I am no fan of horror movies. Not because their job description reads “scaring people”. It’s because they create a sense of conflict between two reactive states ─ one which reasons and sees through the absurdity of the idea of blood stained, translucent weirdoes playing hide and seek; and the other reactive state desperate to unreason, wanting to experience a sense of death wish. It’s in a sense the same as how a neurotic Woody Allen, in the movie “To Rome with Love”, nervously responds to his wife when there is turbulence during their flight to Rome ─ “I can’t unclench (my fists) when there is turbulence. I am an atheist”.
Pizza…The Slices
Pizza
- I was left wondering at the end of the movie as to why the movie was named ‘Pizza’. I hope it’s not because the guy in the lead role delivers pizza. And do they not give tax exemptions to filmmakers anymore to think of creative names? “Kalaignar ─ Where art thou?”
- Several independent plots that work great in isolation have been interwoven seamlessly, which is what makes the movie tick. That’s interesting, in the context of this movie, because the characters in those sub-plots are not different and neither do they exist in a different time-space continuum as in say movies like Crash or Aayidha Ezhuthu. Like ‘Matryoshka’ ─ the Russian dolls─ the plots are nested on top of each other with the lead characters spanning across them.
- It is ridiculously easy to stage a Halloween party on screen and pretend to evoke horror; quite another feat to pose a death threat to the viewer and be taken seriously. Pizza sells its idea of fear to great effect. It constantly sets up a trap ─ first by reinforcing the skepticism on the notion of existence of ghosts, then by suspending that disbelief dramatically only to discover later that you are caught in a dangerously vicious cycle.
- It is refreshing to see the lead couple rejecting traditionalism ─ by ‘living in’, exchanging…..bodily fluids without public assent, and marrying without an audience. In the same breadth, it is also off-putting to be reminded of revisiting their intimacy from earlier movies. The visceral desperation to display crudity and cuteness in episodes of romance is quite evident. For instance, post their marriage when Michael (the lead actor) says to Anu, holding her tight, “Eh pondatti” and she teases back saying “sollunga”, you are pissed off at yourself for having thought of Alaipayuthey and Aayidha Ezhuthu at the same time.
- Trivial question: “Pitstop ah ECR la vechutu, Anna nagar poi ethuku da tea aathura?”
- There is a morbid grace in how the movie relentlessly whispers in your ear ─ “Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it”
