Review: Family secrets and foul play unfold in ‘The Indrani Mukerjea Story' on Netflix

Gulf News

“Did you murder your daughter, Sheena?” asks the voice behind the camera in ‘The Indrani Mukerjea Story: Buried Truth’ to the woman on trial. Pat came the retort: “What a stupid question,” barks Indrani Mukerjea, the woman accused of murdering her 25-year-old daughter Sheena Bora.  Read the full story here: https://gulfnews.com/entertainment/bollywood/review-family-secrets-foul-play-and-fame-exposed-in-the-indrani-mukerjea-story-on-netflix-1.101434528  Subscribe to Gulf News on YouTube and watch more of our videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/GulfNewsTV  See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos Read more Gulf News stories here: https://bit.ly/2HLJ2km  #UAEnews #Netflix #TheIndraniMukerjeaStory

Transcript

00:00What I loved about the series is that the series ends with Indrani Mukherjee being

00:04asked by a voice behind the camera, did you kill your daughter Sheena?

00:08And she goes, she barks actually. What a stupid question is that.

00:14Good afternoon, this is Manjusha Radhakrishnan from Gulf News. Today I'm here with the review

00:19of the true crime Netflix series called the Indrani Mukherjee story Buried Truth. It's a

00:24four-episode series that's streaming currently on Netflix. It's directed by Shaan Levy and Uraaz

00:31Baal and what we have is a very fly-on-the-wall approach to the Indrani Mukherjee murder trial.

00:37The trial is still ongoing. Back in 2015, a 25-year-old identified as Sheena Bora,

00:44her body was found near Maharashtra and Indrani Mukherjee was arrested. At that point,

00:51we knew that Indrani Mukherjee is a TV mogul and that her sister, she was the prime accused

00:58in the killing and murder of her sister. But later it came to light that Indrani Mukherjee

01:03is actually her mother. She changed her narrative during the interrogation and then her driver,

01:08her ex-husband and her current husband Peter Mukherjee were arrested for the kidnapping and

01:15murder of Indrani Mukherjee's daughter born out of incest because she was raped by her father,

01:21she claims. Now, this is a murder trial that fascinated India back in 2015. Even now,

01:27the trial is ongoing and the interest in the case has not really abated because there are no

01:33concrete answers. What I loved about the series is that the series ends with Indrani Mukherjee

01:38being asked by a voice behind the camera, did you kill your daughter Sheena and she goes,

01:44she barks actually. What a stupid question is that. This is precisely the problem with the

01:48series. You do not get concrete answers in this one. Everything is very ambivalent. The voices

01:54in the documentary belong to Indrani Mukherjee, her lawyer and then her two children from her

01:59previous marriages. There's Vidhi Mukherjee and Mikhail Bora who talks about their mother,

02:05what could have possibly happened. The problem with this documentary is that you do not get

02:09any concrete answers and none of these subjects in the documentary are likeable. What I loved

02:16about the documentary is that the directors don't try to take a stand, they don't pass judgment,

02:20it's a fly on the wall approach and that works for this documentary. And let me tell you,

02:25none of the subjects and the voices in this documentary including Indrani Mukherjee,

02:30there is Vidhi Mukherjee and Mikhail and the lawyers, they don't seem like very likeable,

02:35their scruples, their identity, everything is very questionable. In fact, this is a tangled web

02:42where there is a dysfunctional family, there are like some dark secrets, there's materialism,

02:46there's corporate greed, there's this need to be a part of a certain wealthy circle etc. All of

02:52them are at interplay and it kind of shows the very twisted and macabre dynamics that go into

02:59perhaps making of a wealthy family. You know, nothing is as straight as it seems. Out of all

03:04the voices that are heard in this documentary and seen in the documentary, it is Indrani Mukherjee

03:09who seems the least likeable. I mean there are times when she tries to coach her own lawyer and

03:15the lawyer goes Indrani take a chill pill, I have it, I've got it sorted. I mean it's

03:20unintentionally funny. At some part you are like, you know, even as a viewer you find it a bit

03:26uncomfortable to watch because you realize that you are consuming this documentary because

03:31you love things that are macabre and at the end of the day a life has been snuffed out. We seem

03:37to forget this because there's a bit of salacious fun to be had and that makes you, it's like a

03:42guilty pleasure if you know what I mean. That's one of the downsides of this documentary where

03:46even the viewers at every point are like why are we consuming this entertainment, why are we setting

03:51aside four hours of our life because this case, this murder trial fascinates us. But at the end

03:56of the day a life was lost, you don't know where Sheena Bora is, has she disappeared, was she killed

04:01by her own mother and her stepdads, you don't know that and her own father as well or the driver.

04:07We don't know what really happened. This particular documentary does not give you any particular

04:13answers but it also points towards this trend of us as viewers being fascinated by real life

04:19true crime documentaries. For instance the one where there was Jolly, a woman in Kerala who

04:25erased her, who killed an entire clan of hers by poisoning them with cyanide and that

04:32particular documentary was also equally fascinating. This documentary is fascinating and frustrating

04:38in equal measure. Out of all the voices I thought the voice of daughter Vidhi Mukherjee, she seems to

04:44come from a more authentic space. The parts where she talks about self-harm, where she talks about

04:50her battle with alcoholism, when she realized that her entire family structure is eroding as she

04:55speaks, the family that she knew does not exist and possibly her mum murdered her own

05:03daughter that she was first introduced as her aunt etc. Vidhi's voice is the most authentic,

05:08you kind of feel for her but when it comes to Mikhail or when it comes to Indrani you realize

05:13that they are quite manipulative in their own words and they try to like stage manage and

05:17orchestrate their responses, you don't know what to really think of them. If you're in the mood for

05:21a very salacious documentary then this is perhaps for you but if you're looking for concrete answers

05:28or becoming a bit more smarter or if you're trying to find answers then they remain elusive.

05:35I've gone with 3 out of 5. For my full review go to gulfnews.com

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