Pity

If your proximity with someone who’s fuel to move forward is the pitying sympathy he or she gets from others is close, then Pity will be that extremely understandable dark comedy. I know a lot of such people and personally, I felt this was the harshest way to show them their fundamental flaw.

So an advocate is our main protagonist. At the beginning of the film, this man is in a very difficult personal space. His dear wife is in a coma and everyone who sees him regularly is empathetic towards him. The movie shows us how this empathy has become his oxygen in a dark comedy style.

What I loved about the movie Pity is the way they gave importance to the nuances of the character behavior. The pacing of the movie is extremely slow and even the frames are frozen. Symmetrically framed visuals and the duration of each frame sort of subconsciously makes you think about the character and his emotional permutations. Post the midway point the black comedy in the narrative starts to roar and even though it might look slightly caricaturish, I personally felt that it was arguably the best way to critique such a depressing behavior.

The actor who plays the role of the advocate, Yannis Drakopoulos offers us a hilarious experience in exploring this peculiar character. The nervousness and the disciplined lifestyle of this pessimist were portrayed fabulously by him. He sort of toned down his performance at some areas to make it look less like a Mr. Bean. The movie is pretty much a character-centric one and the scope is minimal for others to make any phenomenal contribution.

Post the midpoint of the movie, we sense the satirical aspect of the screenplay. Director Babis Makridis has managed to find pessimism in everything the character does. And my personal favorite one was the breast cancer speculation which sort of showed us his obsession for sadness. There is an ongoing case for this advocate. And towards the end, it blends with the story and I would say the way it was incorporated into the script could well be a wakeup call to people who subscribe to such a plan of living. The cinematography uses static symmetrical frames with shapes evident in them. And it sort of reflects the central character and even the pacing of the edits are also is in sync with his lifestyle. The usage of the Oprah style background score also made sense.

I had a good laugh seeing Pity and it was also a very satisfying experience as it addressed a very emotional state in a satirical and yet hard-hitting way. You might need a little bit of patience to get through the initial phase of the film, but what happens post that will surely give you the experience of watching a classy black comedy.