A super visual delight Musings of a cineaste after the
first day, first show of ‘ Urumi' Prithviraj has a vision, which he
professes at every opportunity,
that he will one day be the
ambassador of Malayalam cinema
and through him Malayalam
cinema will get its due. ‘ Urumi' could well be his first effort in
that direction to fulfil his dream.
Mani Ratnam's ‘ Raavanan' paved the road for him to do it and
here he is, with August Cinema's
‘ Urumi'. August Cinema's CEO is Mallika
Sukumaran, say the credits.
Homage is paid to Sukumaran
before the movie begins as also
to another producer's father,
Nadesan. Sukumaran would certainly have been proud of his
younger son. Santhosh Sivan,
who dons a producer's,
cinematographer's and director's
robes, wears one for far too
long. Guess which robe? The
cinematographer's of course. If
you compare ‘ Ananthabhadram', ‘ Raavanan' and ‘ Urumi', you can see the same pair of eyes
looking through the camera. As to who won the toss, the
director or cameraman in
‘ Urumi', again, the cameraman triumphs! For ‘ Urumi' is eye candy… eye candy..eye candy supreme. Watching the movie in a
multiplex gets you all the
comments, honest and unafraid
ones. The visuals floor you; all
comments are united on that
score. There is the sea from several
offbeat angles, the cave also
lighted by torches with the light
and shade playing, mountains
and village locales, tribal men and
women, animals and birds, namely the Manila duck, a parrot,
horses, cows and buffaloes. The colours are so much in
harmony, earthy and natural
green, and the costumes, few
and classy (close ups are few). In
fact, Prithviraj's costumes, very
few, are natural and suit him. There are just a handful of
scenes in which Prithviraj
Sukumaran does not appear.
Muscles ripple and fight scenes
abound, a la Crouching Tiger
style. Prabhu Deva's is a comic character, the second longest
after Prithviraj's. No, there are
no dance scenes. Genelia D'Souza,
who has the longest female role,
tries her hand at kalaripayattu
and makes bold attempts to look extremely serious about her
persona. But in one of the roles
she plays, (yes, several actors
play double roles, one group in
the past and the same group in
the present) she is very much at home, that of a mentally
deranged girl. Vidya Balan's much
hyped item number is tastefully
captured, except for one or two
crude shots. And Tabu? Your heart bleeds for
the actor, who can hardly be
recognised in that guest
appearance. Nithya Menon is
charming, sexy and cute, in
turns. Jagathy, Arya and a host of small screen actors, who come
in and go off in a few minutes at
the beginning, do well. Deepak
Dev's music is different. Only
snatches of songs are picturised
in some scenes, which go down well with the audience, Sexual innuendos abound in
Shankar Ramakrishnan's
dialogues. More overt than
covert. All in chaste language. How many issues can one film
hold? ‘ Urumi' has environment, history (?), land mafia, love et al.
If you don't take the history
part too seriously, you will enjoy
the movie, thoroughly, like a
lovely fairy tale. But does
anything stay in your heart, post ‘ Urumi'? Prithviraj's flowing costumes did, in mine.
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