K.D. Engira Karuppudurai

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Madhumita’s K.D. Engira Karuppudurai (aka KD) is a delightfully charming film that blends moments of laughter and tears in a simple story that tugs at the heart strings. Mu Ramaswamy is charismatic as an elderly man escaping from his family while his young co-star Naga Vishal is completely captivating as the other half of the unlikely partnership. The story captures their joy in life as the duo wend their way across rural Tamil Nadu, ticking off the items on Karuppu Durai’s bucket list. 

At the start of the film, Karuppu Durai (Mu Ramaswamy) is languishing in a coma while his family are beginning preparations for a wedding celebration. The family decides to deal with the potentially inauspicious event of their father dying during the ceremony by euthanising him, with the added benefit of coming into their inheritance early. It seems fairly drastic, but the rest of the village seem to think this is a reasonable way of dealing with unwanted ancestors and the method appears to be widely known. Luckily for Karuppu Durai, he comes round from his coma in time to overhear their plans, deciding in an instant to run away from home, and sets off with nothing but a hefty torch and a few rupees in his pocket. 

After hitching a ride and travelling on a bus, Karuppu Durai makes it to a small town where he takes shelter in the local temple, also home to a young orphan, the street-wise and smart-mouthed Kutty (Naga Vishal). After getting off to a rather acrimonious start, Kutty decides to christen Karuppu Durai as KD, and the two start to develop a tentative friendship. After hearing of that KD has run away from his family, Kutty persuades him to develop a bucket list of the things he wants to do before he dies and the two set out on a series of small adventures in the local area. At the same time, KD’s family enlist the help of local tracker Eason (Yog Japee) to find their father and bring him home to meet his fate.

One reason the film works so well is the contrast between the elderly KD and the more youthful Kutty. KD is at the end of his life while Kutty is just at the start, but both have been rejected by their families which gives them a common source of pain. KD retreats into himself to reflect on the realisation that his family no longer wants him, while Kutty uses his hurt as a shield against the world. That the two come together is no surprise but it’s how Madhumita takes their differences and build it into the story that makes their relationship come alive. For example, KD loves mutton biriyani. And I mean really loves mutton biriyani! The vegetarian Kutty isn’t impressed, but uses KD’s obvious delight in sucking every last bit of flavour out of the bones as a means of gathering money from the local restaurant as they use KD as a drawcard. You can just see Kutty’s active brain thinking though every situation and working out just how to turn it to his advantage. But at the same time, he makes sure that KD gets to fulfil everything on his wishlist – that Kutty also gets something from it is a benefit, but not the only reason he’s helping his friend.

The other things I love about this film is the sheer joy KD and Kutty have in the simplest of things, which again feels very real and genuine. Their shared excitement watching MGR in the movies or dressing up as Rajini for a local fete is infectious and I can’t help but smile along with them as they enjoy wandering around the stalls. Despite the feel-good factor, the story never feels too schmaltzy or overdone, helped in no small meaure by the genuine performances from Mu Ramaswamy and Naga Vishal. The lurking presence of Eason in the background adds a frisson of tension to the second half of the film, which also helps to keep the story moving along, while the news that Kutty has been offered a place in a school in Chennai adds further layers to the tale. 

Mu Ramaswamy is simply perfect as KD. I love the blend of grumpy old man, a child-like appreciation of the world and the mischievousness that he gives the character. But he truly excels and is magnificent in his portrayal of a man who will do anything for mutton biriyani. He makes the character easy to relate to, while the easy rapport with the young Kutty also feels very genuine. In particular he is excellent at showing the hurt and bafflement that KD feels in response to his family’s rejection while also portraying the joy and delight in achieving the items on his bucket list. It’s a perfect performance and I thoroughly enjoyed every minute. Just as good is Naga Vishal, who takes the role of a smart-mouthed orphan and embues him with street smarts, canniness and an eye for the main chance, but also with compassion, honesty and a genuinely caring heart. He completely convinces with his expressions of wonder when watching Muthu’s (Ganesan Kaliamoorthy) play and wandering around the fete. It’s a really brilliant portrayal and Naga Vishal clearly has a bright future ahead of him – just like his character. 

