Mercury (film)

Mercury
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Karthik Subbaraj
Written by	Karthik Subbaraj
Produced by	Kaarthekeyen Santhanam Jayantilal Gada
Starring	Prabhu Deva Sananth Remya Nambeesan Deepak Paramesh Shashank Purushotham Anish Padmanabhan Indhuja Ravichandran Gajaraj
Cinematography	S. Tirru
Edited by	Vivek Harshan
Music by	Mithoon Santhosh Narayanan
Production companies	Pen Studios Stone Bench Creations
Distributed by	Pen India Limited Paramvah Studios Pushkar Films Trident Arts
Release dates	13 April 2018 (2018-04-13) (Worldwide) 20 April 2018 (2018-04-20) (Tamil Nadu)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	India

Mercury is a 2018 Indian horror thriller film written and directed by Karthik Subbaraj. The film, which has no dialogue, stars an ensemble cast including Prabhu Deva, Sananth, Remya Nambeesan, Indhuja Ravichandran, Deepak Paramesh, Shashank Purushotham, and Anish Padmanabhan, amongst others. Subbaraj presented the film under his own production banner Stone Bench Creations, whilst Jayantilal Gada of Pen Studios co-produced the film. It is about five friends who are terrorised by the ghost of a victim, maimed from mercury poisoning.

Mercury is a fictional story, but inspired by the 2001 Kodaikanal mercury poisoning. It was shot in secrecy, and was officially announced only in June 2017, after filming had ended. Filmed across Chennai, Pondicherry and Kumbakonam, the background music is composed by Santhosh Narayanan, with cinematography handled by Tirru and edited by Vivek Harshan.

Mercury was released on 13 April 2018 worldwide except Tamil Nadu, due to the Tamil Film Producers Council strike, and was released in the state on 20 April 2018, becoming the first Tamil cinema release after the strike. Since the film has no dialogue, the makers found it easier to distribute and release the film under major territories across India. The film received mixed reviews from critics.

Plot

Maimed from mercury poisoning, five longtime friends come together for a high school reunion on a farm. Then, Michael plans to propose to Meera and calls her and his friends, and they go on a night drive at a place Michael proposes to Meera; she accepts. Afterwards, while driving the other four friends home, Meera nearly runs over a dog after the other four were messing with the headlights. Because of this, she was temporarily blinded. Somehow, the friends accidentally end up dragging a blind man to death when they swerved to avoid his dog. After dumping his body, the friends are terrorised by the man's ghost in mysterious ways. When the ghost had killed the guys in the group and tries to kill Meera as well, then she reveals that she is deaf and did not recognise the hitting of the car. The ghost, having realised he killed a bunch of innocents thinking they were the corporate factory owners who were responsible for the occurring mercury poisoning, shares his story of being blinded due to mercury poisoning and one night was walking his dog when the leash accidentally got stuck to the friends' car and got dragged until he hit a headstone and succumbs to his injury. Despite the mishaps that happened, the ghost forgives and spares her, not before possessing her to see his wife one last time and gives his hearing capacity to the Meera upon leaving her body as he burns down the factory.

Cast

• Prabhu Deva as a blind person who has fallen victim to mercury poisoning
• Sananth as Michael
• Indhuja Ravichandran as Meera
• Anish Padmanabhan as Vinay
• Deepak Paramesh
• Shashank Purushotham
• Gajaraj
• Remya Nambeesan as the blind man's wife (cameo appearance)

Special appearances in The Mercury Song

• Krithika Babu
• Adithya Shivpink

Production

Development

Karthik Subbaraj wanted to develop a full-length dialogue-less feature film after his earlier short film Black and White, which was largely devoid of dialogue. Even before the release of his feature directorial debut Pizza (2012), Karthik, an admirer of the silent films of Charlie Chaplin and the dialogue-less 1987 film Pushpaka Vimana, had this desire, but struggled to conceive a story concept. After completing two feature films, Karthik eventually developed a fictional story idea set against the backdrop of the 2001 Kodaikanal mercury poisoning. The title Mercury was derived from the element of the same name. He said the absence of dialogue gave him more freedom to emphasise the film's other aspects, such as music, to amp up the film's "thrill factor". The film was produced by Kaarthekeyen Santhanam of Stone Bench Creations and Jayantilal Gada of Pen Studios. Cinematography was handled by Tirru, editing by Vivek Harshan, and stunt choreography by twin brothers Anbariv.

Casting

Prabhu Deva called his role "unique" and "unusual" compared with his previous films, where the script demanded a dance or comedy sequences. The other cast members Sananth, Deepak Paramesh, Indhuja Ravichandran, Anish Padmanabhan had appeared in Karthik's earlier films. Shashank Purushotham, a Bengaluru-based theatre actor, made his Tamil cinema debut. The team began rehearsals for their roles 20–25 days before production began . Remya Nambeesan joined the cast near the end of filming.

Filming

By early June 2017, the makers had completed shooting 60% of the film, with Chennai, Pondicherry and Kumbakonam serving as the primary filming locations. The film, which was being shot secretly, was only officially announced later that month, after filming had ended. As most of the film was shot indoors, Tirru chose not to keep the camera steady as not to trigger visual fatigue, where the camera is placed, either from the point of view of the character or as a third person. The team also filmed a long take as doing otherwise would require them to keep moving the cameras. Tirru explained, "The situation too warranted it as cutting it into different shots wouldn't convey the intensity of the scene. The idea was to make the audience understand the characters' stand and make them feel claustrophobic".

