrous loss after another. It’s ugly, chilling, and borderline gruesome. To which effect, he’s really the only sensible protagonist for a show that demands either the abandonment of belief or a personal story so intense you’d willingly submit to excursions that are about someone else’s pain. While the latter is almost all on point, the show is largely undone by its need to spell out its ideas — from symbols to symbolism, rituals to the rickety relationships that become the background of a history lesson. But Mandala Murders must also be applauded for filling a rather shallow pool of genre storytelling that’s either too risque or too distant still, in Indian streaming. Stories that wish to merge fantasy, religion and fiction have potential but they are obviously also hamstrung by the irksome politics of our age. Any creator with a wildly aphoristic idea must first contend with intolerance before tackling intent: the fact that stories must first be disclaimed before they are told. It’s why shows like Mandala Murders exist both mysteriously and miraculously. Stream it on Netflix. | #POSTMATCHMEMO | IND vs ENG, 4th TEST | Stokes Stars; But Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar Hold Firm | Karan Pradhan unpacks the drama of India’s gritty draw at Old Trafford, and England’s prickly response to a Test saved
| INDIA’s decision not to accept England’s offer to call the Old Trafford Test a draw (with just over an hour’s cricket left in the day) is likely to garner as many headlines as Ravindra Jadeja and Washington Sundar’s gritty rearguard action to save the match. In a series that has seen petulance and stroppy behaviour play out in a variety of different ways, Sunday’s events really took the cake. England skipper Ben Stokes was well within his rights to offer to end the match with any other result looking quite impossible. Importantly, the Indian batters (particularly Sundar on the cusp of a maiden Test ton) were equally within their rights to refuse the offer until they had reached a century each. That the English fielders bristled and complained incessantly at this apparent display of impudence by the opposition batters did take some of the sheen off the hosts’ solid performance in the Test. Not to mention how bratty and petty it made them seem. Regardless, the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy remains theirs despite the outcome of the final Test at Lords. But it could all have been so different. India trailed England by 311 runs after both sides had completed their respective first innings. And before the end of the first over of the visitor’s second innings, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Sai Sudharsan were back in the pavilion without troubling the scorers. Also, considering that Rishabh Pant would show up on crutches and in a compression boot, India really only had seven more wickets in hand at that stage. Continue reading . | Like what you read? Get more of what you like. Visit the OTTplay website or download the app to stay up-to-date with news, recommendations and special offers on streaming content. Plus: always get the latest reviews. Sign up for our newsletters. Already a subscriber? Forward this email to a friend, or use the share buttons below ⬇️ | | | This weekly newsletter compiles a list of the latest (and most important) reviews from OTTplay so you can figure what to watch or ditch over the weekend ahead. | | Each week, our editors pick one long-form, writerly piece that they think it worthy of your attention, and dice it into easily digestible bits for you to mull over. | | In which we invite a scholar of cinema, devotee of the moving image, to write a prose poem dedicated to their poison of choice. Expect to spend an
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