With some creative camerawork, a haunting background score and a yellowish colour scheme, Derma is quite impressive on the technical front.
Derma review: Barun Sobti’s technically sound film falls short of the desired impact
Cinestaan Rating
Release Date: 08 Feb 2019 / 15min
Keyur Seta
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Mumbai, 26 Feb 2019 9:00 IST
Updated: 27 Feb 2019 17:11 IST
The mountainous regions of northeast India are blessed with abundant natural beauty. Such locations are perfect for shooting a romantic sequence or a song. But when a town in such a region is covered by dark clouds, it becomes an ideal setting for a grim mystery thriller like Derma.
Anthony (Barun Sobti) arrives at a small town in the northeast for a solo trip, on the instruction of his therapist. The trip is a part of his therapy for anger management and substance abuse. He goes around the region alone on his bike and enjoys his surrondings. One day, he enters a shop to get himself a tattoo.
The owner, an old man, asks for Rs2,000 for the tattoo. But after getting the tattoo done, he pays him a much lesser amount. The next day, Anthony is shocked to see that the part of the body where he got the tattoo is swollen and slowly bleeding. His condition keeps getting worse.
With some creative camerawork, a haunting background score and a yellowish colour scheme, Derma is quite impressive on the technical front. Such a presentation is enough to make you feel the surroundings, no matter where you are watching the film.
With bare use of words, Sobti successfully transforms himself into a mentally disturbed person out on a rehabilitation trip. The old shop owner also appears like a real inhabitant of the place, especially with his accent.
But the film doesn’t succeed in creating the impact because of lack of logic. Anybody would consult a doctor for such a skin ailment. Strangely, Anthony doesn’t do that even after his condition worsens day by day. The climax gives an interesting message on Karma, but it is impossible to overlook the aforementioned flaw.
Derma is available on video-on-demand platform VOOT.