Aranyaka (1994)

The Raja Saheb, played by the noted Oriya actor Pujari, embarks on a hunting expedition in cannibal country accompanied by an anglophile businessman (Gokhale), his hysterical wife (Parihar), an Army Major (Singh) and his English wife (Kapoor). The two males are attracted to each other’s wives. The only outsider to the culture of feudal-upper class hedonism is the Raja’s adopted tribal son, who represents the land that the cultural elite set out to conquer and who is regarded by them variously as a wild sex-object, hunter and slave. The hysterical wife seduces and then claims to have been raped by the tribal, who is chained and tortured. An orgiastic feast follows as the group eat what they imagine to be the wild boar shot during the hunt. They discover the next day that the meat was the tribal’s body. This discovery is left deliberately ambiguous (unlike in the novel), allowing for several interpretations. The film is noted mainly for Bir’s stunning camerawork, enhancing the elements of fable and allegory.