Netflix’s Bulbbul Review: Hell Hath No Fury as a Woman Scorned


Bulbbul is a horror film written and directed by Anvita Dutt. The movie stars Tripti Dimri, Avinash Tiwary, Paoli Dam, Rahul Bose and Parambrata Chattopadhyay.

The trailer of the movie created a lot of suspense amongst people. The gorgeous Tripti, along with the red-washed scenes with a woman flying over it was enough to get everyone excited. But, Bulbbul is far from what people probably expected.

He returns

Bulbbul starts off with child marriage. A young bride is married into a zamindar family to the eldest son. She shares her huge palace with her husband, his two brothers and a sister-in-law. The movie doesn’t start till 20 years later when the youngest brother, Satya, who was Bulbbul’s confidant at one point, comes back from London. There’s been a lot of strange killings and a chudail has been blamed for it. Satya now goes on a hunt to find the source of the killings.

Bulbbul is not your traditional horror movie. Unlike Betaal , this one doesn’t portray the horrors that lie outside of one’s home. The horror here is much deeper, and something that women have been subjected to since the beginning of time. The horror in Bulbbul hits right at home. So, if you’re expecting a movie containing jump scares and grotesque faces, then you will be disappointed.

A woman married to a man before she outgrew her playing age, who is then subjected to brutal torture at the hands of her family members for something trivial and then her standing up for herself and others who are unable to do so themselves – that’s the story of Bulbbul . I can’t even begin to describe how much this movie affected me. I wasn’t scared of the “chudail”. Rather, she seemed like a welcome change in an environment and society that benefits from the despair of women.

In ways, Bulbbul is similar to producer Anushka Sharma’s previous venture Pari and Amar Kaushik’s Stree . Additionally, Amit Trivedi’s background music seeps sadness into the story and keeps the mood melancholy throughout. It’s like Lootera . The music is stunning and portrays a story in itself. So is the set – the red-washed night-time scenes or the bright morning scenes – it’s stunning. It adds beauty and dread to Bulbbul and takes it a step ahead.

Chup rehna

How many times have women heard this in their lifetimes? Whenever something has happened, whenever women have been subjected to heinous torture at the hands of society, they have been asked to keep quiet. The scene where this line was told is heartbreaking, along with the scene that comes before it. Although the story takes time to unfurl, when it does, it does so with a force that blew me away. However, Bulbbul isn’t a fast-paced movie in any way. It’s slow and there’s a certain rhythm to it that makes the above-mentioned scenes even more hard-hitting.

The saddest part about Bulbbul is probably her realisation that everyone in her...

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