Monday, August 24, 2009

Puthiya Mukham, puthiya bore

Phew! Saw Puthiya Mukham. Got a headache watching the terrible angles of the camera. Wide angle shots for every frame almost does not exactly calm you. Wonder why this love for wide angle shots. It looked like a camera was placed at the disposal of this chap and he went berserk! And then I thought whether it was the Malayalam version of Crouching Tiger Hidden Lion.
The story is strange, stranger still its execution. Prithviraj has had to deal with a bad script, but he has tried to redeem the movie, but in vain. Meera Nandan is quite plumpy and therefore has lost the lovely shape of her face.
Priyamony has oomph and despite the bad role, brought some freshness to the movie, though she cannot dance to save her life.
Bala looks merely like a thug and does not rise above that. Two songs are good, the one by KK and the title song, okay.
What stands out like a sore thumb is the camerawork. Diphan, the director needs to apprentice with a good director for some more time. Hard earned money gone down the drain, and worse luck, all that time, my God!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Malayalam movie, Ritu

Saw Malayalam movie, Ritu. Wonderful movie, very topical, very moving and excellent casting, with the kind of cinematography that is true to the story. DOP is Shamdat, great guy with a lot of enthu. The story is king here and Joshua Newtonn needs to be congratulated for that.
What I really loved about the movie was that the emotional content is high without diluting the presentation. It's as close trealism as is possible without killing the entertainment value, that's something director Shyamaprasad can be proud of. It was filmed within 26 days on an enviable budget of under one crore rupees, if reports are to be believed.
K.Govindankutty, veteran journalist plays an important role with great elan. Who knew he had it in him. I knew him as a good writer, knowledgeable editor, eloquent in both English and Malayalam..but acting.. it WAS surprise.
Rima Kallinkal is the next big thing in Malayalam cinema, but she will definitely migrate to Tamil Telugu or even Hindi for she has that international kind of face, with make up and it's obvious she is ready to wear anything with a good figure and is not wary of doing intimate scenes, if the script demands it. She said in her first interview in The Hindu that she is out here to make money too. This lady will certainly go places. The male lead Nishan is a non Malayali and apparently wrote his lines in Hindi to have proper lip movements. He did his role very well, without going overboard. That's a difficult thing to do, for a beginner. The other important character called Sunny in the film had a tougher job to carry out and came out fine. Even the smallest character had a role that could not be called unwanted and each one did well. That is Shyamaprasad's victory. Ritu is stylish, it has content and it's a movie that all generations MUST see, to realise that time does things to people, including yourself , that time never stands still, that nostalgia is not all that should guide your life, but vlues hold, nevertheless. I would give it 80 marks out of 100.