Vague Visages’ Elephants in the Fog review contains minor spoilers. Abinash Bikram Shah’s 2026 movie features Maotse Gurung, Akanchha Karki and Pushpa Thing Lama. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Elephants in the Fog is a moving and deeply empathetic portrait of transgender lives in a conservative South Asian society. Rich in emotional nuance and cultural detail, Abinash Bikram Shah’s stirring debut captures both the inner lives of his protagonists and the social realities that define them. The writer-director displays remarkable formal assurance that matches an intimate understanding of the characters with an equally perceptive eye for the inequities that shape their world.

Set in a remote Nepalese village surrounded by dense forests and under the constant threat of wild elephant incursions, Elephants in the Fog centers on a transgender woman named Pirati (Pushpa Thing Lama) and her adopted daughters. All of them belong to a community of Kinnar women — members of an ancient third-gender tradition who are revered by some and feared by others for their perceived power to bless or curse. Pirati is secretly involved with a drummer known as Master (Aashant Sharma) and dreams of leaving the village with him for Delhi. She is aware that doing so would violate the vows that bind her to her community. When one of Pirati’s daughters, Apsara (Aliz Ghimir), discovers the affair, the revelation drives a wedge between them. Soon afterwards, the younger character disappears during one of the villagers’ nightly patrols to keep wild elephants away from their fields. Faced with police indifference and a community unwilling to stand by her, Pirati sets out to uncover the truth herself.

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In Elephants in the Fog, a sense of belonging is fragile. It lasts only as long as it remains untested, and that idea lies at the heart of Shah’s darkly humane film. The moment tragedy strikes, the warmth and solidarity of the community gives way to prejudice and exclusion. Through the lives of the Kinnar community residents, Shah crafts a portrait grounded in sensitivity that never drifts into idealization. He invites viewers into the characters’ homes, rituals, friendships and everyday routines. The director observes how they are welcomed as bearers of blessings at weddings yet remain outsiders when it comes to recognition and rights. Elephants in the Fog is also about the families that people create beyond blood ties and a universal longing to belong. These themes are not overstated or reduced to easy moral lessons; instead, they grow naturally out of the lives of the central characters and the choices they are forced to make. Nowhere is this more powerfully expressed than in a quietly heartbreaking hospital scene where Pirati is denied access to a deceased patient because she is neither a blood relative nor legally recognized as family. It’s a stark reminder that in a society where a sense of community is conditional, those who do not conform are all too easily pushed to the margins.

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That same idea echoes through the film’s treatment of the elephants. Their nightly raids on the village keep the threat of violence ever present. But Shah is less interested in the animals themselves than in what they reveal about human nature. Much like the Kinnar community residents, the elephants are caught between reverence and fear. The urge to control or push away perceived outsiders shapes the villagers’ relationship with both the elephants and the individuals from their community. Underlying both concepts is the same fear of the “other” — a feeling that shapes the villagers’ prejudice as much as their uneasy relationship with the natural world. Here, the conflict is not just between people and animals, but between compassion and intolerance, and the boundaries we draw to keep the unfamiliar at a distance.

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Desire and forbidden love run quietly through Shah’s narrative. Pirati’s affair with Master offers her a glimpse of a life beyond the boundaries imposed on her. It gives her the hope of leaving for Delhi and escaping the vows of celibacy that have long defined her place within the community. A parallel struggle belongs to Apsara, who survived through sex work before becoming part of the Kinnar community. She hopes to travel to India for gender-affirming surgery, as it marks an important step in her transition. By mirroring these two journeys, Shah highlights both the parallels and the contrasts between mother and daughter. Each yearns for a life on their own terms, yet both characters remain bound by the obligations of the family they have chosen.

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Lama’s Pirati never reaches for overt displays of emotion. Even in silence, her face speaks volumes to reveal a woman who has learned to endure without surrendering her dignity. It is a deeply affecting performance of remarkable restraint, and gives the film its emotional centre. The supporting cast complements Lama’s portrayal with the same quiet assurance. Aliz Ghimire brings quiet vulnerability to Apsara, making her relationship with Pirati feel both believable and bittersweet. Jasmin Bishwokarma and Sahabdin Miya bring tenderness and emotional complexity to the protagonist’s chosen family, particularly in moments where love and resentment exist side-by-side. The film’s two principal male actors, Aashant Sharma and Dura Sanjay Gupta, also make their presence felt with measured and convincing performances. They complement the ensemble without ever drawing attention away from the women who remain at the heart of the story.

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Noé Bach’s cinematography gives the landscape an unmistakable presence. The forests feel mysterious and alive, the rivers become places of contemplation and the fire-lit night patrols have a ritualist quality as the villagers attempt to keep the elephants at bay. As Pirati’s emotional world begins to fracture, Bach increasingly isolates her within the frame, subtly reflecting her state of mind. Elsewhere, Andrew Bird and Paris J. Ludwig’s editing allows the story to unfold at an unhurried pace. Following Apsara’s disappearance, Elephants in the Fog gradually takes on the shape of a crime drama. Rather than relying on sudden twists, the editing duo lets the tension build patiently, scene by scene, making Pirati’s search both intriguing and emotionally resonant. The technical aspect that lingers longest, however, is Pedro Sá Earp’s sound design. Throughout the film, the distant calls of elephants, the rustle of the forest and the sharp contrast between the city’s bustle and the countryside’s lingering silences imbues the narrative with a life of its own. By Elephant in the Fog’s closing moments, the rhythmic clapping becomes the defining aural texture, taking on an almost hypnotic quality by blurring the line between the dramatic and the surreal.

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To call Elephants in the Fog merely a promising debut would be selling it short. Premiering in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize, it announces the arrival of a filmmaker with a confident voice and a keen understanding of the people and the world he portrays.

Dipankar Sarkar (@Dipankar_Tezpur) is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic based in India. As a freelancer, he regularly contributes to various Indian publications on cinema-related topics.

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