Guwahati, India – In contemporary Indian cinema, few voices capture the anguish and alchemy of rural survival quite like Rima Das. With Village Rockstars 2, the auteur returns to the flood-bitten plains of Assam, proving that lightning can indeed strike twice in the same muddy field. If the 2017 original was a euphoric, barefoot sprint through childhood fantasies, this luminous sequel is a melancholic exhale of coming of age. The cardboard guitars have given way to real strings. Dhunu, played with natural grace by Bhanita Das, is 17 now and finds herself negotiating a rising Brahmaputra, a flailing mother, a brother losing himself to alcohol, and a piranha called development lurking in still waters.
As a multi-hyphenate filmmaker who writes, directs, shoots, edits, and produces her work, Rima’s singular voice remains unfiltered. Even less of a traditional storyline than the first, the sequel works more like an impressionistic montage where visual poetry meets an observational documentary-fiction aesthetic. A dragonfly catching attention, Dhunu caressing a real snake, or a confidential teenage conversation creates an immersive, slow-cinema rhythm with multiple layers. Rima uses naturalistic camerawork to freeze small moments, opening scenes with frames that look like pristine postcards of rural Assam.
But gradually the illusion of sunbathed fields, towering green canopies, and a vast, peaceful sky melts away, exposing a crushing reality. As we marvel at the pastoral innocence and friendship captured in gold-hour light, the camera tilts down slightly, and we realise the girls are standing calf-deep in water. The ubiquitous leech becomes a visceral metaphor, linking the land’s physical challenges to Dhunu’s emotional and economic struggles.
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The rainbow warns of an impending catastrophic flood. While the village elders police Dhunu’s teenage body and her brother buckles under pressure, the mother (Basanti Das) remains a steadfast ally, and through their tender relationship (Basanti and Bhanita are mother and daughter in real life as well), Rima maps the survival codes of women in a society that puts them on a pedestal but mocks them when they do a man’s job. By the end, Dhunu no longer climbs the tree; she embraces it. Village Rockstars 2 is currently running in select theatres.
