Review
"Trikal" attempts something genuinely ambitious—a multigenerational gothic narrative that weaves colonial guilt, forbidden desire, and the supernatural into a meditation on memory and return. Director Shriram Abhayankar constructs a visually striking world, particularly in the oppressive first act set within that Portuguese-Goan mansion in 1961, where the claustrophobia feels almost tangible. The séance sequences crackle with an unsettling energy, and the parallel pregnancies—one hidden in cellars, one hastily concealed through marriage—create genuine dramatic tension. What works most effectively is how the film refuses easy moral judgments; these characters aren't villains but trapped souls desperately seeking autonomy within suffocating social structures.
However, the narrative momentum falters considerably in its second half. The twenty-four-year leap, meant to provide philosophical weight, instead dilutes the emotional specificity that made the early scenes compelling. The performances, while committed, struggle against dialogue that often tells rather than shows—particularly when exploring the interior lives of Anna and the servants caught between worlds. Abhayankar's ambition occasionally outpaces his execution; "Trikal" reaches for Ophüls-like elegance but settles for competent melodrama. Still, this is thoughtful work from a director clearly engaged with questions of class, desire, and historical reckoning—flawed perhaps, but never cynical or lazy.
Rating: 6.8/10
Storyline
Anna's trapped in this suffocating Portuguese-Goan mansion in 1961, about to marry a guy she doesn't love while her grieving grandmother obsesses over contacting her dead grandfather through séances! But here's where it gets wild—these séances start summoning ghosts of people the family brutally wronged, including a beheaded Indian rebel, and meanwhile Anna's secretly hiding her pregnant lover Leon in the cellar like some twisted gothic romance! The tension is absolutely crushing as Anna tries desperately to keep her affair and unborn child a secret from her fiancé.
Everything explodes when secrets start unraveling left and right—Anna can't hide her pregnancy anymore, so she bolts to Europe with Leon, leaving nothing but a heartbreaking letter behind! Even the maid Milagrinia gets caught in the chaos, secretly pregnant herself from an affair with the persistent Ruiz, and she scrambles to marry some older guy just to save face! It's this cascade of desperate choices where everyone's running from the suffocating morality of their world, trying to carve out space for their own messy, human lives.
Twenty-four years later, Ruiz wanders back to his crumbling ancestral home and we're hit with this gorgeous, melancholic reflection on why we return to the places that defined us—what ghosts are we really chasing? The film ends with him questioning every choice, every compromise, every moment of cowardice, reminding us that sometimes all that survives is memory and the bittersweet ache of roads not taken! It's haunting, poetic, and absolutely brilliant.