Created by: Pushkar & Gayathri
Directors: Bramma & Anucharan
Cast: Kathir, Parthiban, Sriya Reddy, Aishwarya Rajesh, Harish Uthaman, Nivedhithaa Sathish, Elango Kumaravel
Suzhal, an eight-part web series streaming on prime, has been created by the critically acclaimed director duo Pushkar-Gayathri (of Oram Po, Vikram Vedha fame). The best way to describe Suzhal would be as an atmospheric crime thriller.
The story unravels in a small town called Sambaloor which is nestled among the Nilgiris mountain range. This sparsely populated town where everyone seems to know one another is rocked by two untoward incidents. First, a cement factory burns to the ground and there is suspicion of arson. Then there is the case of two teenagers (a boy and a girl) who go missing on the same night. Investigating these two cases is SI Chakravarthy aka Sakkarai (Kathir). Other prominent characters at this point are Sakkarai’s boss Regina (Sriya Reddy), the cement company CEO Trilok (Harish Uthaman) and the leader of the cement factory workers’ union Shanmugam (Parthiban). What evokes intrigue is that the missing boy and girl are the son and daughter of Regina and Shanmugam respectively. This leads Kathir to suspect that the fire incident and the case of the missing teenagers might be linked.
The story is set against the backdrop of a local religious fair/festival called Mayana Kollai. This festival provides a figurative backdrop to the series as each episode is themed around a day in the course of the festival. This festival is conducted to celebrate the deity Amman vanquishing a demon for his evil deeds. Suzhal’s episodes align to this narrative as the search is on for a mysterious villain who is suspected to be behind the recent spurt of crime in Sambaloor.
One piece of dialogue spoken by Sakkarai stands out. He says that since Sambaloor’s is such a closely knit community, he thought he already knew everything about everyone, a belief that was shattered over the course of his investigation. Just like the festive masks worn by the exuberant Mayana Kollai participants, every resident of Sambaloor appears to be wearing a mask in real life too. They all seem to have two faces. And dark secrets hidden deep behind those masks.
Sakkarai unearths many of these secrets over the course of his sleuthing. Not all these secrets directly relate to the final reveal of course. These serve as classic red herrings, a key component of any well written crime story. And to add to the complexity, like the smoke spiraling up from the burning cement factory, every character’s moral compass seems to have prominent shades of grey. This includes Sakkarai himself.
Pushkar & Gayathri seem to have taken a leaf out of the many Nordic noirs that have thrilled us over the years. These crime stories set in cold and desolate arctic towns come with an inherent atmospheric vibe. Suzhal is very similar in terms of its packaging. A lot of focus seems to have gone into creating the ambience around the milieu. A case in point is that the story never moves away from the hills. Even a stretch where Sakkarai travels out of town for an investigation is set in Munnar to preserve the ambient quality.
Suzhal has an expansive cast and its difficult to speak about each of them individually. But Kathir for me was terrific and was the pick of the lot. He plays a well written and interesting police character. Sakkarai is neither a Sherlock Holmes nor a James Bond. In fact, he doesn’t even have a clean conscience. In spite of all this, he has an air of arrogance about him. There is a dialogue early on where he explains that only money or power attracts respect and Sakkarai is clearly drunk on the power offered by his stature in a small town such as Sambaloor. Kathir’s body language and dialogue delivery are on the money and bring out the shades of his character perfectly.
Unfortunately, many of the other characters did not have this level of depth written in. Aishwarya Rajesh’s character is an exception and I’ll not go into details to avoid spoilers (she was brilliant in her role of Nandini). But this lack of depth in certain character arcs is actually down to another problem Suzhal is plagued with: the duration. There are 8 episodes and each episode runs for 40 minutes on average. Looking back, I think this was definitely overlong. We could have done with at least 2 episodes less. The result of this flab is that many scenes are intentionally slowed down and the characters end up sometimes appearing monotonous or one dimensional. I also felt some of the dialogues could have been written and emoted better, especially by some of the supporting actors. The tone of the dialogue delivery felt contrived in places.
Despite some of its shortcomings, Suzhal scores with its denouement. All the preceding red herrings keep us hooked with suspense and its only at the very end that the real villain is revealed. The last few episodes also contain an interesting psychological thread. There is a narrative woven around aspects of Observer Bias and Confirmation Bias which I found unique and interesting.
Suzhal is a good attempt overall, but could have been a lot more. I know comparing with international shows such as Fargo or True Detective might not be entirely fair. But that’s the level we should be shooting for and I’m confident we’ll get there sooner rather than later (hopefully before the next Mayana Kollai festival)!
Overall rating: 3/5
