THE first thing that struck me about Santosh Sivan’s  Urumi is its simplicity.  Okay, so it reportedly cost around Rs 20 crore to make.  Sure,the frames are rich, the sets lavish and the canvas grand.  But Urumi is ,at its core, a simple tale of valor.   It speaks of wronged men and womenwho were desirous of revenge and justice and refused to go quietly though pitted against a powerful adversary (Vasco Da Gama, shown as a ruthless, mercenary invader as opposed to the celebrated explorer).  The dialogue is sharp and unabashedly patriotic: Aa kuttikalude kannukalil Vasco kandu…mola pottunna oru shathruvine…abhimaanam adiyaravu vekkatha orujanata ye (In the eyes of those children, Vasco saw a budding enemy, apeople unwilling to grovel).  There is no inessential glorification of the protagonist, Kelu Nayanar (Prithviraj). He is portrayed as a bold warrior out to avenge his father’s death, reacting to his circumstances and mobilising his people.

The characters are introduced quickly, without ceremony.  And before you know it, you’re drawn into the narrative.  I meant to watch the first 15 minutes or so before I stepped out for a coke. It was a full 50minutes before I reluctantly left my seat.  That said, the makers have over done the whole disclaimer bit at the very onset:  That this is ‘only a movie’ is repeated once too often.  Now, wouldn’t you rather be led to believe you’re *not *watching a film but seeing a slice of life unfold onscreen?  Oh well.  Can’t really blame them for wanting to avoid lawsuits.

Deepak Dev’s compositions are above average. Watch out for Prabhu Deva’s dance scene with the soulful Thelu thele playing in the background. It has a serene, trance-like quality.  Full marks to the creators for not allowing the viewer to think, “Oh, just because he’s a dancing sensation anda reputed choreographer!”

Then there are the beautiful women. Nithya Menon looks bewitching in Chimmi Chimmi.  Genelia D’Souza is aptly cast as the fiesty Arrackal Ayesha, who can wield the urumi as effectively as the warrior hero. Tabu makes aspecial appearance (song) while Vidya Balan has a blink-and-miss part.

Prithviraj proves yet again that he can carry off roles that his contemporaries in Malayalam cinema would be laughed at in.  Amol Gupte is arevelation as the gullible,  good-at-heart but ill-advised king.  Not even ina single scene do you feel he’s out of place in a Malayalam mileau. Such talent!  A superb Jagathy Sreekumar (as the canny, conniving, polyglot minister, Cheni Cheri Kurup) gives a whole new definition to the epiphet veteran actor and there is a refreshing turn by Prabhu Deva (as the immensely likeable Vavvaali: Caring, witty, naive, ever mindful of  being righteous).

Never mind the historical inaccuracies,  they’re bound to be there! Those who whine cannot conclusively prove or disprove their theories. What are they going to do, go back in time?  And as Robert the Bruce narrates in Braveheart: “Historians will tell you I’m a liar. But history is written by those who have hanged heroes.”  The beautiful visuals, well-executed fight scenes and the vibrant performances make  Urumi a compelling watch. Two thumbs-up.

PS:  I don’t care much for the English title, though. The Coiled Sword has a nice ring to it, no?

They set up two worlds. The first one is inhabited by the British and chief among them Henry Moores, who wants to build a road in the plantation. Financed by a bank, Moores hopes that this road which will transport spices will make him rich, so that he does not have to depend on his father-in-law. He has one constraint – finish the road before the monsoons. The other world, symbolically located below the British bungalow, is occupied by the natives. Freedom struggle is in the air and various leaders are in the process of enlisting youth to participate in the movement.

The two worlds are connected by two characters. The first one is T.K (Rahul Bose), a native, who is Moore’s right hand man. He stays away from the freedom struggle and even questions the rationale behind it. The second one is Sajani (Nanditha Bose), the servant maid in the bunglow, who has an affair with Moores.

As the work on road progresses, the relationship between Sajani and Moores is discovered by her husband (Lal Paul) and the two worlds collide. When it becomes time for people to take sides, but TK, in an amazing display of servitude becomes a partner in Moores’ crime. He acts so cold that when Sajani goes missing and her brother Manas (Indrajith) collects the villagers to search for her, TK alone stays away.

Soon the pace accelerates and director Santosh Sivan’s camera focuses less on the landscape and more on the characters. The moving shots and closeups heighten the tension as police starts investigating.  The long roving shots which were present in the first half of the film, give way to short scenes in quick succession, accelerating the pace.

The script written by Cathy Rabin  and Dan Verete, based on the Israeli film Asphalt Zahov, focus primarily on TK. He starts off with unquestioning loyalty to the master and becomes a coconut – brown outside and white inside. As the events take over, he slowly transforms and it is this transformation that is the main thread. As he changes, the script writers do not spoon feed the audience with gimmicks or profound dialogue. Instead as the change happens, he joining groups he previously rejected, silently.

To the credit of the script writers they also do not feed us with the cliched caste, curry, cow image of India which is the staple of film makers like Deepa Mehta.  The movie is not melodramatic but  is not without imperfections. The loyalty of TK to Moores could have been explained a bit more as well as the motivation for Sajani to have an affair. There are no subtle hints as well and this makes the story stand on  thin stilts. Even with these imperfections, the movie really transports you to a Kerala 70 years back. The recreation is perfect and upholds the Merchant Ivory standards. The actors in fact become characters and Rahul Bose does a great job emoting with his eyes.

