Hotal (2014)
Cast: Meera, Sadiq Amin
Director: Khalid Hasan Khan
Synopsis: Pakistani “New Wave” horror with a message is thus far horrible and horrifying in equal measure.
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

Meera has become such an icon over the last twenty years, an accolade and plaudit she would be very well pleased with, except mostly it’s for all the wrong reasons. Taking on a new challenge, headlining a horror-thriller-Baby-Mama drama of philosophical and moral proportions, she waltzes through the challenge with aplomb.

Meera has much to do with the surreal tone the movie reflects right from the onset. However, there is much more than Meera to the film, even though she is the dominating feature and has a share of onscreen time of Striesandesque proportions.

The film claims itself as “Lollywood’s first Bollywood film,” which was a claim that perplexed one. After all, what exactly do the producers mean by this claim? Because basically, it means HOTAL is Pakistan’s first Indian film. If you took it literally, it would mean something like a Pakistani film funded partially with Indian money or perhaps Pakistan’s first film shot in India. Only the producers of this film will shed light on this claim of being “Lollywood’s first Bollywood film.”

Regardless the action begins with Meera living not so happily in a flat in Delhi with her dapper but dull husband, Naresh. One afternoon, while she puffs away at her “double cigarette”, she is paid a visit by a sinister woman introducing herself as Purnima from an adjacent flat. She comes bearing some sweets (laddoos) as her family is celebrating the arrival of the latest infant. They chat about this and that, and each time the camera lingers on the box of sweets, there is a jarring sound blast to let the viewer know in a not-too-subtle manner that the contents within are past their sell-by date. Meera lets on that she is sombre because she has lost a child in the past and is keen to have one again and has a series of tests to determine her current status.

Her doctor is stunned to inform her that after repeated tests, he has determined that she is somehow pregnant even though it was medically impossible considering the removal of her uterus! Her husband is equally shocked and seeks advice from a local psychic who advises him to stop the baby from being born at all costs. Meanwhile, Meera is delighted to be pregnant even if her scheming husband is not thrilled at this “miracle” pregnancy.

Naresh consults with a suspicious doctor who advises him to take his wife to a place he knows where the unwanted are taken care of expertly, and he also hands him a murky potion that will help his cause.

Soon enough, the not-so-happy couple is driven by a typical Mumbayya cabbie who speaks like he has watched too many dodgy ‘90s Sanjay Dutt movies. Finally, they arrive in the middle of nowhere. Out of the blue, a majestic gothic castle sprouts, which later turns out to be run as a fleapit hotel where the lost and bedraggled somehow land up from time to time by accident more than by design, a bit like the Bates Motel.

Meera and Naresh are met by an overweight, bald, older man named DB, who looks them up and down menacingly. At this point, the soundtrack makes sure you get the fact that the man is supposed to be highly sinister. There is a Bell-Boy, James De Souza, who is moronic and irritating in equal measure. The film attempts to tackle some pretty significant issues, namely abortion and the misspelt HO- TAL is also explained in a genuinely bizarre sequence featuring a corrupt cop who really ought to be recognized for his superb acting skills.

Hotal

There is some unconvincing violence when one of Mr. Shyam’s thugs plucks the eye out of the poor Bell Boy’s skull with his bare fingers. Later in the movie’s most extraordinary scene, Meera bludgeons an assailant with a rubber cricket bat, square cutting and reverse sweeping her victim to oblivion.

There is a remarkable sequence of special effects as the Psychic reappears and enters a trance. Her brain waves set off all sorts of cataclysmic chain reactions in the solar system culminating in a sonic boom of gigantic proportions. The solar system virtually explodes due to her psychic forces; it’s quite a trip. Finally, somebody resembling a Tooth Fairy appears as the drama climaxes. Those unseen pet-baying wolves Mr. Shyam keeps in the back garden go into overdrive Hammer style.

Will Meera be able to give birth to a healthy, normal child and live happily ever after, or will the forces of evil infesting the Hotal have their way as they have in the past? Who will survive, and what will be left of them?

The film has recently received some accolades at the Delhi International Film Festival, including a Best Film award and an award for its leading star, Meera as Best Actress. The director is Khalid Hasan Khan, a man who has recently graduated from a crash course in filmmaking offered by the New York Film Academy, and as a debut, it shows a flicker of promise. But I lie. It is a total mess of a disaster and shot in a weird and irritating style where extreme close-ups are the order of the day. We never even get to see the surroundings of where the film is shot. This suggests that one location was used, reused, and overused for most of the film’s scenes, so the HOTAL bedroom looks suspiciously like the Doctor’s surgery and the policeman’s office.

Many scenes are shot in lighting that barely illuminates the characters and renders the background black. You never see what the HO- TAL looks like from the inside, and most shots are in extreme close- ups. You see nothing but people’s faces in unflatteringly close-up mode, overdose on pockmarks, blemishes, nose hair, bad teeth and Meera’s caked-on make-up. The most logical explanation appears to be monetary constraints because if it was done for artistic effect, aping the French New Wave of the ‘60s, it was a total failure.

The background music is horrendously jarring, and the frequent sound blasts meant to create horror are irritating. There is no subtlety to the film. No sense of tension ever developed. Had we not come to watch this movie with the right spirit and pinch of salt, we would have been exiting the theatre as 80% of the audience did before us.

Only the brave and foolish and thick-skinned made it to the very end, the end of one hell of a mess that incidentally includes three sleazy item numbers spliced into the movie that appear like hallucinations of men who watch too much wrestling. The first is an intriguing belly dance style featuring some exotic beauty that makes no sense in the movie. Moments later, a full-on item number features three saucy dames twitching and writhing in typical Lollywood style; garish, cheap and loud.

A third number is a music video recently added to the movie prerelease (the film has been released almost two years after completion) to alleviate the tedium and inject some energy into the proceedings. Still, all it does is prolong the agony further.

HOTAL is a movie trying to deliver a potent message about abortion. The film is so poorly scripted and shoddily executed that it ends up as one confused, hideously acted jumble of moralistic claptrap. Despite Meera’s star power, everything falls flat.

The film will not last long in cinemas (judging by how most of the ticket-buying audience abandoned their seats within minutes of the movie’s running time), and it’s quite an effort even to get this garbage released on the big screen. However, at least for Director Khalid Hasan Khan, things can only get better.

Hotal Hopefully, his subsequent work will display a better ability to tell a story without torturing his audience, as HOTAL did. Is it the worst film you will see all year? Quite possibly, but to its credit, at least it wasn’t another Rom-Com shot in beautiful pastel colours with colour-bursting Shaadi numbers and the prerequisite “feel good” factors and Javed Shaikh. (I love Shaikh Sahib, but talk about overexposure and typecasting!) So, let us at least be thankful for small mercies in that some people are attempting to make films that are not just “candy wrapper” braindead fodder, even if their efforts miss the bull’s eye by a mile. Soon there will be the first “found footage” horror movie made in Pakistan to hit theatres, and even if it’s a total misfire, at least it’s a step towards diversification of our output, something sorely needed. The Hotal Team would deserve some credit for attempting something unusual, even if the results were not quite the masterpiece we hoped for. At least for a debutant director, this should prove to be a valuable learning curve, “should” being the keyword here. I like one shot in the movie, though, of the camera panning up a great-looking tree. The shot lasted about 3 seconds and was unconnected to events otherwise. Symbolic of the film, in general. Inexplicable.