There is something to be said, and mostly good things, about films which open on a note that is deliberately opposite of the direction they are headed in. The film is a paradigmatic example of the same. Our first introduction to the chirpy, cheery protagonist Adarsh is primarily through a phone call with his mother, who matches the same cheeriness. He is not the best at sports or academics, but that is a truth the mother is kept safe from. Instead, Adarsh paints for her a picture of popularity among his peers, and regales her with tales of his athletic success. 

 Inane white lies at first glance, simply serving to make the viewer smile, sometimes with and sometimes at the protagonist, these stories come to have a disconcerting echo on the rest of the narrative. As it progresses, and the rigmarole of lies gets more complex, an equally unsettling reality is unfolding at the mother’s end as well. 

 With only suggestions of domestic strife, and a longer glimpse into the unravelling of Adarsh’s tales, the film weaves its plot together. The storytelling is intelligent and heartfelt, the performances on point and the writing notably skilled. The final result of ‘Abey Chhod Na Yaar’ constructs for us a world of denial, and perhaps deliberate, perhaps involuntary, flights of fancy away from a reality that might sometimes be a little too hard and rough for the characters to accept as their truth.

Abey Chhod Na Yaar | Short Film of the Month

Five friends are catching up with each other on a Zoom call, a reality we are all too familiar with in the contemporary world. However, what follows next is a set of strange and disturbing events none of us would have any understanding of. As furniture begins to get hurled across a room, a sense of panic begins to creep into the conversation, soon culminating into something truly horrifying. With the inability to end the call, the five characters now find themselves met with terrible obstacles even when they try to leave the space physically. In the process, the story becomes one of bullying, ragging and the revenge of someone the group of friends might have brushed aside as an underdog and subjected to cruel behavior in the recent past.

The Last Zoom Call | Lockdown Film Challenge

In a world that has become increasingly familiar with mental, emotional and physical isolation, the short film portrays a boy's dysfunctional relationship with social media. Apart from the pressures pertaining to conventional norms of beauty, social media platforms often accentuate the loneliness and despair one might by feeling by presenting to you a world of happy pictures and smiles. This, in turn, serves to make one feel even more isolated, as if to suggest everyone else, but you, is having a good time. These are some of the concerns, among others, Unseen Zone attempts to delineate, while sharing with the viewer the many emotional complexities and struggles of the protagonist.

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