India, Sept. 22 -- RAAM REDDY'S sophomore movie, Jugnuma (The Fable), nudges you to willingly suspend your disbelief. Wife Nandini (Priyanka Bose is a deep number) knows her husband Dev (Manoj Bajpayee) can fly, the villagers know it too, and they happily greet him as Dev makes his way to the take-off site, fortified by some cream on his shoulders. He also drives and walks, and that's considered normal, too. Because Raam structures the initial few minutes this way, the audience occupies the space between a real-life drama and a fable, willing to swing from human behaviour to that of a superhero.

At its core, Jugnuma is about the politics of land, of labour rights, of who is the insider and who is the outsider, but this is scaffolded by v...