Tarka (film)

Tarka
Film poster
Directed by	Sunil Kumar Desai
Produced by	Sunil Kumar Desai
Screenplay by	Sunil Kumar Desai
Based on	The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie
Starring	Shankar Nag Devaraj Vanitha Vasu
Music by	Guna Singh
Cinematography	P. Rajan
Edited by	A. Subramanyam
Production company	Rachana
Distributed by	Sri Bharat Films
Release date	1989 (1989)
Running time	132 minutes
Country	India
Language	Kannada

Tarka (Kannada: ತರ್ಕ, English: Logic) is a 1989 Indian Kannada language suspense thriller film directed and produced by Sunil Kumar Desai inspired from Agatha Christie's play The Unexpected Guest, and starring Shankar Nag, Devaraj and Vanitha Vasu. It also features Shivaraj, Avinash, Shashidhar Bhat, Praveen and Sudhakar Pai.

The film was unusual for, it had no fight and song sequences, unlike most films during the time. It was also a commercial success during the time of its release and completed a 100-day run in theatres. The film is considered a landmark in parallel cinema of Karnataka.

At the 1988–89 Karnataka State Film Awards, the film won two awards: Best Screenplay (Sunil Kumar Desai) and Best Sound Recording (K. S. Krishnamurthy). Desai also won the 1989 Filmfare Award for Best Director – Kannada.

It was remade in Tamil in 1990 as Puriyaadha Pudhir and was also remade in Malayalam.

The film opens to Akshay (Shankar Nag), having escaped from jail, being chased by the police when accidentally runs into the house of Sudha (Vanitha Vasu), a high school classmate of his. He hides in a closet when Inspector Kaury (Avinash) knocks the door. As he hides, he finds the corpse of her husband, Rithwik Kumar (Devaraj) dumped there. The officer breaks the news to Sudha that the plane by which her husband Kumar travelled to Calcutta crashed, killing all the passengers. She appears shocked and breaks down in front of the officer. After he leaves, she reveals to Akshay that she killed her husband and confides in him. He joins her in disposing the corpse in an abandoned well by her estate.