MAHAL (Kamal Amrohi, 1949)

Its extreme length burdened to the point of multiple fractures in a meandering, attenuated narrative, writer-director Kamal Amrohi’s The Mansion nevertheless possesses an eerie charm that sporadically draws us in after we feel we’ve been shut out: a facsimile of protagonist Hari Shankar’s enrapture with Kamini, the succulent, ghostly girl who keeps appearing and disappearing, […]