Picture this if you will: A murder mystery where you (the audience) are actively involved in guessing who the murderer is. SMS your replies to a number given while the film is being screened, before the mystery is solved and you might just walk out of the theatre with a prize.Easier said than done? Well, we'd like to believe so. We spoke to new filmmaker, Sareesh Sudhakaran, who debuts as a producer and director with his film titled The Impossible Murder. The film employs the marketing tool mentioned earlier.
So what's the film about? Says Sareesh, "It's a murder mystery that clocks in at 81 minutes. An old woman is killed in her bedroom. There are five witnesses who are standing outside the door and when they break in to help her, there is no sign of the murderer or the murder weapon.
This makes it appear as an impossible murder, and the entire story revolves around the detective piecing together the clues and arriving at the solution to the crime three years after it was committed."
The film, due to release in the first or second week of June, will test the waters in select theatres in the Mumbai and Pune territories.
Sareesh is upbeat about his subject matter, even though whodunits have a short shelf life (what with people leaking out the suspense). He says, "Even though all the facts and situations are provided beforehand, the mystery is unsolvable.
Further-more, even after the ending is revealed, no one will be able to discover a flaw in the reasoning of the puzzle. Even if somebody watches a film, they'll go in trying to find a flaw, almost like we're challenging them to." He further claims that no one will be able to find loopholes in the film.
He informs that the audience will receive live feedback on their SMS responses. Five such interactions can take place during the film.
The film was made with individual funding over two years. The film's lead pair is a relatively new cast: Tarun Singh Negi (who plays the lead in the stage version of The Alchemist) and Swati Shetty, a newcomer.