Movie Review : Urumi

Based on the history of Vasco de Gama in Kerala, this film builds around some key events of the period and is essentially a revenge drama. The story pretty much follows any Indian movie built around the historical events involving foreigners.

1. Incredibly evil and greedy foreigners commit atrocities on the poor and well meaning Indian population (dog ears grafted on to well meaning Indian envoy and so on).
2. The hero builds a rag tag, ill equipped team that stand up to the foreigners with much dialogue baazi and musical interludes.
3. Pitched battles are fought with this team overcoming superior odds but the hero (and his irritating sidekick) eventually succumb.
4. A point is proved?

Think Kranti, Mangal Pandey, what have you and this is the framework. No different here. The key to making a good movie out of this hackneyed premise is execution. That, this movie does not have.

First off, there is no character development. Everyone in this movie is two dimensional. In fact so little seems to have been done in this department that you come out feeling for Jagathy's role as Chenichery Kurup, for the sheer effort the man brings to playing the part. As far as the lead actor Prithviraj goes, it looks like the director asked him to continue with the expression used to play the possessed character in Ananthabhadram and sleep walk through the role. The bad to average acting is then made worse by the body language adopted by the actors, seemingly with the intention of making the visuals look attractive. Movements and poses are highly exaggerated, almost resembling a dance ballet at times.

Second, the action scenes are so badly choreographed that they are worthy of any B grade movie. The battle scenes consist of extras running onto fields and contorting themselves to strike pseudo-kalari poses. The climax is in a league of its own with this amateurishness lovingly enhanced by the excessive use of slow motion.

Third, the script is very weak. Character development I have already mentioned but the script or screenplay has no narrative fluidity. The narrative has a jerky, contrived feel as though random events are being cobbled together to fill in the time until the final battle.

As far as technical excellence goes, the sets and costumes are pedestrian at best - a pastiche of papier mache and Fabindia fabrics.

The film has excellent photography and is very lush but can you watch random pretty pictures for three hours?

Sitting at a Multiplex in Bangalore, waiting for this movie to end, I began to wonder when the Indian film industry will ever mature. Santosh Sivan is a classic example. An excellent cinematographer by all standards but a director? If you google this film, you will be hard pressed to find a negative review. Most talk of "fantastic performances, technical artistry" and so on. Santosh Sivan the cinematographer is held in so much awe that no one wants to acknowledge that he is not exactly the best of directors. Come award season, and there will be people falling over each other to fete this film. Granted, I have not seen his entire directorial body of work but the three that I have - Ananthabhadram, Ashoka and Urumi are enough for me to conclude.

Urumi - "The boy who wanted to kill Vasco de Gama." The tagline should have warned me that this one is worth a miss.

Considering what Santosh Sivan did to Asoka in 2001, Vasco de Gama would have been turning in his grave as soon as this film was announced.

As an aside, if you want to watch a good Malayalam movie, watch "Pranchiyettan and the Saint." Great movie even though it could have done with a reduction of half an hour of running time with no detrimental effect on the overall outcome.

Rambling : Viva Le Revolution

So, it happened in Egypt. It's happening in Libya and Baharain. Is it a good thing?

Traditionally, every revolution or mass movement had a leader and more or less an ideology. Take Gandhi, take Mandela and many others. What do we have now? Facebook inspired movements that revolve around what people don't want. This is becoming a game of political dominoes in a region that has an impact on the world far greater than their size or consequence as a global power warrants. Oil.

What happens after they get rid of what they don't want? Is there a leader who will come in and provide what is the unstated need? Doesn't look like. The vacuum will probably be filled by people and circumstances that will be driven by other agendas, whether international or otherwise. Will it lead to good, honest governance? Only time will tell but the odds are stacked against it. Cut-and-paste democracy need not necessarily work.

Kid Stuff : Stallions of the Huns

Poetry by my son, Adil. http://newgenerationpoetry.blogspot.com/

Thunders rumble and galaxies tumble,
At the sound of the beating hooves.
The Earth quakes and mountains shake,
Due to the monstrous stare.

Buildings fall, both great and small,
As they race across the sky.
With a mighty roar,
The chieftain gores,
The tribe's true enemy.

For it was them,
Who were left alone,
When fled the spirits,
Of the masters.
And as a blast,
Thunders will pass.
Because of the mighty
stallions of the Huns.

Book Review : The Slayer of Kamsa, Ashok Banker

After the Ramayana Series, Ashok Banker has turned his attention to the tale of Krishna and the first book in what is to be the Krishna Coriolis series is The Slayer of Kamsa. I had recently finished the seventh book in the Ramayana Series, The Vengeance of Ravana and did not think it measured up to the first six. The writing is as fluent as ever but that particular book was conceptually difficult to grasp and hence a difficult read. Having had the same problem with the Gods of War, I was a little apprehensive about this book too. There was too much stuff about vortals, parallel worlds and a grand design in these books that I found a little difficult to relate to, especially considering the linear, simple (in the best possible way, of course) narrative of the earlier Ramayana books.

Thankfully, my fears were unjustified. In the Slayer of Kamsa, Ashok lays the foundation for the entry of Krishna and provides a good start to the proposed series. The book tells the tale of Prince Kamsa and King Vasudeva until the birth of Krishna. The book dwells on the events that lead to the point where Kamsa is driven to try and prevent the birth of his nemesis and the meat of it has to do with the conflict between good and evil as represented by Vasudeva and Kamsa.

A good book but I do not rate it as highly as the Ramayana series in terms of sheer readability. Having said that, it still got over far too quickly for my liking and here I sit, waiting for the next installment or Sons of Sita, whichever is first.

Endnote : I had to look up Coriolis and here is what it means for the uninitiated (taken from Wiki).

In physics, the Coriolis effect is an apparent deflection of moving objects when they are viewed from a rotating reference frame. In a reference frame with clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the left of the motion of the object; in one with anti-clockwise rotation, the deflection is to the right.


Heavy stuff, this; and an apt word when applied to the concept of Dharma.

Book Review : To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

I was waiting for a flight at the Bangalore Airport and was browsing the bookstore when I came upon the 50th Anniversary edition of Harper Lee's classic, To Kill a Mockingbird. I didn't know much about the book except that it was considered an American classic and that a movie was made starring Gregory Peck. I picked it up on impulse, and am I glad I did!

This book won the Pulitzer and the reason is on every page. A story set in the American south and told through the eyes of a little girl, the book deals with very adult topics such as racism, tolerance and the concept of justice in a fashion that drives every point home without making it heavy reading. The narrative unfolds from the viewpoint of Scout, a little girl, and her older brother Jem who come to understand issues related to race when their father defends a black person charged with rape. Their entire view of the episode consists of multiple vignettes that they leads them incrementally to an overall understanding of the situation and the behaviour of the towns folk in terms of attitudes and prejudices, with their upright father providing the moral lightning rod, as it were.

I have never been much of a reader of what would be called "classic" or "award winning" literature but after this and my earlier experience with A House for Mr. Biswas I will be broadening my horizons a bit, that's for sure.

I checked out the Time Top 100 novels  and the only ones I'v read so far are the following.

A House for Mr. Biswas, V S Naipaul
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, C S Lewis
Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

A long way to go, then. The only consolation is, I've seen a lot of movies based on the top 100!