Teresa Reviews Shubho Mahurat (2003)

Teresa reviews Shubho Mahurat (2003) and while it was an adequate adaptation, it’s murky lighting and thin subtitling made us wish for more.

English Translation: The First Shoot

Based upon “The Mirror Crack’d from Side to Side” (1962)

My source: I found my copy on eBay.

Fidelity to text: 2 poisoned glasses of soda
You’ll recognize the core with added heaping helpings of soap.

Quality of film: 3 poisoned glasses of sodaThis film dragged, an issue that wasn’t helped by difficult to read, inadequate subtitles and choppy editing.

Read more of Teresa’s Agatha Christie movie reviews at Peschel Press.

Also, follow Teresa’s discussion of these movie on her podcast.

This is my sixth version of The Mirror Crack’d. Like the others, it rang the changes on Agatha’s text in some areas while remaining surprisingly faithful in others. The film also shows how universal Agatha can be. Everyone in every culture has got a snoopy, gossipy, and very sharp aunt in the family who knows exactly what mischief you, dear reader, are getting into. Who else is that but Miss Marple?

But this murder is Auntie Ragna’s first. Her dear niece, Mallika, is a newly fledged journalist and recently arrived in the big city to cover the amazing comeback of once-famous actress, Padmini Choudhury (Marina Gregg), now a wealthy producer. Her husband is not-nearly-as-famous or wealthy director, Sambit Roy (Jason Rudd). This film is a vehicle for him to demonstrate his chops. Because Padmini’s funding the film, she gets her choice of star. That star is Kakoli Sinha (Heather Badcock), who’s fallen on hard times and hasn’t acted in years. Padmini and Kakoli had worked together and were, at least in the gossip magazines, friends.

Mallika attends the subho mahurat (first shoot) of the new film. This is an Indian filmmaking tradition where the first day on set is marked by filming an easy scene followed by a lavish feast (or eat first and then film) so everyone can get to know each other and start the production on a friendly, auspicious, and confident note. The first shoot brings out everyone’s friends and industry associates to honor the occasion. If you’re an Indian film buff, look for the famous faces who are appearing as themselves to add verisimilitude to the movie. For non-Indian film goers, you won’t know who any of those people are despite them being household names across a huge chunk of the planet.

While there, chatting up famous people for her story, Mallika meets Subhankar, a photographer. They hit it off but he seems wistful as he watches the filming. But the first shoot doesn’t go well. Kakoli is nervous to the point of agitation. She breaks a glass. She spills her drink. Padmini gives her another glass; her own as it turns out. Somehow everyone stumbles through the day but it’s obvious this won’t be a lucky, easy shoot.

They are not wrong. Mallika ends up at Kakoli’s flat as she becomes increasingly ill and then, to the new reporter’s horror, dies in front of her.

Proving this is an Indian contemporary (2003!), not American, Bill and I expected her to call 911 and an ambulance, but Mallika didn’t. Different country. And where was Kakoli’s husband? Not there.

Gradually, because Agatha didn’t write enough plot and the director wanted something different for his audience, the plot became soapier and soapier. Actress Kakoli is a drug addict. Her husband, while trying to be supportive, is carrying on an affair with the widow next door. Kakoli’s drug connection appeared on the film set but it’s unclear who else he’s supplying. Also on the film set, the cinematographer is trying to break off his affair with his blackmailing mistress, Kalpana (Ella Zielinksy), so he can return to his wife. Kalpana is Padmini’s hairdresser and a makeup artist on set. Why is she blackmailing her former lover? Because she’s desperate for money to medical treatment for her desperately ill daughter.

Because that’s not enough plot, it turns out Sambit Roy, Padmini’s husband and director, hired has-been actor Kanai who’d (she claims) assaulted her on a film set. She got him blackballed. Why is Kanai on the set? Because Sambit Roy set his wife’s rapist up in the catering business. There may have been an explanation but we couldn’t figure out why he did it. They don’t like each other, argue violently, but something binds them together.

Still not enough plot? Mallika meets the police investigator,

, and sparks fly. But she also really likes photographer Subhankar. She can’t have them both but she’d like to. At the same time, her parents are arranging a marriage for her back home because young ladies her age should be married. Mallika would prefer to make her own choice. You won’t learn which man she chooses although I’d put my money on the cop.

Mallika does most of the legwork for Auntie Ranga, reporting back what she learns, who she talked to, and her impressions. Meanwhile, Auntie Ranga investigates in her own way: she reads every newspaper article, movie magazines (she was a big fan of Padmini before she retired), and studies every bit of the story that appears on TV.

Gradually connections are revealed, although there were great leaps of logic. Sometimes the editing was so choppy, it felt like scenes didn’t end naturally but were shoved up against each other as though the director ran short of filmstock. This may be an Indian filming convention or, again, inadequate subtitles written in white text on a white background.

What’s interesting and unusual about this version of Mirror is it gives you real sympathy for Padmini (Marina Gregg) in a way I’ve not seen before. She’s struggling. She doesn’t seem happy with her marriage. She’ll lose money on the film. She spent years in America and you learn that it’s because her only child was born with severe handicaps and, unlike every other Marina Gregg, Padmini didn’t abandon him. She became a therapist at his school, helping him and the other kids. Nor did she adopt children and abandon them when she became pregnant with a real baby of her own.

But she’s still the same Marina. You learn Subhankar (playing a loose, male approximation of Margo Bence) was her first husband’s nephew. Nephew or not, it sounded like he was their son in everything but name. But then Marina dumped hubby #1 for Sambit. When her baby was born disabled, she left for America and cut all ties with her found-family son. Subhankar got to express what Margo Bence did: that Padmini made him feel loved and wanted, then discarded him like a broken toy.

Padmini finally learned from the director of her last film (I’m guessing based on rewatching a scene four times) that she’d gotten ill because Kakoli acted with her while sick with rubella and she was pregnant. Kakoli’s much guiltier here because she lied about being ill. So Padmini returned to India to become a producer and have Kakoli star so she could murder her. When Kalpana, whom she knew, blackmailed her in tears (why didn’t Kalpana just ask?) for money for her desperately sick daughter, Padmini handed over some cash and poisoned her with an inhaler.

And, proving she’s not a tragic mother but a murderess, when Padmini realizes Mallika knows her secret, she visits her and Auntie Ranga’s home to poison them with deadly cupcakes.

Was it a tragedy her son was born severely disabled? You bet. Should she murder the much more culpable Kakoli? No, because as Auntie Ranga pointed out, you can’t bring back the dead and you can’t change the past. Killing people only compounds the tragedy.