Really.
Been ages since I’ve given even a thought about posting in here. True, I used to visit some blogs now and then, yeah mostly the same old ones – Random Thoughts, Passing Clouds, Vyazz Sez, Awakening, Dried Pages, Salman’s, many random others (too many to list out), wagera wagera, just for the hell of it. But never gave a thought about posting in my pathetic blog. I mean, not that there are actually people on tenterhooks to see my post or anything.
I’m just bragging. And another thing is, reading such wonderful blogs doesn’t help much either. In the sense you feel yourself comparing to them and feeling stupid and all. etc etc.
Basically what I meant to say was that I was non-existent for some time, here I am again, trying to prove a point, something like that I’m alive.
I had waited a little more than two weeks to see the film with a normal audience, I mean, for the fan buzz to get over. Anyways, the theatre was packed to capacity, quite contrary to what I expected on a hot Saturday afternoon.
Okay, I watched the movie, and needless to say, I liked it. Very much.
A lot of my pals who saw the film told me that the Tamil actor, Sarath Kumar, who enacted the role of Edachena Kunkan, Pazhassi Raja’s Chief Commandant stole the show from him. I don’t know why there was this sentiment, because Mammootty as Pazhassi Raja was nothing short of brilliant too. It was relieving to see that Pazhassi was portrayed just naturally – in the sense there was no super-human traits that I expected to see. Well, there was the part when he takes down a dozen or more of the enemy soldiers all by himself, but at that moment I didn’t notice the slight unrealism of it because I personally wanted to avenge the death of Thalakkal Chandu at the moment. And there were some good scenes where I think Mammootty’s acting prowess came to the fore – like the one in which when he comes to know of the premature death of his child, and especially the scenes when he is moved by the loyalty shown by his mates to him. The pride, the defiance, the helplessness, it was all there. (You wont believe it’s the same actor who had just did some mindless comic capers, flew around as an elf, ) The ensemble cast worked well too. Performances deserving special mention were those of the characters such as Edachena Kunkan, the resolute, tough army-chief with his touching and unwavering loyalty to his King, Thalakkal Chandu, the staunch and loyal tribal warrior with his heroics, Kaitheri Ambu, another of Pazhassi’s commandants, Neeli - with the tribal lingo and all, as well as her own share of heroics too. They shared most of the applause between themselves. Talking of performances, personally, I think that the English crew looked stupid - in particular, the Assistant Collector guy. He had that under-severe-constipation-attack expression throughout his role. The only times I think I remember Mr. Grumpy Face with a significantly different expression were in a couple of scenes - interestingly, both scenes had one common factor – liquor. First one when he is having the late night drink party with the traitors and when he is bribing the tribal chief with the gold bangle and the whisky bottle - He actually laughed then.
But the highlight of the film according to me, apart from the performances, was the sound. You’ve got to give it to this man who’ve worked behind the sound – the Academy Award winning Resul Pookkutty. Before this guy won an Oscar for it, many of us didn’t even acknowledge there was a department called Sound Design in the making of a film. What we passed off as ‘noise’ is now actually being listened to as the ‘sound’ of the movie.
Sound-wise, there was attention to every fine detail and that added lots to the new realistic feel - the brandishing of a knife, the ‘boom boom’ of the gunshots, the locking of swords, bow and arrow (even the stretching of the bow), the swish of the sword, the horses’ hooves, the marching of soldiers, the rustle of leaves in the forest, even the spilling of blood on ground, Pazhassi’s final breath etc etc. But what I happened to notice was that the sounds were not just picked up and amplified well for us to hear, but they were used cleverly and aesthetically. For instance, in the first war scene, when Neeli gets injured, her fiancée, Thalakkal Chandu rushes to her rescue. At this point, all other sounds were made to sound like from somewhere distant, and the sound from them was prominent. This was somethingI found artistic, since at the particular juncture, the audience themselves are interested mainly about what happens to them. Which only shows a good sound design is also about knowing when to use your silences.
And then there were some beautiful frames throughout the movie. Some looked like they were taken straight out of a wallpaper or something. Like the one in which Pazhassi performs his ablutions in the lake with his horse idling on the grass, the first war sequence, the reflections in water, the beach scene in which Edachena Kunkan is approaching on his horse, the frame in which Pazhassi watches the British camp on fire with the full moon in background, the one in which Pazhassi is heading for his final encounter, with the mountains as the backdrop, Thalakkal Chandu spitting in the face of the traitor, etc etc.
This was a movie whose plot gave a lot of scope for dialogues. Thankfully, I felt that none of it was overdone. And there were some pretty good ones too.
My picks would be the one in which Pazhassi reprimands his nephews when they get emotional by saying, “Cry if you may, not for me, but for this unfortunate land..”, again something from the same scene, in his last redoubt, “There is a shadow that’s with us from the day we’re born. One fine day, it comes in front of us and faces us- that’s death”, “No, I wont kill you, lest the spilling of your blood may make my soil impure” etc.
The songs were okay, but I liked the background music more, especially the ones of the sort we hear in Hollywood movies – with the Orchestra and all. Special ones for me would be the background music when they show Pazhassi appears for the first time, the one when they show Pazhassi’s throne, the whole of it in the first war sequence in the forest and so on. The costumes were good too. Another commendable part, say excellent, was the promos and trailers.
On a very personal note, I felt they could have taken the film on an even larger scale, in the sense, take for instance the case of Pazhassi’s Fort and his army. When you say fort, you wont imagine just a big house, isn’t it? And when we say army, we do expect something greater in number than a 1000 soldiers, but in this case too, the army was shown as just a group of 400-500 men at most. Perhaps this was the case historically, but still, I feel they could have made it on a greater scale. Okay, I do understand that there is a limitation on the budget for a Malayalam film - But still…
A friend of mine, on being asked upon his review, had told me, “Well, its no Troy, or Braveheart, or Gladiator, but still, ok”. The guy went to see a Malayalam movie, and expected a Troy – this is not fair. You need to see the plethora of other contemporary crap that they call cinema and feed you to really appreciate this one. I don’t go and see every mallu movie released, and I am not a serious movie buff either, so I cannot say with authenticity, but still I hope that the well-wisher of good cinema here will agree with me if I say that 95% of the stuff that they churn out are nothing but CRAP. I am not trying to sound condescending or arrogant, or as my friend did, comparing our industry to Hollywood or anything, I am just saying what I honestly feel.
I liked Pazhassi Raja, because it was, well, a good movie, a decent, sincere and bold effort.
Because it adopted standards and ventured into territories new to Malayalam cinema scene.
Bravo!
Highly recommended.
P.S:
It was about fighting the British for our motherland and all, and I must say it rekindled the patriotic spirit in me, but someone took it a tad too seriously.
And started with a new mode of warfare against the British.
This one’s an American tactic - Cultural attack.
On their language, to start with.
How else do I explain the following hoarding?
- r a m z.
