The beauty of the writing with Dead Dead Full Dead lies with the profound concept of birth and rebirth in the universe that it wishes to touch upon, while utilizing the template of a black comedy featuring plenty of characters. As a result, you have characters from different walks of life – a couple of inexperienced police personnel who find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation, a neighbour suffering from dementia (a concept of birth and rebirth) casually pointing them to the murder suspect, a cricket fanatic husband who is more concerned about umpiring in a cricket match while paying no heed to the body of his ‘dead dead full dead’ wife, the wife waking up in a parallel universe and briefly returning to earth, and probably the funniest character being that of the househelp who stares away to glory with his stoic expressions thereby leading all doubts of murder to him. Clearly, there is a lot going on even with its premise but the logical boundary of the drama is tied together by an eclipse that takes place once every ten thousand years while all the characters are in the middle of this mess. Other than that, there are no real rules in this universe that allows the writing to run riot with its concept of birth and rebirth.

In the entirety of the film, you are witness to two deaths – one of a little lamb named Michael at the hands of the cops, and the other being Era (Swastika Mukherjee), whose ‘murder’ triggers a police investigation. Yet, both the deaths here are similar in many ways – Michael being accidently ‘killed off’ almost turns into a ‘stuffed toy’, as does the body of Era in a way, lying lifeless on the floor of her flat – a timely reminder that the physical form is often reduced to dust without the presence of a soul. The trajectory of the drama begins with the concept of life and death that is much closer to the conscience of the viewers – and less about birth and rebirth that is iterated at a later point in the film. The presence of the latter is always there, often interspersed at regular junctures in the screenplay – almost a signal for both concepts following the realms of chronology (rebirth can only happen after a death takes place). The former though is highlighted through an interesting analogy featuring two characters who remind each other (initially) that sun rises in the east and sets in the west, signifying the concept of life and death.

The setup of the drama is on the familiar grounds of a murder investigation which is packaged as a black comedy. One criticism though that I had with the writing was that the gags were often mounted on a slippery slope and did not always land smoothly. The case in point being the extended interaction between the two cops followed by the instances that they face through the night *prior* to the distress call of murder. The scene does well in establishing its concepts but in the process the black comedy element in the drama doesn’t exactly land. This is not to say that the comedy is a miss in its entirety – the character of Chhotu (a terrific Sachin Vidrohi) barely has enough lines to utter but the humour is extracted simply through his impeccable expressions that perfectly fit into this wacky world. On the other hand, the murder investigation navigates a different path almost subverting the setting by playing out the events leading up to the murder featuring the investigating cops, each of whom find themselves committing the crime! It is almost a deconstructed form of the Roshomon Effect wherein a single incident is played out from different perspectives alright, but the investigating fulcrum doubles up as a perpetrator in a world of fluidity.

Interestingly, this is one of the gradual shifting concept of birth and rebirth that the film wishes to focus on. The seeds of the same are sown early on wherein you see the character of Era, heavily inspired by astrology (while accidently mistaking it for astronomy, or was it the other way around?), now dead and in a world torn between heaven and hell, casually interacts with the Devil that she wishes to go back on earth while also exclaiming that she hears voices in her head. And this pattern is observed with other chatacters too – the dementia suffering neighbour that in a way has a rebirth everytime following a reboot, the two cops who detour to the past for the investigation, the character of the husband casually moving on to participating in a game of cricket despite a murder at his flat (a form of rebirth which is synonymous to moving on), while also being coaxed by his dead wife in a separate scene to ‘die together’. In fact, even the phrase of sun rising in the east and setting in the west is transformed with a scientific fact – the sun doesn’t move but the earth does around the sun (earth being symbolic for the concept of birth and rebirth, and sun being symbolic of the universe).

The final act might seem a little abrupt but it does make things clear that the concept of time that creates memories and ‘boredom’ (remember the cop interaction scene at the start?) is only restricted to the very moment while the soul represents fluidity, travelling from one body to another. Interestingly, the two deaths are interlinked by the soul, a concept that is much more profound even as the ‘murder mystery’ is concealed by the concept of time while not quite mattering in the larger scheme of things. Each of the wacky characters effortless blend into this world that is actually complex, much like the sequence in the film which links the ‘prescription’ concept at the start of the film by completely burning it away (wherein Era presents her prescription to the cop suffering from Syndactyly)- another concept of soul fluidity in the non-living form! The screenplay, although being a hit and a miss with its humour, is profound with its concept that actually hits home wonderfully well!