All Santosh Sivan movies have such perfect visuals that a reviewer has to see beyond that maya. We have never been impressed with Santosh Sivan as a director ever since he brutally butchered Asoka and Ananthabhadram, even though they both had absolutely stunning visuals. His Terrorist, we thought, had all the usual art house gimmicks but his picturization of pinakkamano in Ananthabhadram is one of our favorites.  In Before the Rains, he makes a movie which is normal, engrossing and realistic.

(image from wikipedia)

(Reader karthiksn also contributed to this review)

Once a while, in movies, you will see something which could be termed as wonderful idea. The song Pinakkamano in Ananthabadram is one beautiful visualization of a melodious song. The paintings of Raja Ravi Varma were bought to life by Kavya Madhavan and Prithviraj and filmed by Santosh Sivan making his debut in Malayalam films as a director.

The movie starts when Ananthan (Prithviraj) arrives at Sivapuram, with his deceased mother’s ashes. His mother wanted him to light the traditional lamps at his ancestral Kaavu. Ananthan grew up in San Fransisco, hence is alien to the culture and customs of his native village. He meets a host of endearing characters, including Bhadra (Kavya Madhavan) at Sivapuram. Digambaran (Manoj K Jayan) is not a friendly character and has serious issues with Madambis, that too issues spanning generations. He’s in pursuit of legendary Nagamanickyam and is resolute and ruthless in his quest.

Digambaran has an enemy in Chemban (Kalabhavan Mani) who was blinded by Digambaran. Digambaran uses Chemban’s sister Bhama (Riya Sen) in his black magic rituals. He also has the ability to do Parakayapravesam (process of transferring one’s soul into another body) and to attain Manickyam, Digambaran needs the help of a girl from Madambi family. The Madambi family wants to anoint a girl from the family as Devi (Goddess) and a previous attempt at that ended in a tragedy with Bhadra’s sister disappearence. Bhadra’s sister is dead and is kept embalmed by Digambaran.

Madambi family has plans for Bhadra for they wanted her to be Devi. The inevitable happens and Bhadra falls in love with Ananthan. Digambaran does not like both the alternatives, either Bhadra becoming Devi or Bhadra marrying Ananthan. He gets into the final act and people start dying like flies.

Manoj.K.Jayan’s potrayal of Digambaran is the highlight of Ananthabhadram. We just could not think of anyone else doing this role to such perfection. Everything he did was oozing evil. Kalabhavan Mani did a good job and we admire his dancing skills in the song Mayamallalooya (sung by him as well). Prithviraj didn’t have anything special to do, but irritated us with his San Fransisco dialogues. There are scenes in which Digambaran does Parakayapravesam onto Ananthan and his character had to act wierdly and differently. There are parallels to Manichitrathazhu and Shobhana’s dramatic tranformation into Nagavalli. Prithviraj’s efforts left much to be desired.

Kavya Madhavan looks very pretty and is breathtaking in Pinakkamano song. She has to control her weight because we have only Kavya. Riya Sen was a place holder and we don’t know what her role demanded. In this whole of two and half hour movie she had exactly one dialogue to mouth. Biju Menon came and went leaving us wondering about the purpose of his appearence.

When it comes to casting most of the films stick to a certain formula, like casting Cochin Haneefa in the role of idiot. On this count Ananthabadram didn’t do anything different. Cochin Haneefa must be very close to entering Guiness Book of World Records on doing maximum number of idiot roles.

The crew of this film won a host of well deserved Kerala State Film awards. Sreekar Prasad got award for best editing, Santosh Sivan for cinematography, Sunil Babu for art direction, Pattanam Rasheed for best Makeup Artist and M.G.Radhakrishnan for Best Music Director.

Santosh Sivan’s work behind the camera was excellent as expected. In fact this was one of the driving forces for us to see this movie. He was able to maintain the dark mood throughtout the movie and as a director the locales he chose were quite befitting. As a director we felt that Santosh Sivan did a good job and were impressed with the way he filmed the songs.

We would like to specifically mention the work of Sunil Babu, the Art Director. His artistic skills is one of the highlights of the movie. M.G.Radhakrishnan’s music direction was excellent and almost all the songs in this movie are good and our pick is Thira Nirayum, sung by K. J. Yesudas.

Sound recording was very good but we think that inducing fear with screams is old technique and we expected something more intelligent from Santosh Sivan.

The main drawback of the movie was Sunil Parameswaran’s screenplay. The story moves in a hurried manner from scene to scene. This pace increases more in the second half, in which the sole aim of the writer was to somehow finish the movie and in the process kill half the cast. Most of the time the dialogues were mediocre.

Anandabhadram is like curate’s egg, the movie is good in parts and at the end we were left with mixed feelings. It’s quite natural that when we see a movie like Ananthabhadram one would try to draw parallels to movies of same genre, for example Manichitrathazhu and let us assure you that Ananthabhadram comes nowhere near Manichitrathazhu.

The film is a sincere effort from Santosh Sivan, and we reccomend it for it’s good production values and few excellent individual efforts.

See Also:Anathabhadram