Kunwar is dressed in white, from head to toe, but still holds his black umbrella. But even eight years later, the quirky character played by Malla wears the same brown suit and dons an incongruous pair of black shades at night.
In between their conversation, Malla turns away to pick up a call on his cell phone. Kunwar stretches out his hand, a gunshot sets off, and the screen goes black and cuts back to the hospital scene, whereby Kunwar is revealed to be a patient of schizophrenia.
In the midst of recounting the 1993 historical event, involving the deaths of Madan Bhandari and Jibaraj Ashrit, the fictional aspects of the film that flow in and out of Kunwar’s investigation of the real Dasdhunga incident, have for most part, gone unnoticed, and more importantly, misunderstood.
By the time it is revealed that Kunwar suffers from schizophrenia, it is difficult to separate the incidents that were the protagonist’s hallucinations and those that had actually occurred.
“Malla’s character is Kunwar’s imagination,” states actor Baral. The founder of theater group Actor’s Studio, continues, “Kunwar fears this nameless antagonist and believes that he’s the cause of all his problems.”
Kunwar’s white clothes, when he finally comes to face his opponent, thus stand as a metaphor for overcoming this insecurity and intimidation, and to end the problem.
Malla and Baral both chose their own attires and improvised the final scene between their two characters. “My character is someone who’s well-spoken, comical, intelligent but vicious at the same time, and so I chose a suit and a pair of shoes with stripes,” relates Malla, sitting next to Baral in the lobby of Kumari Hall.
Although all the scenes between Malla and Baral have been shot at nighttime and have a sepia tint to them, it is confusing to separate Kunwar’s hallucinations against his reality.
Rather, it gets more complicated.
“With the mixing of genres (documentary and fiction), it’s one of the weaknesses of the film, that the fictional narratives don’t come across clearly,” the two actors admit, referring to the many instances when Kunwar’s physical versus mental states become blurry. “It’s hard to figure out when Kunwar actually starts drifting into his imaginary world and it thereby misleads the viewers,” puts in Baral.
From the miscarriage of his wife to the killing of the man trying to help Kunwar, post intermission, Kunwar killing Malla and him saving Lama’s life – all these moments featuring Malla in “Dasdhunga” take place in Kunwar’s mind.
The miscarriage did happen, but it wasn’t due to the attack, because in actuality, Kunwar’s wife had already left for her maternal home, clarifies Baral. “As he works by himself at home and is unable to head anywhere with his investigation, Kunwar imagines the obstruction as Malla, and therefore the scene unfolds,” he sheds light on the particular scene.
Kunwar sets on the imaginary chase where he saves Lama’s life as he begins to scribble on the wall of the hospital; but even so, the transition isn’t clear.
“Too many and often repetitive flashbacks disrupt the flow of the film, too,” shares Baral, adding that his character was meant to be schizophrenic right when the story had been penned by Manoj Pandit. “The illness itself is a metaphor to the entire incident and the political instability.”
The conversations between Kunwar and Malla’s character in the film also create a disillusion since there are several references to the two having spent time together in the past.
The actors grin as they attempt to explain, once again. Baral goes on, “Well, he (Malla’s character) is a former acquaintance of Kunwar’s but is actually not in touch with him anymore. It’s just that when Kunwar imagines his enemy, he sees Malla’s face.”
Not only is the reason unknown, but we are led to think that Malla is a figment alone, and not someone whom Kunwar knew in the past.
The bottom line is that you do have to put on your thinking caps to figure out what was imaginary and what was real from Kunwar’s perspective, even long after the movie ends.
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