Blood rose “Red Rose” is a thriller about a serial maniac who kills girls on sexual grounds. It sounds crazy when you consider the Bollywood movie of the early 1980s. But this once again overturns the wretched stereotypes about Indian cinema, Bollywood is many-faced.
The creators of “Red Rose” are clearly fans of Jallo Mario Bava and Dario Argento, of course, there are no brutal murders and half-naked beauties in the Indian variation on the topic, and the detective-investigative line is also poorly traced. There is an analysis of the psychology of the maniac, but also without excesses. The main thing in the film is not investigation, not horrors, not psychology and not even love intrigue, but the atmosphere, and the most powerful, dark and thick. To the help of the confident director of the young director Bharatha Raja comes a delightful Jallo soundtrack from the musical king of Bollywood of the 70s - R. D. Burman. + Bright camera work, spectacular parallel editing and a successful visual solution of the picture, with a tense pulsation of red, which here seems everywhere: from the punt rose in the noose of the main character, to scarlet curtains, furniture, and fluorescent, flaming illumination in suspence scenes. It's just a "scarlet sign of madness" in Indian.
Of course, speaking about the image of a maniac in Indian cinema, first of all, we recall the maniacs of the 90s brilliantly played by a young Shah Rukh Khan, so that “Red Rose” is a rather rare example of the genre from the early 80s. The script combines the motives of the actions of real serial killers. In the image of the main character, the glamorous chic of Charles Sobraj, nicknamed Serpent, and the primitive cruelty of schizophrenic Ramana Raghav merged. For the director, this film became an auto-remake in Bollywood of his early Tamil painting with Sridevi and Kamal Hasan. If many scenes are repeated verbatim in the same interiors, the image of the main character has changed dramatically. To replace the tentacle, young hippunk Kamal Hasan came the mature, corset tightened Rajesh Khan (Kaka, as his friends affectionately called him). Kaka in three-suits, glasses, with careless masterly manners, loving to play with words, narcissistic Khan is absolutely natural in the negative, ambiguous role of the maniac Ananda, and looks much more convincing than in the endless series of sweet lovers he played.
In the main female role of the lonely beauty Sharda young Poonam Dillon, in the usual role for the actress of the correct Indian girl. Bollywood’s business card is musical numbers that occur exclusively in her imagination, and are filled with typically girlish fantasies with beautiful dresses, flowers and inflatable balls, as opposed to the gloomy caches of her lover’s soul. Poonam Dillon and Rajesh Khana are not my favorites, but they played on 5! It's interesting to watch their heroes.
By the end of the film, the notorious atmosphere heats up, nightmares come to life, as in Italian gallos, dreams and reality are mixed in the surreal journey of Sharda through the Ananda lair. Unraveling terrible secrets and salvation from death do not become liberation for the heroine, again reminding us of the fantasies of the Italians, softened by the Indian faith in a higher, spiritual principle.
Bottom line: “Red Rose” is an unusual, beautiful and atmospheric statement by director Bharadhi Raj on the theme of a maniac thriller, with a rich visual and musical series and beautiful acting performances by Punam Dillon and Rajesh Khana.