Review by Vinoo
Language : Malayalam / Tamil / Hindi
Director : Dr.Biju
‘Veetilekkulla Vazhi’ is a simple film on terrorism and the futility of it all. A doctor working in a prison hospital gets a strange request from a woman just before she breathes her last : to take her five-year-old son to his father. The father’s name seems to evoke memories in the doctor but he agrees to take the kid to his father. It is revealed in the course of the film that the doctor lost his wife and son in a bomb explosion that was master-minded by none other than the man he is seeking to re-unite the kid with. It soon becomes obvious that there is more to his taking the kid to his father than just a humanitarian reason. The journey takes the doctor and kid through various places in the country (Ajmer, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Pushkar, Ladakh, Trivandrum, New Delhi etc but some of the locales are wasted) before the terrorist network makes it possible for the doctor to hand over the kid to his father. The climax is indeed brilliant. The film has no histrionics and is a simple story, well told. The tight editing (Edited by FTII graduate Manoj Kannoth who won this years National Award for the Best Editing for ‘Stations’) makes it a very watch-able film but a bit of the journey and maybe couple of interactions and one of the Rajasthani songs could have been avoided. There were a few other minor issues I had with the film, like the clichéd airplane shots and the sugar-coated kid and everyone praising the doctor on his kind gesture etc. Some of the dialogues are well written. ‘There is no right and wrong. What you do, you think is right, and what he does, he thinks is right’. The film has good performances from Prithviraj, Indrajit, Master Govindhan (the kid) and rest of the cast. Hats off to Prithviraj for taking up a role like this one. The ‘non-mallu-accented’ Hindi comes as a pleasant surprise in this film. The subtitling could have been better.
Other films by Dr.Biju, a Homoeopathic Medical Graduate and a self-taught film-maker, include ‘Saira’ and ‘Raman’.
Also revisited Shaji N Karun’s brilliant ‘Kuttisraank’. Meena Kumari Perera as Kali is a real find, and Mammooty, Siddique, Padmapriya, Sai Kumar, Suresh Krishna, Kamalinee and the rest of the cast are simply brilliant. Mammooty lost out to Amitabh Bachan i gather. Maybe someone can confirm this for me. I quite liked the retro feel to the music right through, particularly so in the theatre sequences.
Watched ‘Elektra’ at IFFK. The film is based on Electra and her obsession for her father, an aspect not captured well enough I thought. Nayantara as Elektra takes the cake and I must say Manisha Koirala is brilliant casting. Hats off to Shyamaprasad for taking on a bold script but I felt he capitulated in tailoring it to our audience and doesn’t go all out. Prakash Raj and Biju Menon are wasted and I felt their characterization was a bit weak. I haven’t seen a crowd like this at IFFK this year for any other film. You had to see it to believe it. Other films by him include an eminently forgettable, the Director will agree, ‘Kallukondoru Pennu’. I quite liked his ‘Akale’ and ‘Ore Kadal’ while I thought ‘Agnisakshi’ and ‘Rithu’ was average. Yet to watch his ‘Kerala Café’. Hope ‘Elektra’ gets a good reception on its release. The film sure makes me want to re-visit ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’. Thanks for that.
Useless trivia : ‘Veetilekkulla Vazhi’ is Dr.Biju’s third film and has won the Netpac Award for the Best Malayalam Film at IFFK*, Trivandrum, but is still awaiting a distributor. I sure hope the film gets a release. A mention for Producer B.C.Joshi for his outburst for the sad state of affairs of films like this one which don’t find favour with the distributors.
I didn’t quite enjoy the films at this years IFFK as much as last years. There was no surprise like ‘About Elly’ this year. ‘Black Heaven’, ‘Wine’, ‘Five hours to Paris’ (my favourite), ‘Buried secrets’, ‘The light thief’ etc were interesting. I missed ‘In a better world’ and ‘Portraits in a sea of lies’. It was good to catch Miguel Littin’s (who visited IFFK couple of years back) ‘Dawson Isla 10’ and hats off to IFFK for getting Werner Herzog to the fest.
It is high time someone shook up the Malayalam film scene and got it back to its past glory. All that most film-makers seek, is a release. Another reason why Malayalam films are in a pathetic state, besides the unions involved, is the default representation at film festivals, even for very average films. We should stop awarding Directors for past glory and start taking them on the merit of their last / current film.
* The entire list of awards at this years IFFK http://iffk.in/
Here is wishing all of you Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year and a year ahead with lot more fab films.
Leave a Reply