Tag Archives: Sameer Thahir

Chaappa Kurish

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chaappa-kurish

Chaappa Kurish tells the story of two men: one a successful land developer who lives in a smart uptown apartment and the other a slum-dweller who works as a cleaner in a small supermarket. It seems unlikely that their lives would ever intersect, but when Arjun (Fahadh Faasil)) loses his phone and Ansari (Vineeth Sreenivasan) picks it up, their lives intertwine in an unexpected way with unintended consequences. Sameer Thahir’s debut film is a study in power relationships and how even a small amount of advantage can alter outlook, change relationships and even affect personality. While one man starts to gain control the other begins to lose it and the fall-out has far reaching effects for both.

The film opens by contrasting the lives of the two men. Arjun is woken in his modern apartment by the ringing of his smart phone and wanders into his spotless kitchen to have cereal for breakfast. Ansari also has a phone, but his is an old-fashioned mobile and his single room is a long way from Arjun’s luxurious apartment. He sleeps with his mattress on top of his shirt to press it for the morning, and has to pay and queue for his turn in a shared toilet. Breakfast for Ansari is a roti in a local café and his journey to work by bus and ferry is vastly different from Arjun’s smooth ride in the back of his chauffeur driven car. Their relative positions define their personality too. Ansari is quiet, pushed around by everyone who comes into contact with him and unable to stand up for himself. He walks apologetically – hunched over and hesitant, and he doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes even when they are talking to him. Arjun on the other hand is autocratic, demanding and very well aware that he is the boss.

Although Arjun is engaged to be married to the daughter of a family friend, he is also in a relationship with a work colleague Sonia (Ramya Nambeeshan). Sonia is a modern working woman who seems to be in control of her life but despite her apparent comfort with her relationship with Arjun, she is devastated when she discovers he is engaged and is organising his wedding. Her despair and sense of betrayal is made even greater when she discovers that Arjun has filmed the two of them together on his phone during their lovemaking session. Sonia has lost her lover and her self-respect in an instant and seems likely to lose her job too, all as a result of Arjun’s selfish behaviour. She threatens to tell his fiancée Ann (Roma) about their relationship and it’s during the resultant argument that Arjun loses his phone. As well as the video, Arjun’s phone contains details about his latest dodgy property deal and it’s a toss-up as to which concerns him more – the loss of the deal or the possibility that the video might make it onto Youtube.

Ansari picks up Arjun’s phone when it falls at his feet in a café, and in the spur of the moment decides to keep it. He has little idea of how to operate the phone and is frightened by Arjun’s demands for his phone’s return when he does turn it on. However slowly as Ansari realises Arjun’s desperation, he starts to feel the effects that holding even such a small amount of power can bring. His new found confidence spurs Ansari on to pay back his various tormentors but it also affects his relationship with his co-worker Nafeesa (Niveda Thomas). She doesn’t like the new Ansari and eventually persuades him that he has to return the phone – but it may already be too late.

Sameer Thahir’s story is simple but very effective as he takes time to establish his two main characters and how they each fit into their place in society. The contrast in the two men is well described and the characterisations of each are natural and realistic, while still maintaining their differences as each are at opposite ends of the social scale. The gradual transfer of power is subtly done but very effective and the alteration in each character occurs almost imperceptibly at first. Although the story is at times very dark, there is a strong sense of hope that runs throughout, mainly shown by Nafeesa who is the one bright spot in Ansari’s life and by the end it seems possible that both men have altered for the better. It’s a film that gradually draws you into Arjun and Ansari’s struggle for control while at the same time showing exactly how difficult life can be for those who lack confidence.

Both Fahadh Faasil and Vineeth Sreenivasan are excellent and their performances ensure the effectiveness of Sameer Thahir’s story . Vineeth Sreenivasan does a fantastic job with his portrayal of a downtrodden man who slowly starts to gain some confidence. His body language and demeanour is perfect throughout and his facial expressions brilliantly capture his thoughts. Ansari is a man who has had little to hide in his life and he lets his emotions play out over his face when he thinks no-one is looking. The furtive sullen looks gradually make way for sly grins and rising excitement when Ansari realises the power he has over Arjun and that finally he can tell someone else what to do. Everything just works to build up a detailed picture of a lonely underdog who has a miserable life but no real motivation to change anything and no awareness that change is even possible.

