#Gaami Spoilers ahead. I won’t lie… I was seduced by the visuals and the fact that they achieved them with zero budget filmmaking. It’s the reason I went to a theatre to watch it. What I wasn’t ready for is the wildly imaginative and thought provoking inner journey the film had in store for me. And very very complex too. In the best way possible. It’s going to take me a few days to unpack the film. I was so sure walking out that the film is from an LGBTQ perspective and was entirely about the allegorical inner journey of the protagonist needed to finally make peace with their identity and ‘coming out of the closet.’ You know… the obvious androgynous nature of the protagonist… Uma and Shankar… the logo of the lab which looks like male genitalia but the intersection of the logo which looks like a vulva… etc etc. And few films have given me such a lived in and personal experience of that theme. Despite dealing with the subject matter with symbolisms and an abstract, surrealistic style. That’s quite the achievement. Felt like there’s no better way to tell it. And yet only a special mind could have dreamed up of telling it this way. ‘Sucker Punch (2011) wishes it was this good. But here’s the thing… My AD… who watched it with me… came out entirely convinced it was a film about trauma and healing. And that made sense too. The reason Jahnavi wants the shrooms and how Shankar conversely is forced to face his trauma… remember and relive it and go back to the place that caused most of it before he can heal. The entire screenplay supports that theory too. And am sure there must be other such interpretations out there. And they might be entirely plausible too. That’s the beauty of a complex, thought provoking film if you’re willing to invest in it. This team is mad in the most wonderfully naive and unhinged manner for thinking they could go make this. And with these scarce resources. And they are even madder for actually pulling it off. The fact that they managed to release it is a once in a decade miracle. And the fact that they’ve made profits for everyone down the chain is a once or twice in a century kinda miracle. A big salute to their madness.