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Release
date:
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November 16, 2018
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Director:
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Vinod Kapri
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Cast:
Language:
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Myra (Pihu) Vishwakarma, Prerna Sharma
Hindi
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A two-year-old girl wakes up the
morning after her birthday party to find the house in a mess, her father
missing and her mother motionless in bed. The trailer describes the situation
as “every parent’s nightmare”, but that is hardly apt when parents
themselves are responsible for their child being stuck in these circumstances.
What it is is pretty much every watching human being’s nightmare. Because as
tiny Pihu’s struggles in her home
unfold, the realisation dawns that there are few things in this world our
species fears more than physical harm to babies and children.
Last year, director Vikramaditya Motwane gave us Trapped in which Rajkummar
Rao’s character accidentally gets locked in a deserted high-rise building in a
bustling metropolis. The turn of events in Pihu’s
life is not accidental at all, nor is she an able-bodied young man – the helplessness
of a child her age makes the circumstances all the more terrifying, the poignancy
of her predicament exacerbated by a personal tragedy that we the viewers become
aware of while she does not.
Writer-director Vinod Kapri’s Pihu is Home Alone without the pointed effort to be comical, Baby’s Day Out without the intentionally
farcical tone. It is determinedly realistic cinema in a highly believable
setting that, the makers acknowledge, is inspired by a true story reported in
the press. It is not easy to watch as the film builds up a heightened sense of
awareness of the dangers held out by everyday items in a modern household. A
clothes iron that has been left on, an exposed wire, a running tap, a gas
stove, a flight of steps, a balcony in a multi-storeyed complex – if adults
tend to be careful around these, imagine the experience of watching for approximately
90 minutes a toddler alone with
them.
Kapri’s achievement is that he
recognises the drama intrinsic to the state of affairs in which Pihu finds herself and does not try to
exaggerate it artificially. Yogesh Jaini’s cinematography plays along with the
director’s vision, observing and following the child protagonist quietly
without trying to whip up a supernatural eeriness or stereotypical thriller
scares. The camera does not feel exploitative in its gaze on the girl or her
mother’s prone body, which is crucial to the film’s sensitivity. Vishal Khurana’s
music does bear familiar ghostly strains we have heard before, but these are
just small snatches in the overall restrained background score.
The film’s remaining audioscape
is occasionally problematic though. The director should have found a way to
convey monologues from people calling Pihu’s
mother’s cellphone without putting the phone conveniently on speaker mode
each time, such that Pihu seems able
to hear everything they say and at one point even has a long conversation (to
the extent that she is capable of having conversations) with one of them. This
calls for a suspension of disbelief that the rest of the film does not demand
of us as viewers, and marginally dents its otherwise authentic feel.
The voices we hear of neighbours
and guards in Pihu’s building too
sound by turns loud, mannered and/or caricaturish in what feels like an effort
to establish a point about the impersonal nature of high-rises in urban
concrete jungles. This effort ends up making the narrative in the second half
somewhat less effective than the gripping pre-interval portion.
(Spoiler
alert begins)
We all know that padosis in such
complexes are often apathetic, but it defies believability that such
individuals would not budge even when they are themselves affected – in this
case, they do nothing beyond grumble and complain to the building management
for hours after water starts flowing out of Pihu’s
flat and on to the common area outside. (Spoiler
alert ends)
Films of this nature, ranging
from Bollywood’s Trapped to Hollywood’s
127 Hours and Castaway, are odes to the human spirit via tales of survival
against all odds. Kapri tries to expand Pihu
beyond the conventions of the genre with a touch of social commentary, and
stumbles on that front. Apart from the faulty treatment of the neighbours,
there are the hints dropped about Pihu’s
parents’ relationship.
(Some
readers may feel this paragraph contains a spoiler – proceed at your own risk) The mother’s body bears injury
marks which, when coupled with what the husband says on the phone, implies that
there may have been domestic violence involved. If so, it was incumbent upon
the filmmaker to take into consideration the impact of her trauma on her
decisions. Did the husband strike her or was this just another case of a couple
unable to get along? Were her injuries self-inflicted or caused by him? Was she
then depressed? Who knows. Yet in the end, the film’s tone appears to suggest
that both parents had been equally selfish towards their child when, in fact,
if indeed theirs was an abusive relationship, then there can be no equivalence
between the two persons involved. Alternatively, were her bruises the result of
a medical condition or caused by some substance she had consumed? Pihu would have been a remarkable film
even without this added element. The attempt to make it profound has ended up
subtracting from its worth, because, having alluded to the possibility of DV,
Kapri does not handle the issue with the requisite empathy. (Spoiler alert ends)
Kapri’s debut feature, Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho, was marked by
the same tendency to bite off more sociological profundities than he could
chew.
Pihu also suffers from some serious
continuity issues. An indulgent viewer may argue that the child may have
affectionately pulled a sheet on to the mother’s body at some point when the
camera was not watching her or in shots that were edited out to keep the film
short, but how indulgent must we be to excuse the child’s inexplicable transition
from being messy – with the soles of her feet blackened and her face covered in
food, makeup and more – to a clear face and far cleaner feet? Without giving
anything away, I must say too that the child’s condition when she is finally
found defies logic.
These are unfair distractions
from an otherwise riveting tale.
While the film is firm on its
feet and even through its missteps, Myra Vishwakarma as Pihu remains incredible
– is this a performance or is she just being herself? Perhaps a bit of both is
what we must conclude from the director’s interviews and considering that she has
been credited for “additional screenplay” along with Abhishek Sharma.
Kapri deserves applause for the
manner in which he has directed her without needlessly trying to underline her
cuteness. At no point does she appear to be acting. And Ms Vishwakarma is such
a darling that it is impossible not to be invested in Pihu from the moment the camera first zeroes in on her. I found
myself occasionally smiling at her antics, in awe of her inventiveness, charmed
by her apparently spontaneous reactions to her dilemmas and confusions,
admiring Kapri’s ability to capture all this, and clenching my fists out of
concern for her welfare, so paralysed with fear for her that I could not look
away from the screen till the very last second of the film. Now excuse me while
I get my blood pressure examined by my doc.
Rating (out
of five stars): **3/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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U
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Running time:
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93 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy: Tree-shul Media Solutions
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