Fahadh Faasil is just as good in his role as a rich and conceited businessman who rarely thinks of anyone other than himself. His fiancée is an inconvenience and he avoids her phone calls whenever possible – although given how inane and annoying she is; I can understand his reluctance. Sonia is beautiful and convenient since she works with him and he initially treats her distress as an annoyance, until his friend John (Jinu Joseph) manages to get through to him just how much more Sonia has to lose if the video becomes public. It’s a classic picture of a self-absorbed jerk, but what makes Fahadh Faasil’s performance so good is the way he gradually changes and shows Arjun’s desperation so clearly. The realisation of what he is about to lose and his absolute frustration with the situation is excellently shown while his fraying grip on his composure is perfectly done.

The rest of the cast are good too. Ramya Nambeeshan doesn’t have a lot to do, but her outrage and then absolute despair are nicely portrayed and she is good as a woman brought to the very edge by emotional upheaval. Jinu Joseph and Niveda Thomas provide the stability and act as the ‘voice of reason’ to the two main protagonists while Sunil Sukhada brings a good dose of oily sleaziness to his role as the Store Manager of the supermarket where Ansari works.

Rex Vijayan’s soundtrack is excellent and this song is beautiful. The picturisation here isn’t the same as in the film where it’s shown over Arjun’s search for Ansari and his phone, but this does give a good overview of the film and the main characters.

There are a number of things I really liked about Chaappa Kurdish. The many differences between the two men are well characterised without being too clichéd and provide a revealing look at society in general. The slow shift in the balance of power is nicely done, even if in real life I don’t think Ansari would have have been quite so brave. I also like that Sonia has some resolution and that having a physical relationship with her boyfriend doesn’t mean that she is automatically a ‘fallen woman’ with no possible options. With all the positives there are only a few negatives. The climax is repetitive and goes on for too long – a shorter, sharper resolution would have helped and I would have liked a little more of Nafeesa and her relationship with Ansari. Overall, Chaappa Kurdish is an excellent début film from Sameer Thahir and definitely well worth a watch. 4 stars.

Kali (2016)

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Kali

I’ve been looking forward to the combination of Dulquer Salmaan and Sai Pallavi onscreen in Sameer Thahir’s Kali, and thankfully they don’t disappoint. It’s an interesting film too, with a simple but effective screenplay from Rajesh Gopinadhan, following the story of a young man who cannot control his temper and the unexpected consequences of one of his episodes of rage. The first half sets the scene for a compelling thriller in the second half and with excellent performances from all the actors, Kali is definitely well worth a watch.

The film starts with a violent fight at a roadside restaurant. It’s beautifully choreographed and includes the displeasure of the restaurant’s resident cat whose meal is disrupted by the conflict. The snarling cat adds a touch of wildness and lawlessness to the fight that’s echoed later on in the film when the action returns to the restaurant. The short but vicious opening also sets the scene for another fight, although this one is less physical but equally damaging in its own way.

Siddharth (Dulquer Salmaan) is a man with a very short fuse and the simplest of things makes him lose his temper. After the fight at the restaurant, the next round is between Siddharth and his wife Anjali (Sai Pallavi). Anjali is seen leaving their house in tears and carrying a suitcase, while inside Siddharth is angrily throwing objects at the wall. It’s a scene of domestic life that rings true, particularly since Anjali isn’t staying around to accept any abuse and sensibly heads for the door. However it’s late at night and Siddharth at least doesn’t leave his wife walking down the road by herself, managing to pick her up in their car even though he’s still clearly very angry indeed.

