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A still from the movie 'Pisasu'Alert: Spoilers ahead
Director Mysskin's opening frame of 'Pisaasu' is a blazing image of genius. A close up shot of a smiling girl. When the camera zooms out, there is a pool of blood where the girl is lying face up on the road, and this easy transition from something as simple as a smile to a deep shade of death and gore is what makes Mysskin's celluloid worldview so distinct. But from there, with each passing scene, the film started to descend from the initial pedestal, and the final result turned out to be something mediocre, at least gauged by the 'Mysskin standards'.
As the synopsis goes, Bhavani, a girl who died in an accident, comes back to haunt Siddharth (Naga), whose only brush with her was lending a hand in rushing her to the hospital since he was around when the accident occurred. The procedure of 'haunting' is interesting—the ghost hides the beer bottle opener unfailingly. She mildly disturbs the friend of Siddharth who comes to stay over with him. An attacker who aimed to stab Siddharth takes the stab himself quite amusingly. When a 'boho chic' styled woman paranormal investigator, (who, by the way, screams in a piercing crescendo, so hold on to your seats) tries to fleece him, she scares her away. But when Siddharth's mother comes over for a stay, she remains calm, even helps her out of an accident, and attacks the offender (even though he has been offending his wife for much longer; the ghost didn't seem interested).
A still from the movieSo if you're searching for motive, it definitely doesn't sound like revenge. Mysskin has twisted the traditional, or the customary way ghosts look at things, and he has tried to detail a love story of sorts. The title 'Pisaasu' already indicates 'evil', and that is the idea that he plays with, or at least tries to. There has been non-obtrusive ghosts in movies before, (like 'Paheli'), but this one isn't quite.
In the first half, the film looked like it was treading on new turf, where one is almost lead to think that the ghost exists only in the psyches of everyone, the second half gives to the audience an actual face to reckon with, and even an idea that her residing place is the electric kitchen chimney. While Mysskin's execution of the idea that he started off with was intriguing, with the frames replete with suggestive objects, mostly inanimate (how the beer can sitting placidly on the table is the prime object of concern, where Siddharth blurs in the background), the romance of it all, falls when things start getting too obvious.
The cinematography (Ravee Roy) is gripping, adding to the scare-value immensely with ample spaces in the frames and eerie lighting. The background score (Arrol Corelli) elevates the impact as well. The scores on the violin during the initial sequences were at their haunting best.
Newcomer Naga has quite effectively brought about the aura of sinister around him, and Radharavi, as the father of Bhavani, does his part well. As Mysskin's seventh flick, after a run of six acclaimed films, 'Pisaasu' did garner a lot of attention, however, this scare story is weaved into a conceptual dare that maybe Mysskin himself couldn't quite untangle.
Rating: 3/5
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