In ‘Rapture’, blind faith collides with reason in the Garo Hills

Five years after his accomplished debut feature Ma.Ama, Dominic Megam Sangma is back with a beguiling new movie. Rapture, which has been premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, examines the collision between gullibility and tolerance in a village in Meghalaya’s Garo Hills.

Rapture begins with a cicada hunt at night. The beautifully filmed sequence, which uses a single lengthy take, sets the stage for the film’s distinctive visual grammar.

One of the villagers goes missing and then another. The village is gripped by panic. Might this be the work of “outsiders”? Is a kidnapping gang on the prowl?

A pastor declaims about the end of times (“Gone are the days of the forefathers!”) and prepares the villagers to face doomsday. Vigilante squads take their positions. Tempers rise, tensions spill over. Xenophobia crashes over the place.

Without stating it, Rapture crystallises the existential concerns in the North-East about the proposed National Register of Citizens as well as fears about migration from across the border. Beyond its immediacy, the film is a timeless portrayal of age-old fissures between indigenous beliefs and institutionalised religion, faith and scepticism, understanding and intolerance.

Sangma initially intended to follow up Ma.Ama, which starred his father in the lead role as a man looking for meaning in the twilight of...

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