Blogger southways has reviews of Perumazhakkalam, Kayyoppu , Thanmathra , Oru Cheru Punchiri , and Sancharram.
I have to say I enjoyed Thanmathra the least of the five movies. It is the story of a family who have to deal with the fact that the father, who is also the one that holds the family together, develops Alzheimers. I have a uncle who has Alzheimers, my mother’s only brother. I have seen it first hand and the devastating effect it has on a family and I thought the depiction of the disease was truthful. But there were two things that irritated me. The first half of the movie is about the family BA (Before Alzheimers) and the father is depicted as this perfect father, perfect husband and perfect son. Why? There was no need for that. The movie will have the same impact even if you don’t show the victim as being a saint. The second was the lack of trust the director had in the audience. He kept using music (really loud and melodramatic music) to convey that we were heading towards a sad scene. Again, no need for it. I prefer it when the director has confidence in himself to just trust that his directing and the actors will be able to convey the emotion. [Good movies and good food]
In our reviews of Perumazhakkalam and Padom Onnu Oru Vilapam we have noted this distrust of directors of the audience and the need to use loud music to manipulate emotions. While commercial movie makers have converted background music to cosmic noise, we don’t understand why directors like Blessy or T V Chandran have to resort to such gimmicks.
Leave a Reply