Themes

The film is based on the 2001 Kodaikanal mercury poisoning, where hundreds of workers were allegedly exposed to toxic mercury vapours at the now-defunct Hindustan Lever factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. Karthik stated that the film explores exploitation by corporates of small towns, further adding that the incident in a way inspired him to make the film.

Music

Santhosh Narayanan, Subbaraj's norm composer joined the technical team, by composing music for the film's background. Though the film does not feature any songs, a promotional song titled "The Mercury Song" composed by Mithoon, lyrics penned by Sayeed Quadri and sung by Haricharan and Gajendra Verma was released on 15 March 2018. Santhosh also composed a song "Oru Mara Nizhalil", recorded by Sathyaprakash Dharmar and lyrics written by Vivek. Released on 1 May 2018, it is a montage song picturised on the romance between the characters Michael (Sananth) and Meera (Indhuja). Though the instrumental version of this song had appeared in the film, as the background score, the song was used only for promotional purposes.

Release

Karthik initially tweeted that the film will be scheduled for theatrical release on 13 April 2018, coinciding with the eve of Tamil New Year's Day and also the date matched with that of Friday the 13th. The theatrical trailer of the film was launched on 7 March 2018 to positive response from viewers and audiences alike. Since the film has no dialogues, the team found it easier to distribute and release the film in different regions under the same title. Rakshit Shetty's Paramvah Studios and Pushkar Films distributed the film in Karnataka, with KFC Entertainment acquired the rights to release the film in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana territories. Pen India Limited acquired the global rights of the film. The trailer of the film was scheduled to release on 5 April, but in order to show solidarity towards the statewide bandh due to Kaveri River water dispute, the makers postponed the trailer launch, although it was launched on 10 April by prominent celebrities.

The film released worldwide on 13 April 2018, excluding Tamil Nadu, due to the strike organised by Tamil Film Producers Council against the digital service providers owing to the hike in Virtual Print Fee. A day before the official release date in India, the film was screened at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles on 12 April 2018. The same day, the makers hosted a special screening in Mumbai, with the presence of actors Tamannaah and Anant Mahadevan among other celebrities joining the event. The film was leaked online through pirated sites, despite not having a scheduled release in Tamil Nadu, with Prabhu Deva and the film's cast urging fans not to watch pirated versions. Mercury became the first Tamil cinema release after the 48-day strike held by Producer's Council. The film opened to a wide release in Tamil Nadu on 20 April 2018. Celebrities such as Venkat Prabhu and Rajinikanth praised the film's team and the crew.

Reception

The film received to mixed reviews. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67%, based on 12 reviews, and an average rating of 6/10.

The Times of India, chief critic Reza Noorani gave three out of five stars saying "There are no big scares that 'Mercury' delivers. Instead, it unravels at its own pace which is not perfect at all times." Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV, stated that the film is no more than "a disjointed drama that uses conventions of the slasher flick and the horror film in order to spin a none-too-scary yarn that oftentimes borders on the unintentionally funny"; rather stated that "the film ventures into the territory that A Quiet Place occupies – the destructive force in Mercury turns out to be a figure that waits for the stimuli of sound to line up and pounce on its targets". Y. Sunita Chowdary of The Hindu stated that the film has its fair share of "chills" and "thrills". Udita Jhunjhunwala of Firstpost pointed the story as one of the major flaws of the film, stating that "the story just does not stitch together".

Anisha Javeri of IndieWire stated "Though the historical backdrop could have made for a compelling metaphor, the clichés and heavy-handedness of “Mercury” ultimately outweigh the novelty of its premise, while its sloppy social relevance angle does more to confound than clarify the disaster in question", further adding that "Mercury may be remembered as the first silent thriller in Indian cinema, but it’s far from the heart-stopper we’re looking for." Manoj Kumar R. of The Indian Express gave three-and-a-half out of five stars "Karthik Subbaraj's plot has a few gaps and he also uses the regular narrative techniques of the horror genre to create the moments of shock. However, the overall impact of Mercury on a viewer is very effective, encouraging us to brush aside the shortcomings." Sajin Srijith of The New Indian Express gave a rating of 4 out of 5 and added "Karthik Subbaraj's Mercury is audacious, technically-impressive, and an experiment filled with delightful surprises".

Nandini Ramnath of Scroll.in had reviewed "Subbaraj tries to dress up a routine horror film with a social theme, but fortunately, the director has enough tricks up his sleeve to make the scary portions work." Arnab Bannerjee of Deccan Chronicle gave one-and-a-half five stars and stated "Karthik Subbaraj tries to juggle a thriller horror story with a not-so-original twist." Baradwaj Rangan of Film Companion opined that Karthik ended up making not just a "thriller", but an "emotional horror-drama with a touch of eco-activism". Sowmya Rajendran of The News Minute stated "The film breaks out of the formula horror film and attempts something new although the characters don't stand out."

External links

• Mercury at IMDb 
• Mercury at Rotten Tomatoes