Dear Sameer Tahir,
the fight scene at the start of Kali was very impressive. It was very imagistic and quite well edited with visuals of the angry cat interwoven into the fight sequence. I liked the way you used the close ups of Vinayakan's face to emphasize the ugliness of violence. The film started with a bang.
But it soon slipped into mediocrity because the character study of Dulqer Salman's short-tempered and misanthropic character was a failure. In the film's first half, we are fed too many scenes underlining his short temperedness. But there is nothing about his world view. Is he a misanthrope? Does he hate the human race (his reaction to Soubin Sahir's character and customers at his workplace indicated that people irritated him)? Or is it something that happened in his childhood (there was only a brief flashback of him being bullied as a kid)? Nothing. It was a great opportunity to say something about the state of humanity and enforced relationships at the work place.
Frankly Sameer, I was ready to go to sleep because the scenes from the banal middle class life of the protagonist and his wife were completely unimaginative. The scenes came across as ones that would be written for the sort of movie that Jayaram would act in.
But the well shot truck chase scene just before the interval woke me up. The next thirty minutes with the encounter at the roadside food stall were riveting. The second half of the film was clearly better than the rather dull first half.
The two villains - Chemban Vinod Jose and Vinayakan were terrific. Chemban must be one of the best actor's working in Malayalam cinema at the moment. Dulqer Salman's performance was respectable. Him and Nivin Pauly have improved so much in their last few films. Sai Pallavi was above average. You could have been more discreet with the use of background score. Sometimes, silences help a lot.
Best Regards, Pimpin.
(6/10)
the fight scene at the start of Kali was very impressive. It was very imagistic and quite well edited with visuals of the angry cat interwoven into the fight sequence. I liked the way you used the close ups of Vinayakan's face to emphasize the ugliness of violence. The film started with a bang.
But it soon slipped into mediocrity because the character study of Dulqer Salman's short-tempered and misanthropic character was a failure. In the film's first half, we are fed too many scenes underlining his short temperedness. But there is nothing about his world view. Is he a misanthrope? Does he hate the human race (his reaction to Soubin Sahir's character and customers at his workplace indicated that people irritated him)? Or is it something that happened in his childhood (there was only a brief flashback of him being bullied as a kid)? Nothing. It was a great opportunity to say something about the state of humanity and enforced relationships at the work place.
Frankly Sameer, I was ready to go to sleep because the scenes from the banal middle class life of the protagonist and his wife were completely unimaginative. The scenes came across as ones that would be written for the sort of movie that Jayaram would act in.
But the well shot truck chase scene just before the interval woke me up. The next thirty minutes with the encounter at the roadside food stall were riveting. The second half of the film was clearly better than the rather dull first half.
The two villains - Chemban Vinod Jose and Vinayakan were terrific. Chemban must be one of the best actor's working in Malayalam cinema at the moment. Dulqer Salman's performance was respectable. Him and Nivin Pauly have improved so much in their last few films. Sai Pallavi was above average. You could have been more discreet with the use of background score. Sometimes, silences help a lot.
Best Regards, Pimpin.
(6/10)