Garcon, this is not
what I ordered.
After all the running around last week, and viewing a slew
of foreign films at the
Biffes, I decided to settle down with something
homegrown. I picked a film that I had somehow missed on its cinematic release,
“
Pizza”. This thriller/horror, was a huge indie hit in 2012. It was the film
that established director
Karthik Subbaraj, and actor (and current indie
superstar)
Vijay Sethupathi, as artists to watch out for.
I’d watched Karthik’s brilliant “
Jigarthanda” on its
release, and loved it. That was a quintessential Tamil gangster film that also
wore its influences on its sleeve. What I really admired about it was that when
the current crop of Tamil and other Indian language films are trying and
failing miserable to ape Hollywood crime flicks - with globetrotting dons and
imbecilic storylines - “Jigarthanda” went back to the roots, and was a stylish
gangster film rooted in Tamil (and Indian-ness), without insulting the
audience’s intelligence.
As mentioned earlier, I’d missed out on watching “Pizza” due
to combination of various factors. In the meantime, the film had been hyped up
tremendously by the media, friends, acquaintances etc. This combined with the
fact that I really liked “Jigarthanda” and wanted to watch Karthik’s earlier
output, made me jump at the opportunity to watch “Pizza” when it presented
itself.
I started watching the film alone, at around 11 in the night,
in a darkened room. The perfect setting. I must hand it to Karthik, parts of
the film were genuinely unnerving, there is a large portion of the film that
takes place inside a bungalow, with just Vijay Sethupathi (I’m a sucker for
films – or atleast large extended portions of it – which are one-man shows, set
in confined locations). In such cases, it’s hard to hold the audience’s
interest and move the story forward. However, the “Pizza” team have pulled it
off.
Michael (played by Vijay) is a pizza delivery guy at a
restaurant. He is in a live-in relationship with his girlfriend, Anu, who’s a
horror buff. She’s a huge fan of horror films, books, shows and even claims to
have had a paranormal experience herself. This is in direct contrast to
Michael, who is not really sure if he believes in these things, and is also a
bit faint of heart. As the story progresses we learn that they are orphans and
have known each other since school. We also learn that Anu is pregnant, and
wants to get married soon. Michael is hesitant as he’s not really convinced if
he would be able to provide for them with his meagre salary. He soon comes
around and they marry, privately for the time being, with Michael promising a
grander wedding once they have the money.
The film then introduces us to Michael’s workplace. We meet
his colleagues, the cashier – Raghavan, and the chef – Srinath. We also meet
his boss, Shanmugam, who’s shown talking agitatedly about some mystery product
over the phone. Shanmugam also piques Michael’s and his colleagues’ curiosity
by inviting a dishevelled, homeless looking man into his office.
It turns out that Shanmugam has hired the man - a medium/exorcist
of some sort – to rid his daughter of a spirit that he believes has possessed
her. Michael becomes aware of this when he goes to Shanmugam’s home to drop
something off, as requested. Once there, he witnesses the “possession”, as well
as the medium attempting to talk to the spirit.
The film keeps moving at a brisk pace. Shortly, Michael gets
a pizza delivery order, just as he’s about to leave, Shanmugam calls him inside
his cabin and orders him to deliver something to his home on the way.
Michael leaves for the delivery. The next scene cuts to
Shanmugam arriving back at the restaurant to find Michael bruised, bloodied and
in a state of shock, sitting on the restaurant floor. His colleagues from the
restaurant seem to be in a similar state as well.
On being prodded by Shanmugam, Michael breaks down and
narrates the tale of what happened once he left for the delivery.
The delivery was to an affluent bungalow (the same bungalow
mentioned earlier in the article). Once there, Michael witnesses two murders, a
child’s un-dead spirit (the same one believed to be possessing Shanmugam’s
daughter), and numerous other paranormal activities. This includes an
unconnected landline telephone that suddenly comes to life and starts
forwarding calls that were originally meant for Michael’s mobile.
We also soon learn that the bungalow is actually a
dilapidated old structure, with a reputation for being haunted. It was also the
scene of numerous unexplained deaths. There is also a twist - Michael’s wife is
also supposed to have died in the same premise a while back.
The parts mentioned above, and the opening sequences set the
story moving along nicely. I started wondering whether I’d stumbled upon that
elusive holy grail – an Indian horror film that would actually turn out to be intelligent
and genuinely scary, because let’s face it, where horror is concerned, our
films are infantile and cringeworthy.
I cycled through various theories ranging from whether the
whole premise was a prank being played on Michael by his wife and colleagues
(as he’s a faint hearted guy who scares easily), to whether he was
hallucinating the whole thing - as a form of coping with the fact that his wife
might have actually committed suicide a few scenes earlier, to time warps, and
other fantastic guesses.
In the end, all the theories turned to damp squibs. It turns
out that Michael and his wife had concocted this story as an elaborate scheme
to dupe Shanmugam. What actually transpires is that when Michael leaves for the
delivery that fateful night, he accidentally stumbles upon the “something” that
Shanmugam had asked him to drop off at his house. That “something” is also the
mystery product from the earlier scenes – priceless gems. Just what Michael and
his wife need to make a new life for themselves and their baby. They hatch this
grandiose scheme to fool Shanmugam, playing his own beliefs and superstitions
against him, and thus procure the gems for themselves.
I personally felt that this film was a disappointment. It
could have been so much more.
My main problem with it is the fact that the film would have
worked a lot better if Karthik had actually shown Michael narrating the
happenings in the bungalow and then gave us the big reveal, rather than showing
what he experienced in a flashback-mode, with a lot of visual trickery, as if
it were real. That would have made the film intellectually honest as well as
make it a seamless whole (But I guess that wouldn’t have had quite the visceral
impact the director wanted, and instead he settled for the easy way out).
I get that we, the audience, are listening to Michael tell
the story, and we are as much in the dark and as taken in as Shanmugam. However
the means of telling and employing a certain device to tell that story rings
false to me. If Karthik had chosen to go the other way (of showing Michael
narrating the story, instead of showing it via flashback), we would have had an
extremely intelligent, “talky” thriller with horror elements, comparable with
the best in the world. To me, the version he decided to go with feels like a cop-out
and rings false.
I didn’t even mind the ending where paranormal incidents are
suddenly introduced after it was established that there was actually nothing
spooky going on. I do however mind uninspired trickery.
This film felt like I had ordered a plain margherita, and
instead, got a pepperoni pizza.
I was left feeling disappointed with this film. However, I
do have high hopes for Tamil (and maybe Indian horror) a few years down the
road.
Although, there are large logic
holes in our horror flicks, “Pizza” and “
Maya” (released in 2015) show that
filmmakers are focusing on atmospherics, pacing and a more mature way of
presentation, rather than juvenile
Ramsay Bros. type of crap that Indian horror
was synonymous with in the past.
