ARTIST ആര്‍ട്ടിസ്റ്റ് (Malayalam,2013) Review By The-StarSMS

ARTIST

ആര്‍ട്ടിസ്റ്റ്

By The-StarSMS

When I heard about new project of Shyamaprasad ( Shyamaprasad)  titled  ‘Artist’ ,the words that first comes to my mind(may be most of others minds) were  ‘imagination’, ‘creativity’, ‘artistic’, ‘intellectuals’, ‘enthusiasm’  etc. and Fahadh Faasil (Fahadh Faasil ) tag on the card made me little more excited.  So I was little eager to watch this flick, unfortunately I couldn’t watch it on release date itself. I was ‘confused’, whether I need to book a theatre show or to book the train ticket ‘first’ to watch this movie in ‘my nearest place’ (Thanks to Distributors & Malayalam cinema market).

Anyway we (with my brothers) watched it on last Friday as our nearby theatre named ‘Naadam, Adoor’ took a risk to chart this movie on now showing. We were late for the first show and we were little scared too. We feel little awkward when we didn’t see ‘‘any’’ people at the ticket counter .When we entered inside the theatre we figured out that, there isn’t ‘’any’’ one both inside and outside .And it’s my pleasure to tell you that ‘we are having special guests treatment’, because every seats in the theatre saying ‘hey come on!! Sit here, it’s all yours, do whatever you want’.  Later some people came in (thanks to them otherwise show might be canceled), and we all watched the film same as we watch with two or three friends in home. I just tried to convey the struggle for seeing a GOOD movie. It is pathetic to experience this, as Malayalam Film Industry is in its growing phase and audience’s lukewarm response to these good movies aren’t expected.

About the movie, as I know this movie is an adaptation of a English novel  ” Dreams in Prussian Blue:  by Paritosh Uttam”. I was sure that the film got some real story base. And when the film starts rolling I could feel the same. Movie starts with the appearance of Gayathri (Ann Augustine) and the movie tell us the story of the relationship between Gayathri and Micheal (Fahadh Faasil) through her point of view. Movie take us to understood status of their relationships both in present and past, as Gayathri remembers their first sight , hang outs , conversations etc., which is from a Coffee shop where Micheal supposed to come and she enquires about it through mobile.

Gayathri shocks her parents by choosing to study in Arts College, Trivandrum. She was from a family that is little conserved traditional Tamil family. She admired by seeing a senior in college named ‘Micheal agnelo’ who was an eccentric talented artist, first meet itself made an impact in each other.   They started hangout together, chitchat and from one day she starts to meets him at his flat (Didn’t it come too fast?), anyway they planned to live together without any social string.

Gayathri still in a teenage phase, struggles to move in a deeper level in relationship with Micheal and she finds hard to cope up with Eccentric partner’s lifestyle. But her woes increase further when he lost his sight and become blind .The movie answers what changes it made on Gayathri?  How Micheal Agnelo tackles this? Where their relationship going?........

As I am said earlier I had expectations about this flick .The fact is, movie is in between ‘a level’ where my expectation and disappointment level stays. It is not because movie is bad   or time killer or money wasting. It is because movie needs some more push to reach the expectation level’.

As we all know, Shyamaprasad( Shyamaprasad )is a unique director in Malayalam film industry as he made a platform himself apart from all other directors in the industry all the time being. As usual Shyamaprasad‘s Artist story plot level is in a ‘level’ where other film’s plots can’t exist to stay and a level where others dare to look(Prime example is the exceptional movie Ore Kadal {Ore Kadal} ). But here the problem is Shyamaprasad doesn’t want to go beyond that level, he is satisfied with his current subjects and with the same treatment he is implementing for these subjects .He is stuck on these level ,up to  ‘Arike’ ,this was acceptable . Please Sir, a polite request, ‘Time has come to think about it!’.

In Artist he is focused only on the certain emotions, mannerisms of the characters or situations and not whole the character or situations of life and this is what I miss in this film. When you watch scene by scene, there won’t be any problem but when you take whole the movie there is something fishy. These things only comes to matter only when a film takes on a realistic approach

Shyamaprasad’s brilliance is his realistic approach of storytelling. It made me disappointed, film was not purely justified to this approach, where his brilliance always score. I think it is because Shyamaprasad implemented a Scene oriented direction rather than story based in ‘Artist’.  Story telling through Artist’s (Micheal’s) point of view would be more suits to Shyamaprasad.

As my brother said if this novel” Dreams in Prussian Blue ‘’ read by any other screenwriters in Malayalam industry other than Shyamaprasad, they would only focus on the struggle of artist and struggle of Gayathri’s in a society where they always hurts them, yes ! The whole sentimental stuffs’, there won’t be any intellectual approach and any focus in artistic or eccentric elements, internal clashes between them etc.

Fahad’s characterizing and acting were interesting in the first half but an eccentric Acting is not  constant throughout the movie, but some high levels of effort from him made balance to it. Once the movie enters in to second half he really stand on the feet. But I didn’t get any deepened and heartened urges of a creative artistic mind (except from his eyes) of artist Micheal from his acting at some parts, which is strongly needed in the film. Anyway fahad deserves a huge applause.

Ann Augustine ( Ann Augustine ), This is her best performance till date. But I am sorry to say, one who really pulls the film back is Ann and characterization of Gayathri, because of two reasons

One-Her Characterization, as the movie tries to tell a man-woman relationship through a women’s point of view, which lacks some points that should be projected in a realistic approach of relationships.

Second-Her acting, even though character needs a lot of support from the actress, Ann failed at some important sections that really hurts the film’s soul. It is not expected from Shyamaprasad’s movie.(eg Meera Jasmine in Ore Kadal,Shobhana in Agnisakshi,Mamatha in Arike,Sheela in Akale)

This film’s plot is a universal plot which can be shown to any part of the world, because it contains some real artistic contents. So team should have been aware of this and must taken care of it.

I shared only little things about the movie and I am not concluding this not to watch the film but to tell you ‘go and watch’ because there is more things to share about the movie after you watch. 

'' ARTIST '' is a must watch film and got enough contents for thoughts and enough contents to Discuss.

In one sentence this movie have only a small drop hole in between Very Good and Class!!!!!  

My Rating: 7/10

Theatre: Naadam, Adoor
Status; 5%