Yog Japee is suitably menacing as the tracker searching for KD while Badava Gopi has a small role as the temple priest who looks after Kutty and Vijaylakshmi does a good job as KD’s lost sweetheart Valli. Karthikeya Murthy’s music suits the story with plenty of peppy upbeat tunes that perfectly capture the cheer of the film and one sad song that fits just as well. Big thanks to the subtitler (not sure who was responsible) for adding subtitles for the various signs, posters and written words that are important for the plot. The scenery is beautifully shot by Meyyendiran Kempuraj who shows a keen eye for picking up what is important in each scene. I loved each moment in the small villages which are so similar to places I have worked in Tamil Nadu and made me feel rather nostalgic. In fact, there is nothing I didn’t enjoy about this film. It’s a simple story that’s just told exceptionally well. The characters are developed with plenty of depth and real heart and the setting seems perfectly chosen to bring out the most in the story. Add in the warmth and happiness of the relationship between Mu Ramaswamy and Naga Vishal, and you have the ideal mix for a film that leaves you feeling just that little bit better about the world. 5 stars!

Varane Avashyamund

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Anoop Sathyan’s debut film is a slice-of-life romantic comedy that, despite a relatively predictable plot, has plenty of feel-good factor. The story revolves around single mum Neena (Shobana) and her daughter Nikki (Kalyani Priyadarshan), but also dips into the lives of various other residents in their idyllic apartment block in Chennai. With excellent performances from the mostly veteran cast, this is a charming film that’s comforting and just perfect for a cosy afternoon’s entertainment.

Neena and her daughter Nikki live in what appears to be the most harmonious block of apartments ever seen in Indian cinema. The mix of residents all seem happy to help each other out and although the owner’s wife Maami (Meera Krushnan) prefers vegetarian tenants, this seems to be more of a guideline than an enforced rule. Neena and Nikki live on the second floor of the apartment block, having moved to Chennai a few years before. Neena is a single mother who teaches French in Chennai, while Nikki’s main aim in life seems to be to find the perfect partner via a matrimonial service. Despite meeting a number of potential husbands, she is yet to find ‘the one’ but is happily getting on with her life while she continues her search.

Meanwhile, a couple of new tenants move into the block and start to have an impact. First is Major Unnikrishnan aka Major (Suresh Gopi), a retired soldier with alcoholism and anger management issues. His friend Major Athmaram (Major Ravi) convinces him to get help from a local weight management doctor, who also runs a counselling service. Multi-tasking at its best! As the Major gradually begins to come out of his self-imposed isolation, he gradually becomes friends with Neena, even though Nikki disapproves of their developing relationship. Their romance is beautifully handled, and just like real life, it’s hard to say exactly when the friendship begins to turn into something a little deeper. Despite her apparently romantic lifestyle, Neena is incredibly practical and tends to take the world as it comes, accepting people as who they say they are. However, her daughter is much more of a romantic despite her practical approach to the queation of her marriage, and the idea of Neena being involved with the Major threatens to completely derail the relationship Nikki has with her mother.

At the same time, the block is excited by the arrival of Akashavani (K.P.A.C. Lalitha), a TV serial star who moves in with her two ‘nephews’ Bibeesh aka Fraud (Dulquer Salmaan) and Karthik (Arvajith Santosh Sivan). Fraud has his own problems as his relationship with work colleague Wafa (Wafa Khatheeja Rahman) is about to end with her transfer overseas, and he also spends much of his time arguing with his younger brother. There is much to enjoy in their fractious family scenes, while Akashavani’s popularity despite her acerbic personality is a real nod to the lure of celebrity. While all this is going on, Nikki appears to have found the perfect husband in Aby (Rahul Rajasekharan), but it’s really his mother Sherly (Urvashi) with whom she has an ideal relationship, and whom she misses most when the relationship ends.

