THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

‘The dark knight rises’ is a movie absolutely beyond words. It is another typical Nolan movie. He has given the world a movie above all its expectations. All the people related to the movie seem to have done very well.

          Although the movie follows its prequel ‘The Dark Knight’, the story line and its characters are on a great extend related to ‘The Batman Begins’ (the first in the series). The excellence in the scripting has done absolute justice to the story and to the people’s expectations from the ‘Nolans’ (including 'Jonathan Nolan' who has also been in scripting the movie).

The three movies in the series (namely ‘The Batman Begins’, ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘The Dark Knight Rises’) seem to be like climbing up steps, in all aspects i.e., the story, its quality etc. the story is absolutely starting in the ‘The Batman Begins’, forms a shape in ‘The dark knight’ and reaches its ultimatum in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’. Screenplay is wisely framed with apt situations and drawing in characters and using them elegantly. A character like ‘Catwoman’ (played by Anne Hathaway) being part of the story and used to form a piece of its backbone was brilliantly done by ‘Nolan’. This character, which has never been heard related with any ‘Batman story’, forming an important role in the story is a typical ‘Nolan idea’.

‘The Batman Begins’ centralizes on thoughts of ‘Bruce Wayne’ (played by Christian Bale) about suppressing the crime in ‘Gotham city’. Whereas in ‘The Dark Knight’ all the cops in the city are also drawn to think about it by ‘Harvey Dents’ influence. And now, in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ the whole city is brought to the front.

Perfect framing of dialogues is another peculiarity of the movie (as is all Nolan movies). The highly punching dialogues are so beautifully written that the viewers feel emotionally elated. Each important character is given at least a very important dialogue, that has a very hard effect on the character to whom the dialogue is said to.

‘Nolan’ hasn’t lost his habit of including the actors of a Nolan movie in his next. He had brought ‘Tom Hardy’, ‘Marion Cotillard’ and ‘Joseph Gordon Levitt’ (from ‘The Inception’) into the movie. Well the usual presence of ‘Michael Caine’ in ‘Nolan movies’ (since ‘The Prestige’) is another notable peculiarity.

Apparently, no ‘Nolan Movie’ have an end i.e., they do end into the beginning of another stage or phase.’ The Dark Knight Rises’ end with ‘Blake’ (played by Joseph Gordon Levitt) entering the ‘Batcave’, showing that he is to rise as ‘Gotham City’s’ next hero.

‘Christian Bale’ had already proved the point that he is a highly dedicated actor. The initial part of the movie shows his character under high emotional stress. Bale has done a great effort to make his body appear so. His dedication to work might be the reason why he’s a favorite of Nolan.

When Nolan do elate people emotionally through the dialogues he has written, it is supported by the music of ‘Hans Zimmers’. He’s absolutely a maestro in creating background scores of high emotional feel. Thus the movie makes the viewers feel the intensity through all its aspects.

Though every field related to the movie has been well executed, there were some notable mistakes. The label on police vehicles changes from ‘GPD’ (representing Gotham Patrol Dept.) to ‘GCPD’ (representing Gotham City Patrol Dept.) over scenes. The word ‘heist’ was spelled wrongly i.e., it was spelled ‘hiest’ in the crime records of ‘Catwoman’.

Overall, the movie was an excellent experience. This increases our expectations from the next Nolan movie ‘Man of Steel’.

THATTATHIN MARAYATHU

                    Simple, but beautiful and super, that’s what ‘Thattathin Marayathu’ is. Vineeth Sreenvasan has improved himself as writer and director when he comes from ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’. The story is beautifully built up and visualized.

          The script moves mainly revolving around the hero (Vinod – played by Nivin Pauly) and his deeds to capture and secure his love. Every characters involved in the story are used to bring about one or another twist in it. No characters seem to be included for the sake of including an actor. Most of the scenes are focused on the hero, whatever he do, his thoughts and emotions. Although the heroine is focused in only very few scenes, it doesn’t fail to include the feelings and thoughts of the heroine (Ayisha – played by Isha Talwar). But Isha Talwar is given only very few dialogues. The dialogues match to that of real situations and are perfectly written, without any exaggeration.

