The Serpent
2021
Original language: English
- drama
- crime
The story
The remarkable story of how murderer Charles Sobhraj was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol's most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.
What it’s like
Sun-bleached and humid, with hazy heat over Bangkok streets, dusty bus roads, and cold, thin air in the Himalayan foothills, all shot in warm, faded tones that suggest 1970s travel photographs. Camera work moves between wide establishing frames of crowded markets and intimate handheld close-ups in cramped guesthouse rooms, so the mood keeps shifting between wanderlust and a creeping unease. Its pace is deliberate and episodic, building a steady tension through long stretches of talk, surveillance, and waiting. Its emotional register is cool and watchful, a cat-and-mouse crime drama with a cosmopolitan, slightly sly charm at its centre. Intensity is significant: the murders are depicted and some scenes are brutal and disturbing, though gore is restrained, and there is adult sexual content and drug use. The dread is pervasive more than graphic. It suits a late-night, attentive viewing rather than something gentle, and it's for people who enjoy true-crime-inspired thrillers, morally murky anti-heroes, and period atmosphere.
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