From Omeleto.
A cop investigates.
Prema is a retired criminal psychologist whose husband has just died in suspicious circumstances, and she and her granddaughter Shilpa are under suspicion. Detective James Rhodes is interrogating Prema about what happened, but Prema’s answers are airtight — she was the one who trained James in how to question suspects and witnesses, after all. But James can’t help but feel something is off about her story.
As the interrogation proceeds, the conversation becomes something like a game of chess, as James tries to pry the truth of what happened from both Prema and Shilpa. The question emerges: will the former student outwit the teacher? And what will he make of the truth when it finally comes out?
Directed by Charles Roth from a script co-written with David Barbeschi, Mragendra Singh and Vee Kumari (who plays Prema), this taut and focused short drama unfurls like a smart, well-appointed crime procedural, as a detective engages in a game of mental chess against an opponent who knows the rules of the game all too well. But as Prema and James confront one another, another hidden story emerges, about family, cultural traditions, silence and complicity.
Part of the film’s pleasure is how its intelligent writing captures the fact that an interrogation is about who controls the narrative. Prema can see and anticipate what James is doing in the interrogation room; she can discern strategies, like how making her repeat the story again and again will eventually reveal inconsistencies, for example. As Prema, actor Vee Kumari plays up her innate dignity and intelligence, as well as the part of a long-married, loyal partner who has weathered her marriage’s ups and downs, emphasizing how she’s been married for 40 years and disagreements are to be expected.
As his questioning persists, James — played by actor Lawrence Kuo with a quiet but dogged sense of competence and duty — can’t quite penetrate Prema’s tidy story and logical explanations for all the neat coincidences in the case. But he also gets a more complex picture of the marriage and family, uncovering violent fights, domestic discord and alcohol abuse. He hears about Prema’s "kadama," her duty to stand by her spouse despite the worst. And finally, after getting a fuller picture, he finds a way for the truth to come out.
Coolly elegant and precise in its lighting and framing and well-measured in pacing, KADAMA visually is much like the surface of Prema as a character. But at the end, those surfaces cover up a thornier, more difficult truth, one that forces both Prema and James into difficult decisions that confront what justice is, who it serves and what is right. They must confront the terrible consequences of their choices and make difficult ones from the wreckage, never feeling quite at peace with the lingering questions.
KADAMA. Courtesy of Vee Kumari at https://veekumari.com.
