Among the new generation of filmmakers from Assam, Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap is the "most absurd of all". Weirdly fascinating, his style has become the language of his films.

Thematically rich, the narrative potentials of his storytelling are strikingly direct yet interestingly complex.

After his short film Mur Ghurar Duronto Goti (2022) or won the top award at the Bengaluru International Short Film Festival and qualified for the Oscars, he found expression with his new non-fiction short- Flowers In A Hailstorm.

Flowers In A Hailstorm was selected and screened at the Nara International Film Festival 2024, Japan, among many other selections.

It also won the Best Film and Best Director Award in the Documentary Film category at the 3rd NEFVTA Film Festival, 2024.

Flowers In A Hailstorm meditatively establishes the relationship between human beings and broken, abandoned objects.

It searches for a meaning behind the idea and the beauty of abandoned things and the weight that it carries for those who relate to it.

With the film, filmmaker Kashyap compiles an assortment of images and individuals from different walks of life as they share the absurdity of their strange attachment to discarded relics, such as dry flowers, broken items, and forgotten possessions.

To communicate such a complex subject, Kashyap makes the use of contradictory symbolisms throughout the film.

The superimposition of time moving fast and faster over the image of an abandoned car. And there’s chaos in the sound.

There are shots of water flowing over rocks, moving back and forth in a constant forward-reverse motion. And more. It is then followed by the melancholic tunes of Xewali by While We Wonder.

Using images like broken windows, ruins of broken cars and buildings in crumble, the film explores how the forsaken items mirror the haunting nature of memory, trauma, and emotional abandonment in human beings.

Shot much in a self-reflexive style, Kashyap introduces Mind Power Wasim (Psychologist) in a bizarre setup.

He is seated on a chair the midst of water. Mind Power Wasim then speaks on the subject of attachment and abandonment.

In one of the opening images of the film, there’s a horse in the midst of water.

And then there’s his beloved, Susmita, who says, "These aren’t things that someone has abandoned, these are things that I love."

There’s a rapid pace in the images that bends and twists around a disembodied voice (which we can assume to belong to the filmmaker) that introduces the various subjects and also narrates some personal experiences while making relation to the images through memories.

And reflecting on this idea of the self, the film also relates itself to larger themes of current relevance - the growing concerns of identity and politics. The broken building is now a metaphor, perhaps, for the self or the nation, an unrepairable identity.

Then there’s a family of two, a father and a son, who lives in the middle of nowhere in a broken house. They left their own house, after a tragedy killed all other members of the family.

The man continues to speak as if nothing is unusual, but the absurdity of the situation presses heavily against the viewer’s perception.

Owing much to the narrative of the film, the editing is dissociative at best.

It creates a feverish sense of unreality which translates to the brokenness and disconnection experienced by its characters and objects.

Likewise, we are all broken and abandoned beings, waiting to be pieced together and rediscovered.

Presented by Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), the cast of the film includes Himanshu Prasad Das, Suruj Kalita, Susmita Talukdar and Khandakar Wasim.

The short film is produced by Sagar Mahindra, while Nandan Kumar handles its cinematography. With music by Pallab Talukdar, the short film has been meticulously edited by Sharmistha Chakrabartty.

ALSO READ : Maharshi Tuhin Kashyap: I Have Often Felt An Inclination Towards Surrealism