Memory Lane : Pizza — Karthik Subbaraj ‘s Quirky Horror Tale
WITH SPOILERS
With the arrival of the digital tools, anyone with an idea , and basic knowledge of movie making can tagged as a director, with even a short film to their credit. There have been many directors, who hailed from the short film circuit and shot to fame in the mainstream industry , proving their mettle. One such director that belongs to this lot is Karthik Subbaraj.
After making a series of impressive shorts and being a runner-up in the contest ‘Naalayi Iyakunnar‘ , this indie filmmaker, kick-started his career in Kollywood with a horror-thriller, Pizza, in 2012.
To start with, Pizza is not your usual thriller ink that dispenses from the pen of a debutante director in Kollywood. It is a quirky thriller that has a multitude of storytelling aspects binding you to it. It deals with supernatural elements, a ghost, a plot of heist, a black magic angle, and also about superstition and the karmic/cosmic connection.
Coming to the story, Michael (Vijay Sethupathi) is an simpleton (a Pizza delivery boy), who is in a live-in relationship with his girlfriend, Anu (Remya Nambeesan), an aspiring writer, who is presently researching about ghosts. For the same reason, you find them living in a house that is filled with ghost novels, horror movie DVDs etc. Interestingly, Michael is is too timid to watch a ghost movie or even listen to a ghost story, for that matter. He is skpetical about the existence of ghosts and at the same time holds a fear of the supernatural . Anu, who had a first-hand experience of a ghostly affair and real close encounters with spirits and ghosts, takes joy in frightening Michael a by narrating a real spooky story.
We have Aadukalam Naren as the Pizza shop owner. He pins in an excessive faith in God, as he is grappling with the trauma of her daughter being possessed by an evil spirit. He employs an exorcist to quell the evil spirit from her body and tries every tooth and nail to get rid of it. Michael leads a happy life till problems start when his wife gets pregnant. Some untoward happenings take place in Michael’s life following which Michael reaches a checkpoint in the game of destiny.
Pizza is not an out and out horror movie but tells a horror tale in a dramatic and twisted way. It takes you for a ride in the first half and then boasts of it proudly. While you are miffed with a fraudulent drama and start accusing the director of cheating you, he offers you another twist in the climax that straightens the bent wheel, which can be loosely interpreted as karma or a cosmic irony .
The climax of the movie completes in a full circle, that is half explained. It also could be considered as a post-movie puzzle, that challenges you to tie all the knots together to give it a sense. It also clues us about a sequel.
Karthik Subbaraj brings a lot of elements into the climax. Its open-ended, and ambiguous — might help him as a cliff hanger for another intriguing sequel. The climax can indicate karma, co-incidence, cosmic irony or synchronicity.
Pizza is definitely scary and freakish in parts but what sets this movie apart is the screenplay. The movie has a fair amount of twists, that keep you hooked. The movie’s cinematography is top notch keeping the movie atmospheric. The eerie-like frames in the movie and the way the camera sneaks around in the ghost -haunting sequences are the best parts of the movie.
Santosh Narayanan’s music is an instrumental part of the movie and it brings in the required quirkiness of a fairy tale and spookiness of a conventional horror movie. His score is uplifting, and eerie at the same time. Editing is crisp, keeping the flow of the story contextual.
By what I understand, from a scene where Pizza owner’s daughter is sipping coffee on her house terrace, Nithya , the evil spirit, is now back to the haunted house . The climax is an irony. A cooked up story starts brewing up in Michael’s life after it lied in the dark corners.
What you sow, so shall you reap !
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