The film moves into flashback to show how Siddharth has always been quick to lose his temper, even as a child, and how the years haven’t mellowed his reactions at all. Throughout his time as a student and even during job interviews, Siddharth shows no patience and absolutely no control over his angry reactions. He’s a man who reacts first and rarely thinks about the consequences of his behaviour. It seems strange that Anjali does stick with him and it’s hard to believe that Siddhartha hasn’t had any previous problems as a result of his behaviour. No-one ever seems to react badly to his outbursts for example. What’s good about the flashback though is that there is little about the love story between Siddharth and Anjali. Their romance is simply a fact, and the film instead shows Anjali’s struggle to cope with Siddharth’s temper outbursts and her attempts to keep him on an even keel. Many of the situations are drawn from routine day-to-day hassles and while Siddharth’s irritation is understandable it’s his inability to control his reactions that make him such a difficult person to deal with.

There is a kinder side to Siddharth too though, and he’s not all rage and temper. He does make some attempt to keep his temper and tries to control his frustration with his bank customers using a stress ball Anjali gives him, with at least some partial success. However he has an incredibly irritating colleague in Prakashan (Soubin Shahir) who is deliberately provocative and obnoxious, although Siddharth does his best to ignore him as much as possible. Dulquer Salmaan and Sai Pallavi have excellent chemistry in their scenes together which makes their relationship believable. It’s easy to see why Anjali stays with Siddharth despite his anger management issues – the two are clearly in love and outside of his temper tantrums Siddharth is a caring and attentive husband. I love the end of this song where Anjali dances with Siddharth in their living room. It seems very natural and spontaneous, plus Sai Pallavi is simply gorgeous in that red sari!

The film steps up the pace in the second half when Siddharth and Anjali find themselves in a frightening situation as a result of Siddharth losing his temper with truck driver Chakkara (Chemban Vinod Jose) on the road. The couple end up at the restaurant seen in the opening scene of the film where Siddharth’s anger puts him and Anjali in real danger and Siddharth has to curb his natural aggression to try to ensure their safety. The tension rises steadily as the situation escalates further out of control and both Gireesh Gangadharan’s cinematography and Gopi Sundar’s music work well to add further pressure.

Dulquer Salmaan does a fantastic job of conveying his rage without going too far and over dramatising his outbursts of temper. Despite his ever-present anger he manages to make Siddhartha at least a partially appealing character  and I even found myself in sympathy with him as I was just annoyed by Prakashan and the bratty child that visited Siddharth’s house! Dulquer also is excellent in the latter half of the film and allows his inner struggle to show clearly on his face as he deals with the staff and clientele at the restaurant. It’s another brilliant performance and despite the negative tones I thoroughly enjoyed his characterisation here.

After her critically acclaimed début in Premam, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Sai Pallavai but she puts in another fantastic performance in Kali.  Her frustration and disappointment with her husband come across beautifully and she gets the level of embarrassment and distress just right when Siddharth loses his temper in public.  On top of all that she still manages to have great chemistry with her co-star and makes their relationship believable too. She’s just as good in the second half and her terror and helplessness are a major factor in maintaining the tension in the latter part of the film.

The support cast are also uniformly good with Vinayakan and Chemban Vinod Jose perfectly cast as the main villains of the story. They effortlessly exude menace and both have great evil grins and good use of their expressions to help increase the tension every time they appear onscreen. Soubin Shahir is incredibly annoying as fellow bank employee Prakashan and as such manages to win Siddharth some sympathy for having to deal with such an idiot on a day-to-day basis! However thankfully Prakashan is never too over the top and Soubin Shahir doesn’t just play his character for laughs but actually makes him a more plausible character than expected.

Kali is a film of two halves. The first sets up the situation for the rest of the movie, and concentrates on the personality of Siddharth and his relationship with Anjali. It’s a well constructed observation of human interactions and the painful cost of unreasoning rage and unsociable behaviour. The second half on the other hand is an out-and-out thriller where the characters are more broadly drawn and the action tense and frightening. And yet, despite the different pace in the first and second halves the film works well as a whole story and makes for an enthralling two hours of cinema. Highly recommended.

