207. Pari; movie review

PARI
Cert 15
135 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong horror, injury detail, violence

Often I find it difficult to write a review without giving too much away. Here it is nearing the impossible.
Prosit Roy's Pari is a Hindi horror film which reminded me of movies we watched in the West in the 70s and 80s.
Interestingly, while there is a fair bit of blood, it doesn't concentrate as much on gore as many Hollywood films do nowadays.
Instead, there is more in common with movies such as The Exorcist in which possession combines with trickery.
It stars Parambrata Chatterjee as a shy young man whose family are desperate for him to be married to a feisty prospective bride (Ritabhari Chakraborty).
However, his head is turned away from the arranged nuptials after an old lady is killed when she falls in front of his car during a storm.
She leaves a daughter (Anushka Sharma) who has been chained up, knows nothing of the outside world and only has dogs for friends.
But what has she to do with a devil cult and a tragedy which happened in Bangladesh more than 25 years ago?
The connection becomes clear as Pari's layers are peeled away.
There are elements which I enjoyed abot Roy's film - and I thought the entriguing back story could have been exploited more.
But the reason I haven't rated Pari higher is that I was unsure about the cast. Sharma has a difficult role which demands a range of emotions and I struggled to be convinced that she could be evil.
Meanwhile, Chatterjee's character is a tad too wimpy to be believable both before he meets the damaged young woman and afterwards.
In addition, it didn't make me jump enough.

Reasons to watch: Indian horrors are always a bit different
Reasons to avoid: Doesn't make the audience jump enough

Laughs: None
Jumps: Two
Vomit: Yes
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 6.5/10

Director quote - Prosit Roy: "My grandparents were originally from the other part of undivided Bengal, what is now known as Bangladesh. They had come over during the Partition, and my grandmother used to tell me literally hundreds of stories — folk tales and stories of the land. Quite a few of these were stories about ghosts and apparitions."

The big questions - Can people really be possessed by the devil?

Share this post