There’s a surprisingly languid start to 68-minute feature The Underbug (2023), one which belies the brief amount of time which the film has; the camera lingers first of all on a jungle scene, showing an array of insects in their natural habitat, all oblivious to whatever might be going on with mankind. It has a Sara Teasdale ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ vibe to it. These creatures pay absolutely no mind to a man moving hesitantly, falteringly through the same jungle, making his way towards a house in a clearing.
The man sneaks into the house with a level of panic and uncertainty which tells us that this is not his home. Whose home is it? It seems a fairly genteel, well-equipped place, but it has clearly been left in a hurry and there are tell-tale signs here of great violence. As the man searches the rooms, a radio continues to play in the background. It is Independence Day, a day of great national celebration, but we also hear that India has been gripped by civil unrest which may have reached as far as this place. There are pools of blood on the floors, blood on furniture and blood on doorframes, too, which could indicate that someone has been dragged out of here. The signs are not good. Now that we finally see the nameless man up close, we note that he’s covered in blood, too – and then, to compound his fears, he hears someone.
A second man, at first begging meekly for help, quickly reveals himself to be no disempowered victim after all; he claims this space for his own safety, too. The atmosphere, already tense, darkens considerably as each of these two begins vying for the upper hand. They decide not to reveal anything about themselves, not even if they’re Hindu or Muslim; there’s a sense that giving any information away is to weaken oneself. Then, as the film wheels and pauses on what could be a deeply uncertain truce, the men hear a strange, frightening noise. Is the house in fact empty, after all?
This roiling and uncertain film is a masterclass in tension. The first man, whose progress we exclusively follow at first, uses no dialogue at all in the first thirteen minutes. And yet, through his gestures and the way he half-stumbles, perhaps as a result of an injury, his performance exudes shock and desperation – it’s a stellar turn by Hussain Dalal, and we are fully primed for his desperation to turn even more sour when faced with the larger, stronger man at the door. This unwanted company adds an immense amount of tension to the film. Where Dalal’s character is jumpy and frightened, the second man (played with equal brilliance by Ali Fazal) asserts himself. And how does he do this? Brute force. In the face of this extraordinary situation, the two men soon get drawn into competitive masculine bluster, something which underlines its own haplessness by falling apart as soon as the men are confronted with a strange noise, or a shadow; more and more, the men begin to believe that vengeful ghosts are amongst them.
But this is just a part of the way they interact; conflict cedes to fear and just as quickly, to an uneasy sort of brotherhood, albeit one which we know is immensely tenuous, ready to explode into shards at any given moment. Hints arise as to what has been happening in the outside world, but The Underbug is wise enough to leave many questions floating in the air, denying audience and character alike a sense of complete and clear understanding. The message here is that the world is uncertain and the way in which the film cuts away from the high drama in the house, back to the peaceful jungle outside, reminds us that many of our most savage conflicts can still seem insignificant in the grander scheme of things. Skilled direction and innovative, germane edits and camerawork close in on our characters and move away, framing them, studying them and then omitting them completely.
If some of the symbolism is a little blunt-force and a few moments of exposition have to get through to us quickly, then this is by no means an issue with an overall incredibly skilled piece of film. It weaves together so much in the way a news article cannot – such as issues around poverty, religion, culture and gender – and makes an engrossing story of them, offering ideas and perspectives which may for many Western audiences be a kind of revelation. Whatever uncertainties the film holds onto, there are many palpable and affecting horrors in The Underbug, a film which offers a brief, vivid message in a bottle from a turbulent and violent moment in time. It’s really incredible what’s achieved here, in terms of time on screen, performances and direction, too.
The Underbug (2023) received its world premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival 2023.