Saturday, August 15, 2009

Rithu- changing seasons of malayalam cinema



Shyama Prasad is one of the few talents who has made his presence felt with handful of movies. Rithu is the most recent addition to the list.It was a divergence from all his earlier works and dedicated to the youth.Even before hitting silver screen, Rithu has created a little more curiosity,owing to its brilliant trailers and refreshing sound tracks and new faces. Being the first film distributed by Play House, it added the hue. Despite all the initial fuss, when it was finally released on the eve of Independence day, it seems to cater a lot to the viewer's expectation.



The movie is all about three child hood friends- Sarath, Sunny and Varsha and change in their relations like the seasons. The movie begins when Sarath(Nishan) returns from US to start a new job with his old friends.He is all set to go back to their childhood dreams, but it didn't took him long to understand both his friends are lost in their own world where he is no more a part. The rest of the story is all about how this relationships turns out. The whole thing is set in the back drop of IT industry and all its paraphenilias. While the main plot revolves around these three characters, there are also instances about "lifeless life" of the industry through their boss's life, tears of the evicted population, sighs of those revolutionists etc.



Most attractive part of the movie is its Visualisation.Hatss off 2 all behind it.Fine choice of location has done half the trick. Use of lots of close-shots have kept the audience akin to the story.Also there were many shadow shots that indeed conveyed the moods very aptly. Many a times we will be reminded of a Bollywood multiplex movies.






Another factor is the songs. Rahul raj has done pretty good job.All the tracks are refreshing, but the song timing seems to be bit akward; sort of distinct from the story line. Also kudoos to Cuckoo Parameswaran as costume designer, it is the main thing that has given the whole movie a freshness. She has really dressed up the characters meeting the total mood of the movie. Again Bollywood was reminded at times, especially like in "Life in Metro" - type.




And all the actors have made good effort. Nishan and Rima Kallingal never felt like debutant , but Asif would do with little more mending. But the core trait of malayalam cinema -realistic acting seems to be have disregarded. Dialog delivery could bit more natural. Though there is an intial drag , the visuals and background score make the whole thing better.

the bottom line- 30 bucks is not wasted!!!