Monday 18 July 2011

Chaappa Kurishu

2011 by Sameer Tahir

Some people seem to come to movies to talk with their friends. Something which is getting to an abyssmal state now that it is almost impossible to concentrate while watching a movie. People talking between themselves, answering mobile phones and people who make comments on what is on the screen, there are too much of distractions these days, while in a movie hall. Really difficult. Well, for this movie, it was interesting because the two guys behind me were talking about their film review website. For every 10 minutes of the movie, they were making a comment about the movie, as if they were typing it down on a notepad or memorizing it. Anyways, I got to listen to something, which I was afraid for long about many movie reviewers. Most Malayalam movie reviewers always keep saying the Cinematography was perfect for the movie and wonderful when there are lot of shakes or steady cam movements or even a lot of panoramic shots of Keralan green. The guys at my back kept on saying the photography was only ordinary and disappointing. So what I wondered is almost right. Because one department in which this movie excelled, for me, was its camera work. Of course, there are no shaky cameras or any gimmicks with the camera, nor are there any greenery or sunset shots, which will make anybody rave about the cameraman. But it is an excellent camera work which is supposed to give the script, director and the other crew just the required support. And if I am not wrong (read this somewhere), the movie was shot in a Canon EOS 7D dslr. It should be termed brilliant then.

Arjun represents a strata of Indian society who forms an ultra small percentage of our population, a real estate whiz man, and Ansari, working in a super market, the other majority spectrum of the Indian population. Arjun shoots some intimate moments of his with his Office assistant, who had mistaken his interest as love, using his iphone, but then lose the phone. Ansari gets this phone and for weird and unknown reasons play some pranks with Arjun. Like always, in between, this video clip is leaked and is posted on the net and Arjun seeks revenge. 

Arjun is everything about the modern day Indian who represents the Indian super nation. He is to get married soon, but carries on his affair with his office assistant, not even mentioning to her about the probable marriage, and is always on the look out for flesh and money. But the way he treats the situation, when he lose the phone, and also his affair is quite pathetic and takes away a lot of sheen of his character. Likewise, Ansari is quite poor, but when he gets this new phone his character acts strange, by either not selling for money or use it for himself, but by playing pranks with Arjun, in the name of giving the phone back. There is no credible explanation of Ansari's behaviour here and all looks quite strange. He seem to like a colleague in the super market, but gets weird even with her after receiving the phone. He gives a stupid reason to her for not giving the phone back, but acts opposite through out. Sonia, Arjun's affair girl, looks quite modern until she comes to know about the marriage of Arjun. Had she slapped him on the face and boldly walked out it would have been better. Instead she falls into the cliche of how exactly our females are to behave when being deceived.

I thought, there was a good plot here (there are blames that this plot is from some Korean movie), and the treatment is also almost good. But the script falters in how it treats the characters and also in its length. Had this been told in an hour, this movie would have been very different. But there are some very good points too. The final action between Arjun and Ansari was quite good. Performances of almost all actors were good, even though I found Vineeth Srinivasan, as Ansari, quite a mis cast for the role. We are yet to learn from Tamil movie makers in this. Anyways, Fahad Fazil, as Arjun, has given his best performance to date. So did Ramya Nambeesan as Sonia. The girl who played Nafeeza, the friend of Ansari at the super market, also has some good charm. It is funny that all characters in our movies will always have a love interest. When will we see an ordinary character, like Ansari, without a girl friend. In real life, most ordinary boys and men are craving for some kind of a girl friend, but they cant.

Scene by scene, the director does shows promise. I couldnt help thinking that he might be influenced by the style of Kim Ki Duk, the way he used his characters, especially Ansari. And with a better script, he must be able to give a better show, I hope. I am just worried if Malayalam too is going the path of Bollywood, where we are looking at too many English dialogues and terms in a Malayalam movie. Of course, there is a strata of society in India, who are ultra rich and is more western looking than Indian, talking in English even with a new born baby, and will use all the terms from a Hollywood movie. But, to my experience, these people might be only like less than 0.01 % of Indian population. Some body from this spectrum, always prominently occupying our movie scripts, is quite weird.

Another thought too, because of the movie. There are so many bad news these days because of mobile phone videos. People are free to decide their sex partners or affairs or whatever, as long as there is a consent from both the man and the girl. Fine, but then why do they have to shoot their intimate moments on video? And sadly, why do our girls always permit their partner to shoot these moments? And why the hell do these male cameraman 'bastards' dont keep these videos for their private viewing only rather than sending it to their friends and friends friends? Why are these 'ultra bastard' friends, so intent on forwarding such videos over the internet and phone messages, what hell of a pleasure are they getting  through this? Actually it is these friends, who keeps forwarding such mails and messages, who should be bought to law. Even if this might sound draconian, I think the penis of all such bastards, who shoot their own partner and then leak it and the friends who keep forwarding it, should be severed.