Sreehari Nair wishes to write about that which is in the cultural air but absent from trending lists. You can e-mail the author at sreeharin@rediff-inc.com
'Once Mohanlal's ever-swelling entourage grasped his enormous worth, once it realized that the innate Mohanlal appeal could be profited from, it set about to exploit, to make uproars, to create the Mohanlal brand.' 'And he wasn't meant to be a brand. He was meant to be an artist, a tireless explorer of the unique seas inside him,' asserts Sreehari Nair.
KPAC Lalitha's specialty was evoking on screen people that the audience felt they knew intimately, and evoking them through telling details that tore down the boundary between the audience and the performer, observes Sreehari Nair.
A Nedumudi Venu character was happiest when moving his head to a piece of music with his eyes closed; or, when inventing off of a note that a co-actor had left unfinished; or, when reciting a poem by Kavalam Narayana Panicker where a hymn about nature descends into a musing about cheating, depression and death, feels Sreehari Nair.
There's the excitement of watching minor people commit major crimes and watching how that becomes their second nature, almost. Just when you think the show is extending outwards, it implodes. And with the ethical hinges off totally, you, the viewer, wouldn't know quite how to react, observes Sreehari Nair.
Every film that Sriram Raghavan makes is a compendium of ideas and sensations that tickle him. Trying to remake a Sriram Raghavan film is like getting excited by somebody else's goosebumps, observes Sreehari Nair.
In Maqbool, Vishal Bhardwaj did a Godfather; in that he took something that was pulpy and fast and gripping, and made out of it something timeless and grand, feels Sreehari Nair.
I am yet to encounter an anthology of films (made in this country or elsewhere) in which every feature has adhered to a minimum level of quality, asserts Sreehari Nair.
The second season of City Of Dreams has more pulp, hardly any juice, feels Sreehari Nair.
'We feel thrust into a motion picture that has all the makings of a carnival but no real fireworks,' Sreehari Nair notes after watching Malik.
'If questioning and dethroning hierarchies is your primary motive, why not put an end to the practice of announcing your shining star, your box office draw, in big flaming letters and mentioning everyone else's name in small font at the bottom of the screen?' asks Sreehari Nair.
'Tamhane's densely composed shots achieve what a vacuously whizzing camera seldom does.' 'Like those Renaissance Paintings in which a bewitching lady is shown posing for a portrait, and daily life plays out in a corner unruffled, Tamhane's static frames have a hundred interesting things happening within them,' observes Sreehari Nair.
Amit Mistry was a wicked actor, someone who could chance a broken arm, who could take deep dives, who could ram his head into walls, all without bothering about the outcome. And, as with that closing bit, the knowledge of where he might have arrived at eludes us now, observes Sreehari Nair.
Despite its stiffness, in Aarkkariyam, a supernatural glow does shine out of the ordinary.
With Joji, Dileesh Pothan has found a way, once more, to use everything he has learnt to further push the boundaries of his art, observes Sreehari Nair.
'I might in the future step out of a Dileesh Pothan movie not completely satisfied, but content I'll be in the knowledge that our greatest living film-maker had failed striving to be something more than just an auteur,' notes Sreehari Nair.
'Of all artists who openly support the current political dispensation, she is far and away the finest,' argues Sreehari Nair. 'With the exception of perhaps Tabu, no Indian actress has done more to extend the range of the feminine mystique in Hindi cinema.'
20 years ago this week, India and Australia played one of the greatest Test matches in cricket history. Sreehari Nair relives the sound and the fury of that unforgettable game at the Eden Gardens.
The curse of stardom, especially in a country like India -- which wants its Gods to be tidy and punctilious -- is that stardom forces you to stop exploring the frozen sea inside you, and instead inspires you more and more to perform out of a small puddle, observes Sreehari Nair.
If you think the film is gutsy, you are simply being blind to the truth that the whole men-are-worthless slant is saleable right now, argues Sreehari Nair.
The difference between watching a movie on a laptop in your apartment and watching it on a big white screen is almost spiritual, notes Sreehari Nair.
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