Nidhi Saxena, whose film — set in Almora during the Kargil War — premiered at Venice International Film Festival, on poetry as a way of seeing reality, her experiments with soundscapes, her influences and more
In Nidhi Saxena’s Secret of a Mountain Serpent, which premiered at the recently concluded Venice International Film Festival, desire, loneliness and local myth mingle to concoct an enchanting atmosphere. Her 2024 film, Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman, similarly took the medium of silence and magic realism to weave a story about the inner world of an isolated woman.
Secret of a Mountain Serpent, starring Trimala Adhikari, Adil Hussain and Pushpendra Singh, is among the most gorgeous films out of India this year, with cinematography by Vikas Urs, who is currently on a delightful run with films like Pedro, Shivamma, Body, Cactus Pears, Vaghachipani and now Saxena’s latest work.
Poetry as a way of seeing reality
This sophomore feature was developed at the Venice Biennale College Cinema Script Lab. With production support from India, Italy and Sri Lanka (Vimukthi Jayasundara producing with Richa Chadha and Ali Fazal as executive producers), Saxena’s film is a remarkably effective meditation on the quandaries of the women in the mountains of Almora.
An ancient myth about a serpent longing for its muse combines with their solitary status — their husbands are away fighting the Kargil War of 1999 — to invoke a state of poetic mirage where half whispers, silent nights and the vision of a strange man occupy their lives.
Saxena spent some time in Almora, the cantonment town in Uttarakhand, where even she felt lonely. “Of course, the mountains came first. In those places, most of the men migrate for work and more often than not, that means joining the army. The mountains sometimes feel like prison,” says Saxena.
Nidhi Saxena with the cast and crew members at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival.
That loneliness, that absence and no livelihood options for men there triggered this story about the women of the town. It’s a film that exists in an elegiac, heightened register, where dialogues carry a lyrical quality rather than ordinary speech. “Literature has both prose and poetry. I think that is true for films as well. I find poetry as a way of seeing reality more appealing,” she adds.
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Saxena claims she is not used to structuring narratives in a direct or straightforward form that’s more akin to mainstream films. She talks about the trend of making “issue-based” films that tell the audience everything they must feel. “It doesn’t leave anything to interpretation; the themes are direct, and the universe feels unlived,” says the filmmaker.
After working as a screenplay writer in Mumbai for a few years, Saxena went home during the pandemic and picked up her old writings. “I was amazed when I looked at them. I used to write like a poet. What happened to my writing? I decided I want to preserve that style.”
Women’s desire and alienation
The themes that dominate Secret of a Mountain Serpent are desire and alienation of the women whose husbands are away in the army. These subjects, Saxena says, lend themselves to the abstract form that her film takes. “The film is about the wives who are cheating on their husbands or even the society. These things float in the air like gossip; there is no open talk about loneliness or affairs. Everyone feels it but they don’t say it.”
A still from Nidhi Saxena’s 2024 film, Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman
If you have watched Sad Letters of an Imaginary Woman and Secret of a Mountain Serpent, the names of her favourites will seem obvious. “I used to love Mani Kaul and Kumar Shahani. My mentor was Kamal Swaroop. How can I not go that way? When things are too direct in a work of art, it feels very manipulative,” she says. Swaroop used to tell her that he kept rewriting till he understood a scene. “That’s the essence of this method. To keep at it till it is completely up in the air,” she adds.
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She continues: “We are not used to watching films like this. Just like we train the ear for classical music, we can only get it by watching and making more such films.” Her producer Jayasundara told her that since this film is the result of a grant, it is her best opportunity to experiment with form. “He asked me to explore the cinematic language with this film.”
Saxena’s use of soundscapes is an experiment in film form. She uses the sound of soldiers marching or travelling in trucks to visuals of the women at work to illustrate their divergent lives. She says she did film a scene with soldiers walking but didn’t use it as she felt that it didn’t sit well with the grammar of the film. Even for a scene involving a frantic search leading to an uproar, she preferred using the sounds. “We don’t need people or crowd to convey that. When we talk about riots, we have mostly heard about them rather than seen them. And these women, whose story I am telling, are at home; they can only hear and imagine.”
‘I want to get close to the character’
At some level, Secret of a Mountain Serpent is Lynchian. It is dreamlike and there is always a lingering question about the state of the proceedings throughout. “I try to keep the confusion within the film. I want the audience to question if they are watching a dream or reality. I like the ambiguity,” says Saxena.
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Urs’s cinematography is one of the reasons for this dreamy quality: “Our approaches are totally different. He maintains the camera at a distance, doesn’t move around a lot while I wanted close-ups and movement.” Saxena feels that since he has worked mostly with male filmmakers, he probably wanted to keep a distance and observe. “I am a woman. I want to get close to the character and move the camera,” she says.
Saxena and Urs managed to achieve a synergy which results in the gorgeous visuals of Secret of a Mountain Serpent. Saxena also felt good about their working relationship. “I have been on sets and cinematographers, especially, don’t know how to take orders from a woman. Or how to collaborate. Vikas is not at all like that. Even his team isn’t like that. He is a great collaborator in several ways. I had zero problems with him or his team.”
Her experience in Venice and with the Venice lab has been rewarding: “My personal experience was great. We made this film in less than 10 months. I got fabulous tutors and intellectual support. And, of course, there is the grant which made this kind of film possible.” Saxena got a full house in Venice and mostly women spoke to her after the screening, and they all were able to relate to the story. “Even for my first film, more women reached out to me. My audience is women.”
