After causing a buzz at the 'SXSW Film Festival', 'Cargo' recently made its debut on 'Netflix'. The indie movie directed by debutant director Arati Kadav revolves around a lonely space boy who sees dead people.
Vikrant essays the role of Prahastha, a lonely 'rakshas' aka demon, responsible to transit deceased people into their afterlife. For decades, he performed
his job with perfection. Prahastha
grew comfortable with his life in space, digitally interacting with bosses at
the base camp who would present
him with a list of 'cargo' that needs to
be transited and float in his Pushpak 634A. However, his comfortable little air bubble loses gravity when Yuvishka, played by Shweta, walks into the spaceship.
She joined him in Pushpak 634A as an assistant who has the power to heal. While the duo starts off on a wrong foot, he eventually witnesses her ability to heal souls which helps the transit process faster.
'Cargo' is a refreshing take on the traditional sci-fi movies we are accustomed to. From revamping the image of 'rakshas' to poking fun at the heaven and hell narrative, 'Cargo' works well on the creativity level. Arati creates an almost believable world.
Despite everything, the movie feels too light. Once people learn the tricks of the 'transit', the movie loses a sense of gravity and merely floats mid-air, disconnecting the viewer.
The character developments are vague. This impacts the performances as well. Individually, Vikrant and Shweta keep this ship together. Shweta adds another feather to her cap of great performances with her portrayal of Yuvishka. She owns the role and watchers find themselves invested in her character. As for Vikrant, he has time and again proved that he is a fine performer and with 'Cargo', he reminds the audience just that.
But the lack of depth impacts on Vikrant and Shweta chemistry. Another bummer is the whole set up. Understandably that it was a movie by a debutant, but if one is setting up a movie in the future and in the space, it did feel a little caricaturish. Having said all this, 'Cargo' presents a great example of how to adapt the popular outer space theme from the West.