Shawshank Redemption

A very mature movie.A very american movie with the self-help kind of elements.Designed to inspire.Well executed.

  Cinematically , very mature direction.I don't even know who the director is but he definitely has to be atleast 50 years old at the time of direction.A very interesting and subtle plot.Inspiring protagonist.

   The man is in jail for something he has not done.He is a well educated banker.He uses his education very well in an environment so unlikely.It is beautiful how he builds up the group in the jail.His quite effectiveness is impressive.How he changes the lives of people around him.He maintains his freedom and hope in such hostile conditions.

     Camera movements were excellent.Beautiful slow closeups expressing a lot.Nicely woven story

Immmaathiri serious reviews is not my cup of tea.So much of thought drives out the feelings.Write free.. I say to myself.. This movie is atypical.I liked the protagonist for his mature and singular approach towards his predicament.Impressive intelligence and calm.Of course , the self help elements were there and pretty engineered.I would not be surprised if the director had some minestorial background.In some dimensions , the movie struck a chord with the Alchemist.

    The sequence where the protagonist tells Morgan Freeman to look under the glass black volcanic rock to find you dont know what and how Morgan finds it to be a letter and all that.Fably.Very fably.I am not complaining , just observing.

      The slow controlled pace of the movie was another charm of the movie.So slow and potentially boring but you are left asking for more.You want one more  piece of insight in the next corner of the shoot.

      

Movie Magic

Today morning , I watched "Red" by Kieslowski yet another time and the pleasant nostalgia of the times when I used to sink myself in beautiful masterpieces came back to me.It is not that you understand everything about these movies.You might not even not understand some of the key portions of the plot.But you are left with a deep impression.The movies kindle your inner being.

You can feel an inner light, an inner awakening that is beyond words.

           Any masterpiece is like a beautiful drive through a created world.

Thoovanathumbikal

 This is one movie that touches you real deep.You just love the man for his sincerity , for his trueness.Not just Lal , Parvathi and Sumalatha are all people you can identify with and also like.You like these people.The predicaments they are in , the interesting and realistic ways the story unfolds

    Let me be honest.Inspite of having seen this movie fully atleast 15 times by now , I am short of words.I am unable to put my finger on why I like this movie so much.Of course , the mesmerising music is still as much a part of my life as the memories of the movie.I have the background score in my car stereo that I listen to whenever I am in the need for some soothing caress.It is almost like looking at your own old school album.That is the win of this movie.It is a part of me as it is to countless other Keralites.

     There is a spirit of adventure and dare that would impress the youth.Everyone is adventurous.Making bold decisions on how to steer their own lives.May not be the most mature decisions , may not be the 'right' decisions but each of them follow their own heart and do what they want done.And you like them.You understand them.You feel their anguish.You feel the love they feel , you feel the pain they feel.

      Udakappola , the novel the movie is inspired from is many dimensions above the movie and that might actually be one reason why I have sort of lost a little bit of the blind admiration that I had for this movie.It presents so so so much more.Padmarajan  has definitely see a lot in life.His detailed presentation of life unfolds so clearly in front of your eyes that I can still visualise some of the stories that I had read a year or so back.I have to but note that I might have started on the dipping end of the bell curve.

Samaandharangal

Movie by Balachandra Menon

I got to see the movie as part of Saturday late night art movie screening. This movie stands apart from other Balachandra Menon movies.Samadharangal means Equidistances.Set in the background of railway tracks which are amazingly omnipresent across our country and where the tracks never meet and never come closer nor move away.It is pretty amazing that man has been able to lay so many millions of kilometers of rail track keeping to the equidistance dogma.

     The movie is about a big family with many lives running in parallel maintaining their equidistance.There is a bondage in the relationships which forces them not to move further away and there is a selfishness that prevents them from getting closer to each other.We have an idealist well acting Balachandra Menon as the father who cannot concede to his elder son's demands for a nest egg of 10K to establish his own independence on the ground that the son had not studied well when given the opportunity.There is the distance between Balachandra Menon and his wife where the idealist professional cum home-in-charge does not appreciate the day-to-day troubles of poverty that his wife is undergoing to the necessary extent.Balachandra Menon's mother and wife need to work to keep Menon to themselves forcing a distance between them.Conflicting interests with a need for a larger heart to embrace others.The kids who cannot appreciate the grandmother and ask ' Why does Grandma need Roti .. she does not go to school'. The distance between the daughter of Menon's first wife and Menon's current wife.

        There is also the separation between organizations.The political party leader who gets a commitment from the eldest son that Party would be all-in-all and family would have no importance.Most of the actors have done good work and Menon has done a good job with good amount of home work.His attempt has clearly been to make an award film par excellence.But this is where some of the short comings in the film brings out the excellence that other masters like Adoor , Aravindan have displayed. There were many points in the film where the lighting was not natural enough and you see looming distracting shadows.

       Menon has tried to blend many social insights into the movie.He has done to a much more subtle extent than say a Sathyan Andhikad movie where in you have an elderly actor providing gospel service to the protagonist as well as to the audience.

   On the whole , a satisfying movie.The climax was also well taken.With so many tracks in the movie , blending has been very natural.Climax while striking again blended in leaving many open ends but with completion.Menon  has used one song near end of the movie cleverly where he closes many open issues through quick easy sequences closing many of the threads that had been open just before the song.Sukumari has done excellent acting as Menon's mother.

Movie by Balachandra Menon