Songs and music do a great favor to the story by creating a romantic mood in the audience. They are absolutely beautiful and romantic. All the songs became hit before the release of the movie. So, they did not only enhance the movie’s beauty but also attracted a lot of people to it.

Since ‘Thattathin Marayathu’ being the second film from Vineeth Sreenivasan as a director and writer, there was a doubt in people that whether the movie would also go with a vague visualization and build up. But Vineeth seems to be matured as a director and a writer in this attempt. Actually, he has done it exceptionally well that the audience could actually feel the story very much close to themselves.

Like in ‘Malarvadi Arts Club’, Sreenivasan’s character breaks his silence at the most crucial moment of the story. Nowhere else in both movies we could see his character being significantly involved in the story.

          Though the story tells the love of ‘Vinod’ and ‘Ayisha’, it also discusses the social issues like ‘moral police’ and ‘political dramas’ by using these issues to create necessary turns in the story.

          Vineeth and his friends have gifted malayalees with a beautiful romantic film to celebrate. Thanks to Vineeth and friends for this beautiful venture.

ANWAR RASHEED

            Anwar Rasheed is one of the most promising directors of Malayalam film industry. He has proved this point beyond any doubt through his four films namely Rajamanikyam, Chotta Mumbai, Annan thampi and Ustad hotel.

          There have been certain similarities in Anwar Rasheed films. His movies start with the childhood of the hero. This part necessarily gives an idea about what the hero will become in future. The history of naming of the hero also forms part of this childhood episode.

          In Rajamanikyam, the hero gets the name ‘Rajamanikyam’ from his stepfather. While, in Chotta Mumbai, the hero’s father call him ‘Vasco da Gama’, so that he be becoming a legend. Now, in Ustad hotel, the hero is named ‘Feyze’ (Faizal) even before his birth.

          Anwar Rasheed films focuses on the relations of members of a family. This relation, which is being focused, is disturbed or altered by the influence of an external agent, who usually turns out to be the villain.

          Rajamanikyam explains the story of three step siblings which gets disturbed by the external villain, who appears as the friend of one of the step siblings. Whereas in Chotta Mumbai, it comes to a father and a son, the sentiments between them get altered by the villain. When it comes to Annan thampi, twin brothers are in a clash due to the villain who happened to be the friend of the elder brother. While in Ustad hotel, the relation between a son, father and grandfather gets altered by the influence of people around them.

          Actors Siddique, Sai Kumar and Maniyanpilla Raju usually form s part of Anwar Rasheed films.

          Anwar Rasheed films are undoubtedly big entertainers. He uses the correct mixture of humor, fast paces and dramatization which contributes to the success of the movie. The Malayalam film industry can expect loads of good entertaining movies from Anwar Rasheed in the future.

USTAD HOTEL

             Ustad hotel is a beautiful new generation movie created by Anwar Rasheed and Anjali Menon. It lived up to the people’s expectation from its director Anwar Rasheed.  It’s a pure entertainer filmed without any false exaggeration or unnecessary show-offs.

            Like all his previous works, ‘Ustad hotel’ also begins from the childhood of its hero. In fact it is even said to be beginning from the history of the naming of the hero (resembling to ‘Rajamanikyam’ and ‘Chottamumbai’). This part might have been included in the script by the director’s influence. The right mixture of entertainment by Anwar Rasheed and the beauty of the script by Anjali Menon is the backbone of the movie.

            The movie differs from conventional Malayalam entertainers by the emotional attachment the audience feel to the story and its characters. This is what the script of Anjali Menon had done to the movie. The movie represents characters of a wide range of ages. So, almost all people find their representative in the movie.

