Director: Partho Sen-Gupta
MPAA Rating: NR
Run Time: 85 Min.
Partho Sen-Gupta’s sophomore feature, Sunrise, takes place in the labyrinthine back-alley slums of Mumbai, where a distraught police detective desperately searches to find a shadowy figure who is abducting young girls, one of whom is his daughter. The giallo-infused visuals and electronic score lend themselves to the nightmarish tone of this dark thriller that is just about as far from Bollywood as you can get.
Adil Hussain plays Joshi, a stoic police detective whose life is in shambles after the disappearance of his young daughter several years prior. Every night he searches the rain-drenched streets looking for any leads that could help him find her as he is plagued with nightmares about the man who took her. His wife had a complete mental breakdown after her abduction and is in a perpetual state of shock and denial, requiring Joshi to constantly be tending to her needs. Now, a new girl has been taken, and Joshi is led to a seedy nightclub where there appears to be more happening than just sweaty men drooling over young ladies.
Although the film is titled Sunrise, the majority of the story takes place over the course of one pitch-black evening, while outside there is a constant torrential downpour. The film relies heavily on the use of shadows and dark, surreal imagery, which blurs the lines between reality and Joshi’s nightmares. Spurts of bright colors and neon are thrown in to accentuate the nightclub scenes, further drawing attention to this place and the nefarious things happening within its walls.
Those looking for a straight-forward procedural will be disappointed with the film, as it doesn’t follow any type of linear narrative or structure whatsoever. Those looking for a more unique method of storytelling however, will find this refreshing, albeit slightly confusing. The film shifts through different times of the day, different realities and different story beats, showing us not just a simple crime drama, but also a deep exploration into what this event does to Joshi and how broken and haunted he has become. At one point, we realize that none of what we’re seeing may be the film’s reality, and everything could be a horrific journey inside Joshi’s mind. It was this revelation that made me transition from being mildly bored to deeply enthralled.
Pulling everything together is a fantastic performance from Adil Hussain, who you may remember as the father in Life of Pi, perfectly executing his role as a man who navigates an emotional gauntlet as he fades in and out of reality throughout the film.
Sunrise is an expertly crafted arthouse crime drama that doesn’t just show us the horrors of child abduction but visualizes the indescribable pain parents must experience on a daily basis and the glimmer of hope onto which they always hold. It’s a challenging film to be sure, both in content and structure, but it’s still one I recommend checking out.
