Padmavyuha review: Plodding attempt to understand Hinduism in all its complexity

Professor Ramdas (Nikhil Prakash) teaches a class on Faith but is himself agnostic. One day, he receives a call from an unidentified person (Jaaved Jaaferi) about the disappearance of a journalist, Radcliffe, who was researching a Hindu extremist group.

The professor gets drawn into the investigation and finds the clues that Radcliffe left behind. As he tries to piece the material together, he is pulled deeper into Hindu texts, belief systems and practices that lead him to reassess his own world view.

The film explores his journey with faith and religion, specifically that with Hinduism, wherein his willingness to believe remains shaky till he finds an artefact, one that will dispel all doubt about the origins of Hinduism, silencing its detractors.

The question of faith versus belief is at the heart of this short film which highlights the ways in which extremists label all criticism as misrepresentation or lies and all their own heinous acts as brought on by the will of god. “Your faith has turned you into murderers,” the professor tells the voice on the phone, only for the statement to be dismissed.

The narrative shifts between the past and the present as we see what the professor has experienced in order to arrive at his present situation.

Written and directed by first-time filmmaker Raj Krishna, Padmavyuha starts off as an exploration of the multiplicity within the Hindu religion and its many versions but, unfortunately, that exploration remains half-hearted and the film ends up obfuscating its own intentions.

The narrative picks up concepts of the Padmavyuha from the Mahabharata and tries to build a Da Vinci Code-like labyrinthine world but with neither the finesse nor the acutely piercing questions that make one see both sides of the argument clearly.

Instead, the film throws half-baked theories that propound the embracing of Hindusim, not as a religion but as Hindutva, a way of life. The exploration is further confounded by an unconvincing portrayal of the doubt-ridden professor by Nikhil Prakash, which in large part seems to be due to careless writing.

As a supposed mystery thriller, the film is neither mysterious nor thrilling.

Padmavyuha was the opening film at the International Indian Film Festival Toronto (IIFFT), which was held online from 9–15 August, and will travel to the North Carolina South and East Asian Hollywood Film Festival (NCISAFF).