Whether you find Quentin Tarantino an arrogant, over-rated prick raised to stratospheric levels by the worship of his zombie fanboys or whether you consider him Hollywood’s most stylish and original visionary, the main reason for either assessment is essentially the same.

And that is that Quentin Tarantino’s movies are about one and only one thing.

Himself.

In cinemascope and full technicolor.

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In the 70s and early 80s, directors like Manmohan Desai perfected what came to be known as the Hindi movie formula—–big-multicasters with larger-than-life heroes, chawanni-flinging dialogs, black-and-white linear stories with strong moral messages, elaborate expositions that allowed one to miss thirty minutes of the movie at any time and still be able to follow it once he came back, eye-patched white-suit wearing villains, ever-sacrificing “Nirupa Roy” mothers, epic running times so that even if one did not quite enjoy the movie, one could get 3 hours 20 minutes of shut-eye in a cool air-conditioned theater.

The late 80s and the 90s saw a transformation in this well-accepted standard template, one that was caused by a change in audience tastes.  Movies that slavishly followed the older formula, for instance Amitabh Bachchan’s so-called comeback series of movies, were rejected and many of the older movie moguls faded away. Barjatiya-Chopra-Johar became the standard-holders for the new formula namely that of  NRI romances targeted towards the international market which were defined by drastic improvements in production quality, foreign locales, family values, syrupy love stories and Manish Malhotra costumes.

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Ram Gopal Varma’s “Agyaat” is yet another masterpiece from the misunderstood genius,  a  celluloid circle of Hell that realizes a devilish vision of terror for anyone who dares sit through it.

Like the greats of horror, RGV spins a yarn that works at multiple levels on the psyche of the audience.  First there is the terror inherent in the cast, consisting of a number of hyperacting actors with over exaggerated facial expressions, who seem to have wandered off from the sets of a RGV mafia movie (the only other kind of flick he makes nowadays besides horror), acting consistently as if there was Tabasco sauce smeared on their behinds as they wildly gesticulate, snarl and gnash their teeth with the most horrifying performance of the year being given by Ishrat Ali  [Lamboo Atta from "Gunda"] whose “Bullah mujhe maat mar mujhe aapna bhadrwa bana le” expression before death was a touch of pure directorial class.

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