Irai – Prey (Tamizh Web Series on Aha OTT platform)

The 6 episode Web Series is certainly a change in normal viewing.

When one is used to eating Idli –Dosai or at best upma or pongal for breakfast day in and day out and one fine day as you sit on the breakfast table sipping your kaapi, slides in a plate that contains Buttered Toast, eggs sunny side up, with a strip of bacon fried onion and sausages…some marmalade and a glass full of fresh orange juice… the change is not merely startling, it brings on a smile and one can’t wait to dig into it.

That is the impact Irai makes from the very first frame. It is slick, graphic, the camera is clear , penetrating and very wide.

Just like how a pure vegetarian may make a face at the above breakfast with absolute disgust, we are confronted with the subject of the series just as bluntly ; Child abuse and paedophilia. Very few crimes even in the genre of crimes could be just as unspeakable. Crimes against children who neither understand and hence are in no position to defend themselves is one of the most heinous of acts and creating a movie around such a delicately disturbing subject required courage of a huge proportion. Rajesh Selva, captains this venture with elan and sensitivity. He pulls in no punches in his narrative that is inspired from the book Birds of Prey.

 
What starts off as a kidnap drama and the switch from an years ago flashback to the present day creates a leit motif which is very interesting to begin with in the beginning but stretches a tad bit far when it gets used again and again losing the grip on the narrative. Ghibran’s background music adds an eerie and sombre note to every frame increasing its gravity. It is a very very violent film simply because the violence is just absent from the visual frames yet the narrative and the characters bring it out in their performances.

 Sarathkumar as ACP Robert Vasudevan, an experienced old hand consultant is so much in character that all along he doesn’t shift even a tiny bit. The grey shaded character has skeletons loaded in his cupboard threatening to come out but at some place falls in the stretched narrative space adding nothing new. There was a distinct promise here to make it crisper and sharper and yes a wee bit clearer. The foil to his character is the razor edged performances from the TV veteran actor Abishek Shanker as MLA Sivakumar and Srikrishna Dayal as Ashok. These two in their own styles bring the violence to the film without displaying any action openly. Their presences are menacing and very real. While Dayal is still openly villainous it is Abishek Shanker who is the surprise packet. He walks a very fine line between wayward charm, a shrewd politician, a victim and a menacing villain without any change in his getup. His eyes change and one then starts to hate him. Srisha the relative newcomer infuses her police inspector Watson role to Sarathkumar’s Sherlock quite competently but the senior Nilzhagal Ravi could have been used more. His is the talent not put to full use here.

As an OTT content, undoubtedly nothing as bare as this has ever been seen in the Tamizh  Cinema space for years together. And disturbing though the content can be one is all the more richer for having seen it.