Parking Review: A Dark, Fascinating Trip To The Centre of the Human Ego

Directed by: Ramkumar Balakrishnan

Cast: Harish Kalyan, Indhuja Ravichandran, M.S. Bhaskar, Rama, Prarthana

Runtime: 127 minutes

Available in: Theatres

Ramkumar Balakrishnan’s Parking, is a small film about a small parking space that frays the relationship between two neighbours of varying worldviews and generations. But what do we often say about small packages? True to the adage, good things do come in abundance in Harish Kalayan and MS Bhaskar’s drama. But who said good things necessarily need to be “pleasant”? 

Parking is at its most fascinating when it shifts gears — going from being a fun “spirit of neighbourliness” drama with sprinkles, to a dark pit where a dangerous cocktail of rage and id takes over two men. A parking-space shaped hole badgers any ounce of friendship left between two families and Parking immediately becomes an engrossing study of the human mind. But we’re not talking about bad men here. 

Elamparuthi (MS Bhaskar) is a 60-something reputed government official, who looks at money not very differently from any other typical baby boomer. He believes in incessantly fixing his wife’s mixer jars instead of replacing them, and exhausting his fatigued bike until its last few breaths. So, when Eshwar (Harish Kalyan), a 28-year-old IT guy and his heavily pregnant wife Aathi (Indhuja) move into the house upstairs, and buy a car, parking it right under his nose within a few days of moving in (something that Elamparuthi hasn’t couldn’t  manage in his ten-years of tenancy) differences are inevitably established. In any other film, this generational clash would’ve been a neat comedy of errors and quirks, not unlike Manikandan’s feel-good delight Good Night from earlier this year. Ramkumar, however, pauses and chooses to run the other way. 

So, what we get is an extensive study on not just the human ego, but its fascinating cousin, the ‘Id’. Freud defined ‘Id’ as the impulsive part of our psyche that’s driven by desires and instincts. Elamparuthi and Eshwar, driven each by their bruised ego, do unspeakable things to each other, slowly running loose, unhinged. The director establishes the ridiculousness of the issue in a clever throwaway scene with their landlord (Ilavarasan). “Inime indha chinna vishayathuku laam enna kupdathinga,” he says, storming off, dismissing their rift as a triviality. It is a petty fight if you think about it. But isn’t it always the most inconsequential episode that often crawls into your head and finds a disturbing permanent home?

So, thus begins a race of who is the nastier and by consequence, the smarter generation of the two-storey house. MS Bhaskar and Harish Kalyan give us a brilliant character study of how rage works. When one person is struck down, he has no time to actually pick up the pieces — his face is firm, already planning his next ten steps to take the other down. It’s difficult to pick camps between the two as an audience, because you don’t know which story fascinates you more. Is it the man, who has lost everything by saving and living a miserable life? Or is it another, who is consumed by a destructive rage just as he’s beginning to start a new life? MS Bhaskar quite easily steals the show on more than one occasion. Notice a content Elamparuthi, hate gleaming in his eyes, as he forces Eshwar to take his care off the spot. Or the shame in his eyes in a particularly superb moment involving an old ceiling fan. 

The biggest surprise in the film, however, is how tightly the narrative flows to keep us on the edge of our seats— all just to see who gets to park their vehicle at home on time! Editor Philomin Raj and composer Sam CS do a splendid job of making a “parking space fight” seem like a glorious Roman battle. But in a film that’s mostly about two men locking horns, it’s also the smaller moments that make us think. When MS Bhaskar makes a big purchase without consulting his wife (a superb Rama, who refuses to be a victim of her husband’s inflated ego unlike Aathi), her face contorts and she’s left disgusted, and not happy for a partner who is otherwise always unsatisfied with her husband’s stingy ways. Similarly, the breaking of a car mirror signifies the shattering of the purpose behind the vehicle’s purchase. 

The filmmaker does run out of the same steam that once kept this chaotic car ride going, towards the last act. But despite its lack of know-how, Parking is still a trip worth your time for all the raw discomfort it makes you feel.