The film is tied too closely to the supernatural genre, using elements of horror too literally.
Anushka Sharma in a still from ‘Pari’
Rukhsana (Anushka Sharma) doesn’t know this world — or at least doesn’t know it in the way we do. Heavy chains tied to her ankle, she lives in a small hut in a forest. It’s unclear what she eats to survive. Her only companions are a few stray dogs. With the death of her mother, her caregiver and her protector, Rukhsana is left alone to fend for herself. To not know your place in this world, to be a discontent wanderer, is a terrifying thought. The director of Pari, Prosit Roy, takes that idea a step further: He drops it in a horror film.
Rukhsana steps out in the outside world when her mother is killed in a road accident. The man in the car, Arnab (Parambrata Chatterjee), feels guilty, and he allows Rukhsana to stay in his house when her life is in danger. Arnab, on the surface, is obviously very different from her. He has a family, a job, and is about to get engaged. But the film asks us to scratch the surface and recognise the similarities. Like Rukhsana, he has never had a romantic partner. Like her, he is shy. Their methods of expressing diffidence are similar, too. Growing up, Arnab hid under the bed whenever guests came to his house. As an adult, Rukhsana does the same.
But a crucial difference sets the two apart. Arnab is human; Rukhsana is a demon — or more accurately, the child of a demon. So Pari is two different films rolled into one. It is both a confluence of extremes — the co-existence of light and gloom, civilization and barbarism, life and death — and rumination on finding similarities in differences, a plea for inclusivity. But more importantly, Pari has to find its story and tone, essentially find itself, within the paradigm of a horror film.
Like a good comedy, a good horror has to find its elements in the film’s story; they cannot be thrust on it. But Pari, especially in its pre-interval portion, is fixated on spooking the audience. This wouldn’t have felt contrived if we knew Rukhsana closely (we’re clueless about her intentions or history) or if we knew what torments her (she is pursued by a professor from Bangladesh, Qasim Ali (Rajat Kapoor) who, along with his cohorts, wants to murder her, but the reasons for that aren’t clear for a very long time). In the absence of such critical information, Pari speaks to us as a litany of jump-scare moments, making it resemble a generic genre piece, which primarily relies on generating fear and not probing its origins. Moreover, even the mechanics of that horror — the banging of doors, the creeping sounds of footsteps, the demonic hum — aren’t particularly novel. So even when the few scenes shock and scare, and some did leave an impression on the audience, evidenced by the uncomfortable giggles in the theatre, they serve an isolated scene instead of informing the entire movie.
Pari could have been elevated by Sharma’s performance, especially because she’s cast in a pivotal role, but she struggles to match up to the complexities of her character. Kapoor, and Dibyendu Bhattacharya in particular, shine in their respective roles, but their limited screen time can help the film only as much.
Pari also takes a popular Bengali folklore — centered on the followers of the diabolical spirit Ifrit and Qasim’s efforts to combat them — too literally and seriously, shackling this story tight to the realms of supernatural, frequently forbidding it to transcend its genre, find its own meanings. The film shines the most, in fact, when it’s not trying to scare, in scenes where the outside world is opening up to Rukhsana. Small moments in this segment — such as watching a television for the first time, clipping nails, brushing teeth, blowing soap bubbles, the possibility of falling in love — acquire beautiful, wondrous meanings, subverting the tropes of the genre, spotlighting a subaltern reclaiming her place in society.
But that ingenuity, a rare occurrence of imaginative, original writing, is short-lived in a film that tries to be too many things at once — a love story, a horror folktale, a social drama — but lacks focus, clarity, or consistency. As a result, Pari loses its audience much before the film is over.