Rasa means juice, flavour or essence, and – to put it in the simplest terms possible –
Navarasa in the Indian arts refers to the nine (
nava) emotional states as captured by a work of art, and as manifested in the audience’s experience of and response to that work.
This gigantic project that the multiple-award-winning filmmaker kicked off in 2000 can best be described then as an anthology on the emotions at play in human society.
The title of the latest addition to this collection is not to be taken literally though.
Hasyam has been described by the director as a black comedy, but its most striking aspect is its success in capturing the banality of callousness in a morbid profession (hat tip: Hannah Arendt) through the lightness of being in the life of a cadaver agent.