The Underbug review: Ali Fazal delivers a career-best performance in politically-charged psychological horror

Almost half a decade since the forty-second amendment of the Indian Constitution asserted secularism to be a fundamental reality of the country’s fabric, the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is working overtime to erase any semblance of Muslim identity. In the last couple of years, the right-wing ruling party has systematically turned the country into sites of political assaults against its Muslim population, deploying brutal machinations in its bid to rewrite India as a Hindu state. To be Muslim in India today is to be excluded — from citizenship, from memory, and most importantly, from accessing a life of dignity.

In The Underbug, director Shujaat Saudagar sensationally chronicles this perilous state of Indian society, which he argues is fuelled so much by hatred that it will soon find itself on the brink of irreparable decay. Premiering at the 2023 edition of the Slamdance Film Festival, the atmospheric film (filmmaker Shaunak Sen of the Oscar-shortlisted All That Breathes serves as executive producer) is an achievement of remarkable proportions, at once a tightly-wound chamber drama, a masterful psychological thriller, a nerve-wracking body-horror, and a minutely-observed character study. That Saudagar, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hussain Dalal and Abbas Dalal, does complete justice to the film’s multiple tonal shifts in under 70 minutes, is no mean feat. If anything, it’s the kind of economical filmmaking that is considered the hallmark of independent storytelling.

The Underbug opens on the eve of India’s Independence day. A spate of deadly communal riots has gripped the country, leaving the government with no option but to impose a nation-wide curfew. It’s against this backdrop that we first see the silhouette of a man (a sincere Hussain Dalal) — his white shirt stained with blood — limping across a forest. The camera follows him as he heads in the direction of a house. He enters it cautiously and inspects every room closely, as if surprised to find them totally abandoned.

Inside, we start noticing ominous signs: the man moves around in the dark, seemingly fearful of drawing attention to himself, the floors are bloody, a tattered doll lies on the ground, and the messy nature of the bedroom seems to suggest that its inhabitants might have been rudely interrupted not too long ago. In fact, a shot of Dalal blankly staring at a wall stacked with family portraits almost confirms our suspicion: that this is a man whose life — and home — will now be forever haunted by the horrors of hatred.

Except right then, Saudagar reveals the film’s first ruse. Our reading of the narrative tilts when another injured stranger (Ali Fazal) forces his way inside the house. The interactions between both these men — tense and defensive — slowly pull the rug away from under our feet. Everything is not as it seemed. Which is to say that the man we assumed was the only family member to have escaped a violent end is really an intruder. Suddenly, one of the first questions that he asked the stranger — “Hindu or Muslim?” — feels heavy with imputation. Is it a display of bigotry or is he just trying to gauge the threat to his own life? More importantly, what if the purpose of Saudagar’s film is to play with the viewer’s perception?

Take for instance, the fact that Saudagar and his co-writers never spell out the identities of their two leads, heightening the air of mystery and tension even as we watch them continue to size each other up, mistrust visible on their respective faces. What we make of both these unnamed characters depends entirely on the assumption we make of their religion: Hindu or Muslim; oppressor or oppressed? In that sense, the closest the film’s writers come to telling us something about these men is the questions they ask of each other while sharing a meal.

On the dining table is a leftover lamb biryani. “Do you eat lamb?,” one man asks. “Everyone eats it,” another replies, the heaviness of the question immediately disappearing into thin air. Then, midway through the meal, one of them confesses to always pairing their biryani with raita (yoghurt tempered with tangy spices), prompting the other to admit that he would’ve liked a helping of pickles. “Who eats biryani with pickles?,” one man asks. “We do,” the other replies. Despite the scene’s efficient construction, it is ultimately an indictment — not just of the thorny politics of meat-eating in India but also of the degree of discrimination prevalent in modern India. “In the war of hate, Hindus are vegetables and Muslims have become the scapegoats,” Fazal’s character says at one point.

It helps that the writing is restrained and considerate, resisting the urge to reduce anger to melodrama, especially when the narrative leans toward the supernatural. The time-period of the film’s setting is no coincidence: August 14th is after all, the day that laid the origins of the Hindu-Muslim divide. Even the small ways in which the writers escalate the plot with disjointed fragments of information seems less like a gimmick and more like a narrative device intended to interrogate the systemic demolition of Muslim lives. Still, Saudagar’s portrait of a polluted country feels that much more rewarding given that working with his collaborators, he succeeds in making their gambles look like a touch of genius. Take for instance, the film’s minimalism, which could have devolved into monotony in lesser hands (after all, this is a film that revolves around two characters talking to each other in one location). But here, the spare structure adds a sense of foreboding to the proceedings. The richly detailed production design and immersive nature of the edit is as much responsible for creating this mood as much as the choice of cinematographer.

Tassaduq Hussain — arguably one of Hindi cinema’s most compelling image-makers — shoots the film in lingering closeups and hallucinatory long takes, employing a sleight of hand capable of turning fever dreams into endless nightmares at the blink of an eye. The shaky camera brings a haunted quality to the film’s spatial geography, making it appear both imposing and threatening. Much of the film is shot in total darkness, which Hussain’s keen eye interprets as an elegy for a society’s conscience.

Similarly, The Underbug wouldn’t have succeeded in breathlessly throwing viewers deep inside the recesses of a deranged mind wounded by hate if not for Ali Fazal’s committed, agonizing performance. There’s no other filmmaker who has utilized Fazal’s feral-like quality on screen as effectively as Shaudagar has in The Underbug, drawing out a career-defining performance from him. Fazal’s physically alert turn (Fazal’s manic rendition of the climactic monologue is worth the price of admission alone) — simultaneously volatile and commanding — makes the film vividly illustrating the metaphor in the film’s title.

In many ways, the politics of The Underbug feels informed by the identity of its makers. I don’t necessarily mean it in an autobiographical sense — just that their involvement reinforces the vitality of Muslim voices in the current climate of our country.

Poulomi Das is a film and culture writer, critic, and programmer. Follow more of her writing on Twitter.

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