A friend of mine messaged me the other night, “I am home alone tonight and I am kinda afraid.“I found it quite childish and made fun of her, “Loser, ghosts don’t exist. Ain’t nobody eating you alive.” And the response from her immediately made me realize what she was talking about. “I am not afraid of ghosts but human beings. And I am pretty sure that they do exist,” she had replied.

With the increase in number of crimes taking place everyday, there must be hardly anyone who feels completely safe even in their own homes. We came across a short film recently. The film titled ‘Hitchcock’ is dedicated to Alfred Hitchcock, an English film-maker who is also known as ‘The Master of Suspense’. This film is inspired from some of his films and was released online on the occasion of his birthday on August 13th.

The film perfectly captures the reality of how heartless the people, more particularly living in the big cities, have become.

Watch the film before you read our interpretation.

The film made us think a lot and these are the horrifying facts that it perfectly tells us about the city life.

A car and a motorbike collide. It is clear that it was the fault of the person driving the car who was busy celebrating a friend’s birthday inside the moving car, instead of just stopping by for a couple of minutes to celebrate.

After the accident takes place, the car immediately escapes the scene without even bothering to check if the person is alright or take him to a hospital.

The injured person is so near to death that he starts thinking about the person he loved the most in his life – his mother, who is no more now. He starts having an imaginary conversation with her and she encourages him to move and refuse to die.

From the dialogue, “Hajurko malaami na aauna sakeko paap lagyo malai” (I’ve been curse for not coming to your funeral), it’s clear that he was busy in his ‘big city life’ and earning money that he didn’t even go to his mother’s funeral to perform the rituals — another dark side of today’s living.

He heaves a sigh of relief when he finds two people coming towards him and hopes that they will take him to a hospital but only to realize that they were there to steal from him.

In the meantime, there’s a person who has been witnessing all of this. But instead of calling an ambulance, he clicks pictures of the injured person and writes a status on his social media account, “pictures coming soon.” This definitely is one of the truest sides of the current society that believes in the number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘shares’ that get on their online posts than in actually helping someone in need in real life.

However the social media enthusiast does do a good job. He asks a friend online to call the police, who gets annoyed at first but does make a call.

Two cops arrive at the scene and consider the injured person dead without actually checking his pulse and heartbeat.

He is (or say, his body is) taken to a hospital where the doctors declare him dead when he was actually not. It shows another frightening side of the current society – professionals not taking their works seriously and neglecting their most basic duties.

In the end, when the person has lost all his hopes and even declared himself dead, tears roll down his cheeks; fortunately, two doctors notice him crying and realize that he is still alive and take him to the Emergency Room.

This unconventional short film is unlike most of the other Nepali short films and it brings out the harsh realities of our society. Not many people would enjoy this film but those who would, they would appreciate the wonderful work the creative people at Gauthali Entertainment have done. You can watch some of their more works on YouTube and stay updated with them on Facebook.

Let us know what did you think of this film in the comment section below.