Ritwik Pareek’s “Dug Dug” asks how a culture might pour its anxieties into a supernatural mystery, and it answers in raucous fashion.
After a motorcycle accident leaves a man dead in Rajasthan, India, his impounded bike begins mysteriously reappearing at the scene.
Locks and chains don’t help, and local villagers are drawn to this oddity — as are numerous grifters — resulting in the founding of a bizarre new religion.
The film is moderately effective as social satire, though it most succeeds as a dizzying, intoxicating romp, bursting at the seams with vivid detail and musical energy, and a fair few flourishes borrowed from big Hollywood names..
“Groovy!” says one character, followed by numerous crash-zooms into the many locks, keys and safes meant to tie down the mischievous motorbike.
It plays like something out of Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” horror-comedies, but despite Pareek working in a different genre — his
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