Shobana and Suresh Gopi are perfectly cast here and it’s so good to see them together again after a long time. Anoop Sathyan doesn’t dwell on the age-aspect of their romance, but rather makes the relationship a natural development as the Major begins to overcome his shyness and Neena reaches out to help. Shobana is simply gorgeous with such energy and passion in her performance that she easily outperforms all the youngsters by miles. Even when she starts to talk about her failed marriage and the domestic violence she endured, her manner is so down-to-earth and realistic that it takes a moment or two for the subject matter to really register. I love the scenes where she dances around her apartment and joins in with a dance lesson on the beach. Just perfect!

Suresh Gopi takes the role of an angry man and exposes his vulnerability with incredible sensitivity and yet with enough comedy to make the Major’s emotional development a real delight to watch. Although some of the scenes are quite serious, they never come across as depressing or over-done. Even a fight scene ends up funny. And throughout it all we can feel the sincerity as the Major tries to overcome his issues. It works because it feels genuine, while the nosiness and interference from the neighbours adds another layer of realism to the plot. Nikki is the central character and her story is woven through with threads of all the other occupants of the apartments. While her relationship with her mother is key, her gradually developing friendship with Fraud is important, but so are the brief exchanges with Maami, Akashavani and the others who live in the apartment block. Kalyani Priyadarshan is fine in the role and is particularly good in the scenes with Urvashi and in the second half as she starts to see her mother in a different light. Dulquer Salmaan is fantastic as always and the rest of the cast are all excellent. Everyone in the story has a small part to play, even the security guard and his family who have to evacuate to the roof when the rains begin. There is a reason for each small vignette and they all serve to build up the picture of this small community and their interlocking lives.

I watched Varane Avashyamund one grey Melbourne afternoon, and it was as warming and cheering as my cup of hot tea and accompanying ginger biscuits. I miss Chennai and India, and this was such a treat to see the city portrayed so well on screen. The story follows a few months in the lives of Neena and Nikki while exploring love and loss, the effects of violence – government sanctioned, street and domestic, relationships of all kinds and the sense of community that can be difficult to find in the world today. There is drama, a social message and plenty more besides, but it’s all done with a light touch and entertainingly, ensuring that Varane Avashyamund is perfect as a feel-good film whenever you need one. 4 stars.

Alidu Ulidavaru

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Arvind Sastry’s Alidu Ulidavaru is a psychological thriller that has some interesting horror overtones that make it a cut above the usual. There are quite a few creepy moments in the first half, but unfortunately the film runs out of steam near the end, and the climax suffers from some dodgy special effects. However, the basic idea is good and the story flows well with some interesting social commentary making Alidu Ulidavaru well worth a watch.

Sheelam (Ashu Bedra) is the host of a TV show called Kaarana that investigates ghost stories. We join him at the start of Case 99 as he is investigating a reportedly haunted guesthouse where a number of people have died. Sheelam is his own researcher and also his own cameraman, and throughout the course of the night he spends in the guesthouse we see him setting up remote cameras and even sending up a drone for some aerial shots. The point he wants to make is that there is no such thing as a ghost, and despite some scary moments, Sheelam is able to debunk the stories and prove every time that there is a human agency behind the reported hauntings.

Sheelam works for TV5, where his boss (B Suresh) is only concerned about ratings and wants to know what he will do for his 100th case – sure to be a hit for the TV station. At the same time, rival network boss Rajeev (Arvind Rau) has been set an ultimatum – improve ratings or lose his job, so he’s out to poach Sheelam to boost his audience numbers. But Sheelam has other problems too. His girlfriend, self-defence instructor Amrita (Sangeetha Bhat) wants him to give up ghost-hunting to get her parents approval for marriage. It seems strange that her parents are happy with her day job (teaching women how to fend off attackers), and yet seem to baulk at the idea of a TV presenter son-in-law, who has a good steady income and a popular fan base. But when Sheelam and Amrita are set upon by a group of thugs, her father blames Sheelam and his job, although there really isn’t any corroborating evidence. What’s great here is that Amrita gets to fight alongside Sheelam and show off her self-defence expertise in a real-life application of her skills. But overall the relationship doesn’t feel particularly real, mostly because Sheelam and Amrita are awkward in their scenes together and have little chemistry. Their exchanges frequently appear stilted and there doesn’t seem to be any passion in their relationship at all, which makes some of the scenes later on feel forced and unlikely because the underlying relationship hasn’t been developed in a meaningful way.

