Aha!

I saw this film on a plane after hearing that Bangladesh had submitted it in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 2009 Oscars.

Working on a low-budget is not a hindrance to making a great film, if you have a good director and a good script to work with. There are some signs that "Aha" has the first (there are some beautiful shots, working interspersing the light and music) but it certainly doesn't have the second. The script is dull and predictable, and the way the plot progresses doesn't really make sense.

A kindly old Bangladeshi man lives in a rundown yet stately old home in Dhaka. He reluctantly agrees to sell it off and have it turned into apartment blocks. Around the same time, his whiny daughter returns home from America after leaving her abusive husband. Also around the same time, a disheveled middle-aged man comes onto his property and says that he has killed a man and needs a place to stay. The old man agrees (WHY?). The young daughter begins receiving strange phone calls from a lecherous old man who lives in the neighborhood, and begins seeing him secretly. (WHY?) The kindly old father, upset at his daughter's behavior, makes a momentous decision.

I have seen better films from Bangladesh....The script was clearly the problem here.