A ‘scorpion singer’ from the Rajasthan desert is pursued by a particularly tenacious camel trader in The Song of Scorpions, the third feature from Switzerland-based British filmmaker Anup Singh. After making films in Bengali and Punjabi, this myth-like fairy tale, albeit one with some incongruous-feeling modern touches, was filmed in Hindi, though Singh has again cast his Qissa star, Rajasthan-born Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi), as the male lead. France-based Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani plays the equally determined female protagonist.

With its gorgeous visions of endless orange sand dunes and the ethnic-sounding titular chants, this film was clearly made for Western audiences. Generally speaking, it suffers from a somewhat fuzzy storytelling style. For example, there is a bit of background information missing that would have helped make sense of some of the particulars of the story. Legend has it that a sting from a scorpion from the Thar Desert, in western Rajasthan, will kill a person in one day unless a sage singer is found who can ‘read’ the melody in the victim’s pulse and come up with a chant that functions as a life-saving antidote.

One such scorpion singer is Nooran (Farahani), whose wise and disciplined grandmother (Bollywood royalty Waheeda Rehman), affectionately called Amma, still sings to the dunes to practise and who feels Nooran isn’t quite ready yet to take over the baton. By that time, the beautiful and independent-minded Nooran has already been chased for over a year by a handsome, clever and older dromedary peddler, Aadam (Khan), who magically seems able to figure out where Nooran travels to, so he can make sure their paths cross frequently.

But the story Singh, who also wrote the screenplay, has in store isn’t one of two secret, star-crossed lovers. After Aadam tries to insist they get together, Nooran lets some of the protective men of her village beat him up. Later, in one of the film’s few instances of humour, Aadam explains rather sheepishly that the fight definitely “wasn’t about a camel”. Even so, the bearded trader seems to hold no grudge toward Nooran and suggests taking her in after she’s viciously assaulted one night by a man who pretends to have been bitten by a scorpion. And she subsequently loses her Amma in the dunes and then, from the double trauma, loses her capacity to sing and thus, her livelihood.

Indeed, the contours of the plot suggest those of legends, myths and morality tales and The Song of Scorpions seems to aspire to function like one, especially in the way the truth is revealed by slowly peeling away the thin layer of deception. As with all good cautionary tales, the real story isn’t too complex and the big reveal as such doesn’t really come as a surprise. Instead, Singh is more interested in how the characters react to the discovery of the truth, which leads to the third act’s dramatic events.

The development of the two characters is also very much in the fairy tale vein, with both Noora and Aadam painted with very broad brushstrokes and not a lot of individual detail. In that aspect, it makes sense to cast people like Khan and Farahani, whose charisma can do a lot of the heavy lifting and who have no problem with the film’s sumptuous and intense close-ups.   

The film is absolutely gorgeous to look at, with Swiss cinematographers Pietro Zuercher and Carlotta Holy-Steinemann relishing the opportunity to film a country that looks so unlike their own. Beatrice Thiriet’s score is enveloping, while Marie-Pierre Frappier’s unhasty editing rhythms also cleave closer to a European art house feature than any kind of local mainstream production. n

Source: hollywoodreporter.com