Sector 36

Children are disappearing in a neighbourhood. The families go to the police station and no record is even taken; the children come from poor families and the police open no file. Prem Singh is an officer at that station; he knows how the system works and is part of it himself. Then his own daughter narrowly escapes being taken. After that he begins actually investigating. The trail leads to the large house across from the neighbourhood. The man living there is calm, polite, and hides nothing of what he says. Aditya Nimbalkar directs. Vikrant Massey and Deepak Dobriyal are in the cast. It was released on Netflix. The narrative is drawn from a real series of cases; child murders in one neighbourhood in India had caused nationwide outrage. The real matter it treats is class; the narrative shows plainly why the police did not record the complaints of poor families. The killer played by Vikrant Massey never raises his voice and is nowhere made a monster; the most uncomfortable scenes are the ones where he explains calmly. The narrative does not show the violence on screen but describes it, which makes the film harder to watch. Its limit is structure; the narrative speeds up in the second half and some strands end without closing. It was widely argued over on release and how it treats its subject was criticised. Who it is for: people who watch hard crime narratives and thrillers carrying social criticism. Who it is not for: the subject is extremely uncomfortable, the narrative offers no hope, and some scenes are hard to bear.