MEMORIES
Its very interesting that i have seen two genre of 'NEW WAVE' Malayalam cinema in two days,"Neelaakasham Pachakadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" and "MEMORIES" .
What surprise here is two are at its best.I am really happy When these two films justified to its its genre .It was a well gifted ramzan as a Malayalam cinema viewer
Memories of our past good,happy moments are always very sweet to taste but what about living in Memories which is not like to see again and how you can tackle the haunted Memories of your Soul wife's(Meghana Raj) and daughter's murder(well taken memory sequence shot and awesome lighting work).
The police Officer SAM ALEX(Prithviraj) is Haunted by these memories and he hates his life , relationships and everything that matters to him and these made him chronic Alcoholic.The film answers two Questions
1) Will he overcome from this to solve a challenging Crime?.
2) Will God give him answers to his questions?
The film start with Sam's Brilliantly executed Operation(with superb Title Sequences ) ,then to a vivid crime scene and smartly moves to a very dark nature or in semi dark nature when Sam is Introduced to screen.Why dark,slow gripping scenes? This tone help us to lighten up the attitude of his pathetic life.This is well taken as we seen in the real life,even songs are featuring from a realistic point.When the song ends there is a sequence, that Sam holding his bottle Drink instead of his wife beautiful hands, which gives us a perfect picture of his current state.
Normally in a Malayalam movie Hero loose his characterization when he encounters with cinematic scenario, unlike in this film the Writer and Prithvi is loyal to their character through out the film.That can be well understood even when he get any breakthrough to the case or any situations in the movie as he faces, whatever he is a drunk officer throughout the investigation.
The running sequence between Sam and the Antagonist in the movie was a world class scene which is a equal proportion of both Realistic and Cinematic technique,and also the top view camera shots for some scene was superb ,this all credited to cinematographer Sujith Vasudev and Jeethu Joseph.Climax was the best part of the movie it was like a perfect vanilla topping on a Black forest cake
ANTAGONIST is not like a typical Malayalam movie Buffoonery villain who just pop up in the climax and makes mistakes to get caught.He was a well executed character who is brilliant as equal as Hero,sometimes ahead of HERO.
This movie scores where MUMBAI POLICE fails,even though story of MUMBAI POLICE was one step ahead of "Memories". Memories goes in a perfect pace which needs for a perfect crime thriller movie .
And it is happy to see the Director of 'Detective" is back , "Jeethu Joseph", you are the one who really steals the trophy,he gives his 100% work as a director for this script,as a script writer he done a good job apart some cliche objects(like a Bad Cop to criticize hero,witness to a particular series of incidents,Least important Journalist Heroine e.t.c).superb cinematography and Editing(Johnkutty) with good Background Score.
Cast was well suited and one who plays the role of antagonist done a brilliant job and justified to his role.Unlike other films ,this film's VFX(Done by MAGMYTH) work was descent and wont drag us from movie's pace.
Thanks to the P K Muralidharan and Santha Murali's Anantha Vision for presenting this film to us.(I always think why we forgot the production team to mention in a review)
In one sentence 'Memories' is a WELL TAKEN CINEMATIC THRILLER IN REALISTIC APPROACH,and it is one of the BEST INVESTIGATIVE THRILLER i have ever seen in Malayalam cinema.
MY Rating :8/10
Theater: NAADHAM,ADOOR
STATUS : 70%,First Show(9/8/13)