 

Big B

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In term of its story development, production and editing Big B seems more like a Hollywood film than a typical Southern Indian action film, so I wasn’t really too surprised to learn later that it was based on a US film called Four Brothers. However there is plenty of local flavour and like all Malayalam films I’ve seen the cinematography is first class with great scenic shots, despite the film being primarily an action thriller. I haven’t seen the American film but after watching Big B I really can’t imagine anyone else but Mammootty in the lead role. Although the other characters are almost all well cast and give good performances, it’s Mammootty who makes an impact as the rather dour and resolute Big B of the title, and it’s his film the whole way through.

The film opens with the murder of Mary John Kurisingal (Nafisa Ali), more commonly known as Mary Teacher, or just Teacher. She’s well known in Kochi for her social work which mainly involves looking after orphans, and over the years has adopted 4 of them.  The opening scenes of Mary as she goes about her daily life helping the poor are very powerful and director Amal Neered succeeds in painting a detailed picture of a compassionate woman in just a few moments. And despite her lack of physical presence, Mary appears throughout the film in lots of small gestures and in body language as her adopted children mourn her loss when they notice the empty place at the table or are reminded of her as they move through her house.

We are introduced to the four brothers through the eyes of SI George (Vijayaraghavan) as he explains to ACP Balaji (Pasupathy) who’s who in the funeral procession and it’s an efficient way of letting us know a little about the characters.  While second eldest brother Eddy (Manoj K. Jayan) has been living in the area with his wife and daughters, working in a tourist restaurant and generally helping his mother, the youngest brother, Bijo (Sumit Naval), is a student in Coimbatore and Murugan (Bala) is a stunt director in the film industry. However the eldest brother Bilal (Mammootty) was banished by Mary Teacher after he killed a man in a street brawl and his entrance into the film is dramatic as befits a character with such a dark past. Bilal’s feet appear first as he gets out of his car into the rain-drenched streets and slowly walks across to join the funeral cortege. It is very OTT but effectively establishes Bilal as a force to be reckoned with.

After the funeral the brothers get together to try to discover exactly who killed Mary Teacher and why. They have no faith in the police investigation believing that corruption in the force and general apathy will lead to a cover-up. There are various other subplots including a couple of romances, but the focus of the film is firmly on the search for Mary’s killers. When Bilal left Kochi he had quite a reputation and he certainly hasn’t mellowed in the intervening years.

Bilal is the driving force behind the investigation and seems to use his search as a way to atone for his previous crime which forced Mary to close her door to him. While Bilal gives Mammootty the opportunity to be menacing, cold and vicious there is a more compassionate side to his character and there are glimpses of this in the way he deals with his brothers. The relationships between the four forms the secondary focus of the film and their differences in background, religion and opinion all disappear when they have a common enemy. Their camaraderie is well depicted and although I’m not very familiar with the actors here, they do all appear to be well suited to their roles.

Manoj K. Jayan is excellent as Eddy and gets it right as the hard-working family man who is more concerned with protecting his wife and children than cornering his mother’s killers. This reluctance to get involved in the investigation ends up making the others suspicious and the scene where the three brothers interrogate Eddy is very well scripted and filmed. I love the way Eddy is framed in the shot here, with a background showing family pictures and his brothers glaring down at him. The cinematography is excellent and the script is fast paced and seems well suited to the action although sometimes the subtitles do seem strange – perhaps this refers to measured speech??!

Not everything works though. The romance between playboy Murugan and Rimy (Mamta Mohandas) is generally well depicted and Murugan’s affection does seem to solidify into something more permanent, but there is a rather oddly placed song featuring the two frolicking around on a beach. It seems as if the director felt a ‘romantic’ song was needed to tick all the boxes for an Indian film, so in it went without any real thought as to how well it fitted with the story – which in my opinion is not at all. However it’s a good song that just needed to be in a different film. I do like Rimy’s character though, as she knows exactly what she wants and goes out to get it. Innocent appears in a brief role as Rimy’s father providing some comedy relief which isn’t particularly funny, but isn’t too annoying or intrusive either.

