Pihu

Domestic violence is something we tend to sweep under the carpet as a society. Often, it's the children who bear the brunt of the fight between the parents. They are said to be scarred for life, thanks to the experiences. Pihu is the story of one 2 year old girl who is left all alone in the house as her father has gone to Kolkata for a meeting and her mother, in a fit of rage, has overdosed on sleeping pills.

The movie starts with a birthday song & we get to know it's Pihu's (Pihu Myra Vishwakarma) birthday. Backed by just the audio and opening credits, the makers take us to the next day throughout which the entire film is set. Pihu wakes up to her dead mother & a father who's currently out of town. Amidst all the last night's birthday decorations, the house is full of balloons and other colorful things.

A two-year-old girl wakes up the morning after her birthday party to find the house in a mess, her father missing and her mother motionless in bed. The trailer describes the situation as "every parent's nightmare", but that is hardly apt when parents themselves are responsible for their child being stuck in these circumstances. What it is, is pretty much every watching human being's nightmare.

Equal parts horror film and guilt-trip drama, Vinod Kapri's Pihu revolves around three characters. One is lying lifeless on a bed. The other is a snarling voice at the other end of the phone. The third is alive but is always in harm's way, partly due to the actions of her parents and partly due to the heavy hand of the filmmaker.

After a tragic incident, two-year-old Pihu (Myra Vishwakarma) is trapped in an apartment all by herself. She has very little food and water, as she's also cut off from the world outside. Under such dire circumstances, Pihu has to survive and her day-long ordeal forms the crux of the story.

Writer and director Vinod Kapri's second feature is not for the fainthearted. During the course of 93 minutes audiences have to see a two-year-old girl land in one perilous situation after another and hope that she comes out of it unharmed. That's the plot of Pihu which is inspired by a true story.

Journalist-turned-director Vinod Kapri's first outing, Miss Tanakpur Haazir Ho (2016), gave us a glimpse into his creative world that was heavily influenced by the then political scenario. It was a satire with rural touch. Actors used slang and suggestive gestures liberally. It wasn't exactly suited for the urbane, somewhat sophisticated, audiences, never exposed to that kind of wry humour. Despite a motley group of actors, a lot of it was lost in translation.

Who would want to watch a baby cry? Nobody, and that's what dooms Vinod Kapri's silly and sadistic film Pihu, where a little girl walks precariously around an apartment without being watched or cared for. The idea - of anything in a house being a potential threat - could have been made into a watchable short film, but this is feature-length torture, where the viewer is made aware that they must sit through more than ninety minutes of a helpless and endangered child, despite knowing that nothing can really happen to her before the end.