Sheelam also gets drawn into a live dispute with Guruji (Dinesh Mangaluru), a colleague at the station who presents a spiritual counselling show. While the two are friendly, they have quite different philosophies on life and their conversations are used as a way to try and draw out theories on spiritualism and the conflict between science and belief systems. What works well in these scenes is the glimpse into the world of TV chat shows. I’ve seen that India has a lot of these ’talking head’ shows where various people appear to shout over each other and argue about political and social issues of the day. I’ve always found them baffling, and more like WWF where it’s all a show for the punters rather than any attempt at meaningful discourse and according to this film, I’m totally correct! Here, the arguments are shown to be all completely contrived, with the presenters actually complimenting each other on inventive insults and clever put-downs during the ad breaks. Adding controversy is purely a device to increase ratings and Arvind Sastry gets this obsession with audience numbers and rating across well as we see the various machinations that go on behind the scenes to ensure ‘the numbers’ are kept high.

The second half of the film looks at what happens when Sheelam goes to investigate a supposedly haunted house where a number of people have recently died. The ideas here are really clever and initially well presented, but later on the special effects don’t work well which derails the narrative just when it needed to be sharp and well presented to achieve the required effect. There is also some dodgy medical diagnosis which is always frustrating since it seems to me to be used as a cop-out, when better writing could have produced an alternative solution. But regardless, the themes of jealousy and the sacrifice of morals to ensure good ratings for the TV show are well presented. I also liked how Arvind Sastry tries to illustrate the emotional burdens of trying to reconcile career, relationships and ethics with each other and how these impact on health and wellbeing. These are complex ideas and themes that for the most part he gets across well even if the final conclusion is rather less satisfying. It’s still a good attempt and the story is compelling as a result.

I did find Ashu Bedra to be rather stiff in his portrayal of Sheelam. I’d expect someone with his ghost-busting tendencies to be either wildly enthusiastic or else just a bit nerdy, and he isn’t any of these. Instead he basically comes across as just another reporter doing his job. There wasn’t any of the passion I expected – either for his chosen profession or for Amrita, and not even for all the various gadgets he uses in the course of his investigations. His lack of emotion makes it difficult to connect with the character, and hard to feel much empathy with his predicament. The problems he has to deal with in the second half really needed a more emotional portrayal to be effective and this is part of the reason why the film starts to lose steam by the climax. The rest of the cast are all fine. Sangeetha Bhat doesn’t have a lot to do, but Arvind Rau and B Suresh fare much better as the two rival TV bosses. Atul Kulkarni is good as the mildly lecherous police officer investigating suspicious deaths at the haunted house while Pawan Kumar makes an effective appearance as the owner of the haunted house

Aside from those special effects towards the end, the film looks good and there are some genuinely eerie moments enhanced by excellent use of lighting and camera angles. The background music from Midhun Mukundan is perfectly evocative and works well to add atmosphere to the narrative. I like how there is a good contrast between the artificial world of TV5 and Sheelam’s own reality, which ironically is all about unmasking fraudulent spiritual activity. If only there had been the emotion and sense of drama and theatricality that was needed to ensure the characterisations matched the intensity of the storyline the entire film would have worked much better. However, the uniqueness of the story and the blend of horror and intrigue make for a better than average watch and it will be interesting to see what Arvind Sastry come up with next. 3 ½ stars.