There is also an item song at the villain’s rather swish lair, which again seems to be rather oddly pictured with lots of tourists roped in to dance around and provide a party atmosphere. Again it doesn’t really work for me as it doesn’t quite give the debauched tone that I think it was trying to convey (and it’s also a remix of a Shakira hit).

The other disappointment is the villain of the story. Tony (Sherveer Vahil) is a horribly hairy man with a disconcerting habit of rolling his tongue which does make him sound appropriately villainous. But he’s too much of a caricature with his depraved and immoral parties, drug taking and enjoyment in beating up his minions as a bizarre form of training. He seems too unbalanced and quite frankly too psychotic to be able to lead a gang competently, let alone organise the killing of Mary Teacher. His co-conspirators are better and are more menacing and believable as bad guys, with the much appreciated added benefit of not removing their shirts unnecessarily. I warn you – Tony has no such scruples.

Big B is a relatively violent film but it’s all integral to the plot and the fight scenes are excellently choreographed by Anal Arasu. The casual brutality that Bilal displays is as much a part of his character as his ability to reason through the connections to find his mother’s killer. Bilal’s links to the various figures in the underworld and his fearsome reputation are also essential elements to determining exactly who was involved in the murder. But each of the brothers has their part to play in the investigation and the final showdown has a good mixture of suspense and action.  The background music by Gopi Sundar seems to fit the film better than the songs by Alphons Joseph although the ‘Yo Big B’ theme music and the beautiful Vida Parayukayano are excellent. The clip below does feature Bilal’s attack on a street thug so skip from 2 min 45 to 3 min 15 if you don’t like violence but the song is lovely and beautifully sung by Shreya Ghosal.

Apart from horribly hairy Tony the support cast are all good and overall it’s a slick and well-made film that looks fantastic. Amal Neered started in the industry as a cinematographer and early in his career worked with Ram Gopal Varma which seems to have been an influence on his directing style. He makes very good use of cinematographer Sameer Thahir’s camera work and as ever Kerala looks amazing – even in the rain.  I’m a Mammootty fan and have enjoyed all of his films I’ve seen so far, but I love him in this film as he gets everything right – he’s cold and ruthless when he needs to be but there is still plenty of emotion raging away underneath. Big B is well worth a watch for his performance and for a film that is a little bit different in its approach. 4 stars

Temple says:

I’m not sure what Heather means by saying this film is more Hollywood in style. To me it bears many  hallmarks of South Indian cinema – beautiful visuals, a sense of place/locality (in Kochi), a story heavily centred on the male star, flashy editing and sound effects, an emphasis on family loyalty, songs whether the film needs them or not,  a flexible attitude to the law, and a long lead up to a crunching finale.

It all sounds good on paper. But despite Mammootty delivering a compelling performance, there just isn’t enough to keep my interest throughout. I kept picturing the production team watching the rushes, congratulating themselves on bagging a brilliant actor and then one day asking each other that awkward question ‘Did YOU remember to write the rest of the story?’. The opening is brilliant and builds up the suspense and sense of loss very economically. But then the film wallows in repetitive scenes of the brothers’ unhappy reunion, and it starts to feel laboured. There isn’t enough conflict, character or relationship development to consistently keep my interest over the first hour. It’s all quite predictable, and while the actors are competent, I never cared much for the characters apart from Mary and Bilal. It is too easy to work out whodunit and who is marked for death so there is little suspense. Once things do ramp up in the quest for revenge, the story becomes more engaging but then goes off the rails again. As Heather said, Tony is a caricature. The opportunity for a real menace was lost so Bilal is the only convincingly scary bad guy in the final confrontation.

The songs were badly placed and poorly picturised, serving only to pad out the running time. The background score is probably OK if you like florid strings and angelic choirs but I found it intrusive and it detracted from the acting. Visually, there are far too many instances of the freeze frame, fast edits, quirky camera angles and accompanying sound effects when they aren’t really warranted. I felt that they were trying to inject some excitement into the draggy scenes by using effects. But what they needed was a bit more work on the story and structure.

See it for the excellent characterisation by Mammootty and the beautifully filmed scenery and interiors. 3 stars.