            There’s a saying, ‘the best way to one’s heart is through food’. The movie focuses on a family in hotel business for a few generations. The story is of three generation of the family. Since foods, tastes and recipes are greatly involved in the movie; location has been wisely selected at Calicut.

            Like most of the new generation Malayalam films, ‘Ustad hotel’ doesn’t come to end on a specific scene which can be distinctively said as its climax. Instead the climax is visualized through a series of scenes involving the changes coming over to the main characters and hence, to the story.

            Although beautifully written, the script fails to explain distinctively why ‘Abdul Razzak’ (played by Siddique) is not close to his father ‘Karimikka’ (played by Thilakan). It also takes too much time to explain the ’Madhurai episode’. Though the film starts with saying about Feyze's (Played by Dulquer Salmaan) sisters, they are not strongly used in the story.

            The cinematography by S Lokanathan was excellent. He did it so well that the audience feel like moving with the characters of the movie. An excellent art has been displayed through the background score. It forms a bond between the audience and the story by making them feel all the sentiments involved.

            Hats off to the crew of ‘Ustad hotel’ for such a wonderful movie.

Music Direction of Spirit

          Along with director Ranjith, Music director Shahabaz Aman needs to be equally appreciated. The music had a style of evergreen songs of Malayalam movies. His work for the movie was absolutely intelligent and was what the director and the script writer of the movie was expecting to express.

          The story says that the songs were composed by an amateur by passionate musician (Meera-played by Kaniha). The style of the music was exactly truthful to this aspect. It was absolutely like an amateur and hobby music director could have done it, i.e, what was really told in the story.

          If it was done by a professional music director, it would seem like it was done to be made a super hit and not with love to do it. But here it is in the same style as what Ranjith was trying to tell. A set of wonderful songs was what ‘Spirit’ gave the malayalees, thanks to Shahabaz Aman.

SPIRIT

      Another good movie from the super director Ranjith. This movie, he decided to do with a great theme, i.e, to convey a great message. Since the release of the movie, it has been receiving great reviews, while politicians, media and people have been talking largely about the movie.
                     Ranjith, like in his two previous ventures, have tried to focus the story to a bad habit of malayalees. Through his film 'Pranchiyettan and the saint', Ranjith showed face of rich malayalees who spends anything for a name. He had also visualized through 'Indian rupee' how the malayalee youth were badly running after the money in the real estate business. Now, through 'Spirit', he have tried to convey a message against the social disaster of the enormous alcoholic consumption of malayalees.
                   The screenplay was wisely written and the dialogues were right and up to its reality and without exaggeration. Ranjith, is a man who knows affect the central characters through the right situations arising around them. This is what makes his screenplays a class apart.
                   The protagonist (Raghunandan, played by Mohanlal) is presented as a shrewd, economically well placed but highly alcoholic. The people and situations around him is visualized as highly alcoholic and how it affects the people of different classes in different ways. There are scenes which reveal how badly alcohol can affect a man as clever as 'Raghunandan'.
                    In the second half of the movie, Raghunandan comes across situations and people which compel him to quit drinking. Hence, he quits drinking. This must have been an end everyone would be hoping for the movie. But Ranjith didn't stop here because he needed to say the people that quitting from drinking is not just enough, but one need to try to make at least another man quit the same.
                   Though this extended message is inevitable, the presentation of it produced some lag in the movie, and caused a sort of boredom to the viewers. One of the last scenes, which shows that Raghunandan accepts a glass of alcohol extended to him by a friend at a party.The friend extended the drink in proposition of a toast to the recent success Raghunandan had achieved in making a man (a plumber 'Mani') quit his drinking. Raghunandan says that he accepted the glass out of polity,though he didn't like what his friend did. Given he be drunk, he would have shouted badly at this friend and spoiled the party. But it didn't happen as he was sober. What Ranjith tries to tell through this is that alcohol created the irritating behavior of the man. Thus he touches every aspect of one’s life affected by alcohol.
                 Ranjith and his crew thus really deserve a clap of appreciation for this great venture.