So...where do I start to pour out what I feel about Charlie ?
May be the starting scene of the film itself where the Heroine gets introduced. At the first look & her first dialogue with an auto driver, Parvathy conveys that she is a "freak" and a good match to Charlie.She in fact proves this truth in the last scene also where she teases Charlie that she is "Shruti Raman" from Pondichery leaving a seasoned Charlie really perplexed. Of course - within couple of minutes - the femininity within her wakes up and she shouts in a loud voice that she is "Tessa" not wanting to lose him. What a characterisation ? Directors may conceive ideas but the artiste needs to give birth with all the hard work and pain, isn't it ? She is a typical hyppie never self conscious about her dress and in fact wears wrong set of chappals which was pointed out by her friend (Hyppie - Urban Dictionary : To be hyper and happy at the same time, or to get hyper from to much happyness)
There are too many things to write about this character - for her boldness (she speaks with alien / men quite casually without the typical feminine posing), for her child likeness (winks and plays fun with a child during travel & gets absorbed looking at the Kathakali dancer in his full costume when she gets a chance to sit with him on a truck top), for her boldness to go in search of her curiosity to find "her" man, last but not the least. her sensuality. An actor must have done lot of research for this portrayal (note she had no earlier language film to watch unlike her bete-noire in the tamil film (Shraddha Srinath)
Lets go to the hero Charlie - a muscular / rough but handsome / nice-with-people - he carries his weight quite unassumingly through out the film quite effortlessly. He does not mind pissing in the middle of the road (ok, it was night time but he is not some one who will hesitate to do it in broad day light), he re-christens names of people as per his whims and fancies (Mathai as Pathrose, Mariama as Queen Mary, Dsouza (thief) as Kalla Sunni) but still every one around him love for what he is. He is portrayed as a real nomad without any sentiments (unlike Tamil where Madhavan is bit more mellowed and sort of "warm" chocolate boy who gotten older - lets go to Tamil film in next post ok ? ) whose relationship with Kunjappan is some thing to be researched upon. They have lot of affection for each other but just keep fighting as though it is their language of love. This should be one of Dulkar's career best film for many reasons - first is that this is not a regular kind of character. I don't really want to add more and more of his heroics since there are too many other beauties of the film about which I need to talk about. IN short, Dulkar should have made Mamooty proud if his "even more" busy father happened to watch this film in full. (He would have told "en raasaa !!" and "katti pudichu oru umma" for sure)
Well, coming to other key characters of this film, when I saw the film for the first time without sub titles, I felt their introduction scenes of the various characters and the dialogues were too abrupt but then, when i watched later with sub titles, most of the characters were full fledged - though they are not in "apple to apple" in comparison to Tamil. What to do...in Tamil, characters have to even think loud and feel noisily !! There were in fact few characters (the first visitor to the new home of heroine who walks in casually and collects his stuff, the little boy who comes to do house keeping, the Doctor who gets wild in the Obituary party organized by Charlie) but they got fit into the film quite well ; In fact the fact is that mallu version is shorter by 15 minutes just goes to prove that there was no redundancy and it was more power packed.
Nedumudi Venu's character was much shorter (in terms of minutes he fills the screen) compared to Mouli (Tamil) who perhaps needed lot more minute to show his dramatics and histrionics (melodramatic behaviour designed to attract attention). In one particular scene he tells to Parvathy "mazhai ..premam....and how they help to progress a love affair - in a poetic manner to tell us all that he is not a rude guy as we perceived him. It was also poetic when he tells Parvathi as she arrives "2 days stay..that is the niyamam here". I was admiring the fact that his emotional past was quite easily brought up in the film in a "lot more" light conversation amongst his house mates and I particularly noticed that the meeting with his past love was devoid of any emotion - either to him nor to us. But then what wells up our emotion is when he wants to send off some coffee powder and tea leaves to Thrishur and when he breaks down in the room only in the company of his Charlie !! These scenes are poems by themselves.
Music was fantastic (with a number rendered by Dulkar (Sundari penne) coming in film at various points); Camera was excellent with the views and the angles (particularly the long still shots of the scene when Charlie adventures with the thief - each of the pose of the pencil drawing is nicely shown frozen in camera to help our recap); No flaw in editing that was at least noticeable to me. Last but not the least who can forget the Pooram festival climax which should have gained respect all over the world to Enta Keralam - thru this film.
Well, what makes a good film..?? Gentlemen....Ladies...think about it. Of course good story, screenplay, direction, dialogues, music...? what else... Huh..?
Its about the defining moments that remain frozen in our mind for long time - shall I start listing them for you ? The scene where parvathy is pulled in by a lustful guy inside a lodge room and Dulkar passes by...will you ever forget those expression of parvathy and manly walk of Dulkar ? Another scene is when Dulkar actually crosses the car of Parvathy who was in deep thought and does not even notice him - Dulkar's wide stretched arm / hand comes quite close to the window of the car. Parvathy running behind the Jeep just before intermission is another scene to remember for more than one reason, is'nt it ? Just one more - the photo of Dulkar with parvathy in polaraid camera gets converted to one taken at the time of first "unknown" meeting of Parvathy with him.
What more to add ? Any thing you try to add to this post is not going to match the film experience.
Krishnaarpanam....as always
Regards // Suren
