Dasgupta Buddhadeb, one of India’s most well-known independent film directors over the last 40 years, displays lyrical and cinematic charms in his most recent work, which reminds us of Fellini’s surrealistic mysticism and Makhmalbaf’s ethnographic illusionism. The Bait adopts a mythical symbolism based on India’s locality and self-reflexive modernist aesthetics. The four groups of people in the film represent India’s magnificent diversity: A poor family living on circus tricks; a village lord, in pursuit of a tiger, lives in the glory of his past and is accompanied by a young and lonely wife who dreams of sex; a documentary film crew trying to capture a tiger hunting prey; and finally a postman who gets tired of his tedious life and climbs up a tree to become friends with monkeys. These stories intersect with one another. Elaborately directed mise-en-scene and plots rich with allegory create a phenomenal film-viewing experience. The contrasts between the poor aspiring to be rich and the rich indulging in weird enterprise, between the young longing for success and the old who tire of the everyday are carefully used as devices to project the complexities of contemporary Indian society. (Minah JEONG)