Cast : Priyanka Karki, Suryamala Khanal, Arpan Thapa, Karma, Raj Kumar Pudasaini, Pramod Agrahari
Director : Bhaskar Dhungana
Choreography: Renasha Bantawa Rai

Nepali movie: Suntali is a story of beautiful and a mysterious girl in a sleepy village with a powerful and wicked matriarch. Based on an old saying, “Your sins return to roost from the rooftops”, it is a tale of revenge and vengeance.  Directed by Bhaskar Dhungana, the film features Priyanka Karki in the lead role as Suntali and Suryamala Khanal as Suvedarni or Chinmaya. Other important characters include Karma and Arpan Thapa. Suntali was selected for the Busan International Film Festival, one of the largest film festivals in Asia.

I’ve never lived a life of a village, but I have read lots of books and watched many movies that depict village ethnicity. Suntali offers a story of a beautiful village, where nothing out of the ordinary ever happens. Suddenly, like an un-invited son-in-law, a strange day arrives, which changes many things and a dark cloud hovers over the villagers’ happiness. Can it be the sin from the past that has brought this fateful day? Nobody knows what will be the end to this strangest game of fate.

Suntali has a different approach of storytelling and the makers were able to present the soul of cultural context and traditions delightfully. Loved the choreography and cinematography is extraordinary. I find the narration of Madan Krishna Shrestha very engaging in the beginning and ending. Background score was fantastic but somewhere between, I felt like the background music was dominating the foreground sounds. It was also wonderful screenplay as well but somewhere script seemed insufficient and was not as striking as I (and most of my friends) anticipated. While the makers have taken care on very little details so carefully, they have missed better storyline, not to mention the movie had very less humor or thrills. If you want to avoid spoilers, please avoid next paragraph.

As for much of the part the movie, a thief (although it was not mentioned, he looked like a thief) was always tied up with a hawaldar (junior post of police), but when the hawaldar was shot at the climax, the prisoner was not with him. May be they could have showed something for this. Also, the movie tries to create a difficult situation for Suntali as Bihari looked to blackmailing her but they never explain how Bihari finds Suntali or how she is trapped and the mystery is still lurking in my head. Also, it was known in the climax that Suntali was back for her vengeance on Subedarni but I was not much satisfied with her revenge. The script could have been more than this.

Plot:
Chinmaya Subedarni, the powerful matriarch of a village in Nepal is preparing for her son, Sundar’s wedding when Suntali returns with a menacing foreigner. Suntali befriends the master tailor and reawaken old relationship with Sundar, and building up her vengeance against Chinmaya by getting the village men to do her bidding. As we find out why Suntali wants revenge, Chinmaya also wises up to Suntali’s plot and initiates her own plan to destroy Suntali. Their feud will leave the hearts and minds of half of the village devastated, because only one of them will win.

Watch or Not?
Suntali is a well made movie, with different approach of storytelling, but because of not so striking story, it’s difficult to recommend anyone. Watch the movie it at your own risk.

Movie trailer of Suntali: