Vishal Bhardwaj’s Makdee, in his directorial debut, is a parable with a difference. It pitches itself at a young audience without speaking down to or patronizing young minds.

Looking into a non-urbanized setting where the butcher, priest, head constable, and schoolteacher are more emblematic of a neat social order, a la Lagaan, than functional as individuals, Bhardwaj constructs a life of tremendous charm and humour. While depicting the drama of the mundane, the director suddenly sweeps us into a realm of spookiness when the village brat Chunni takes on the might of the reclusive witch who, true to type, lives in a haunted mansion—with a creaky front gate, of course.

The gate may creak, but Bhardwaj’s galloping narration is forever well-oiled. The 90-minute narration subsumes a plethora of caricatural and real characters who merge into a seamless scenario of fun and fear. The blend is heady and intriguing. Bhardwaj swings the pendulum of his narrative from satire to spook so fluently, you wonder where the one ends and the other begins.

The film opens with a congregation of terrified villagers converging on the witch’s haveli. We share the villagers’ fear of the unknown. We look at the daunting house of screeching echoes through Hemant Chaturvedi’s skillfully circumscribing camerawork. Going beyond the budgetary constraints of a small film designed to reflect juvenile fears and fantasies, Makdee stalks the dingy and dark corridors of the witch’s forbidden prey-ground with an elan echoing the best images associated with the horror genre.

The vignettes from village life are enchanting and delightful, thanks to little Shweta Prasad in the central roles of the contrasting twins, the brattish Chunni and the docile Munni. To get unexaggerated, absolutely normal performances out of juvenile players has always been a problem in Hindi cinema. Director Bhardwaj gets little Shweta to give the best performance by a child since Master Rajoo in Gulzar’s Kitaab, Jugal Hansraj in Masoom, and Master Makrand in Bhavna.

Alaap Mazgaonkar, as Chunni’s best buddy Mughal-e-Azam, is also a delight to watch. Their pranks are never allowed to obfuscate the deeper ramifications of Bhardwaj’s plot. His narrative effortlessly and blithely addresses itself to a series of socially relevant issues such as child labour (Mughal-e-Azam’s father’s abusive treatment of his adoptive son) and vegetarianism (after her twin sister is ostensibly turned into a hen, Chunni chokes on chicken lovingly prepared by her father).

Makdee works on several levels. It’s a wonderfully moralistic (though a little too scary at times) fable for the young, and it’s also an intelligently fashioned entertainer for the older audience. The technical wherewithal applied to the story sends out some remarkable signals to the film industry regarding how much finesse can be achieved within a restricted budget.

Soaring beyond the restrictions imposed in this country on “children’s films,” Makdee reaches for the sky to pluck out a handful of chuckles. The skillful use of the dusty outdoors, with the characters chasing hens, dogs, and fast-footed imps through rusty lanes and toasted-brown streets, blends brilliantly into the witch’s inner chambers where Shabana Azmi, in the most amazing makeup, queens over the show.

Arguably the most brilliant dramatic actress this country has ever produced, Shabana’s skillfully semi-satirical treatment of the witch ignites the screen into a fiesta of flickering images and shadows, which converge on us in a swooping arc. Bhardwaj doesn’t allow the awesome exteriors of the witch’s character to overpower her. As played by Shabana, the witch is wily and wacky. Her performance is supported and strengthened by Shweta Prasad as the twins and Makrand Deshpande as the village butcher.

The scenes between Shabana, back on screen after almost two years, and little Shweta Prasad are among the highlights of this human-interest drama. Particularly fraught with fear and humor is the sequence in which the little girl offers toffees to the demanding witch instead of the live chicken agreed on for the favor of having Chunni’s twin Munni converted back to human form.

You wish the finale had been less prosaic. The end-game is designed for political correctness rather than narrative aptness. There are a couple of continuity errors. For instance, a lookalike for Shweta Prasad, dressed in identical clothes, is planted into her classroom even when her screen-twin has gone missing.

The trivial lapses cannot cut into Vishal Bhardwaj’s immense warmth and tenderness in depicting human relationships, be it the one between the polarized twins and their rapport with their widower father, or the uneasy camaraderie that grows between Chunni and the witch as they barter over little Munni’s life.

Human values seep into the pungent parable to make Makdee one of the most endearing films in recent times with children at the helm. Hats off to Vishal Bhardwaj for constructing such a bewitching jigsaw of shivers and giggles. He’s also in excellent form tuning Gulzar’s aptly jaunty lyrics into easy-on-the-lips tunes, and plunging into symphonic chants whenever the witch appears on screen.

It’s hard to forget Shabana Azmi swinging in slow motion on the school playground with a look of such horrific lust and craving on her face, she scares the living daylights out of Chunni. And we, the audience, aren’t too far behind.