Prakaamiyam review: Complicated and confused psych session
Film: Prakaamiyam
Director: Pratap
Cast: Pratap, Subha, Rahman, Parvathi, Rajkumar
A psychological thriller, the plot revolves around a youngster who displays abnormal behaviour as he shuttles between a dream world and the real one. The art of ‘Prakaamiyam’ was practiced by ancient Sidhaas, would control the consciousness of another human is the core theme. Offbeat and experimental in its take, the narrative style is non-linear, abstract, moving back and forth between the real and the bizarre. It opens with fi le shots of Hitler and Stalin and a voice-over explaining how the two leaders created human robots, through drugs and hypnotism respectively. It shifts to a brief explanation of the art of ‘Prakaamiyam’.
A researcher in his line of work, on whether its fate or the human mind that determines one’s course of life, encounters the case of Pratap, a college student. Whether Pratap’s weird behaviour was just the result of ‘mind hacking’, or the effect of drugs and alcohol which he indulged in abundance in college is not clear. Not blending the two, could have brought in more clarity and focus and removed the ambiguity. An intriguing moment is where Pratap connects with both, his own consciousness when he was 10 and to the consciousness of his father who was manipulating him.
The director uses statistics and examples to explain his point, where Pratap goes sleepless for 10 days. For a debutant, Pratap who has scripted, produced, directed and played the lead, seems to have taken on a theme bold and experimental. That the fi lm was made with a very limited budget is evident in its unpolished look and form. Certain moments like the father’s fate is not for the faint-hearted. Towards the second half, it becomes a verbal, one-man show. A very abstract and subjective take by the director, it often turns into a complicated and confusing scenario. There are a few moments of humour. Watching ‘Prakaamiyam’ is like trying to understand a complicated psychology lesson, at times comprehensible, many times not.