Movie Review : Parandu Po

Movie         : Parandu Po 

Language  : Tamil

Duration   : 2 hours, 20 min

Year            : 2025

Actors        : Shiva, Grace Antony, Mithul

Mithul as Anbu is a stunning act in the movie. Loved the boy!  Shiva and Grace Antony were good and put lots of effort to keep the subtle plot balanced.

However, I truly felt, the script needs a lot more depth, a lot more emotions, a little more substance and focus on finer details. I probably expected much more from the movie and came out a little disappointed. What made me feel so is below.

1. Most of the scenes in the movie are phone based (calls, video calls, whatsapp chats) and after a while it becomes heavy for the audience to bear it when most of us are trying to keep it away at least during movie time

2. There is a little too much of chase. We can understand chasing once of twice but when the entire movie is about father chasing son, then it moves away from realism. It does bring some comedy, but not to the extend to defend all those chases!

3. The financial struggle from which all the chase starts and which the family continues to struggle with goes unanswered at the end

4. The repeated false and careless promises (on smoking especially) which we see throughout makes the promise the duo make at the end of the movie shallow. We need not have to necessarily consider it as true promise!

5. The boy is taken through two extremes - the village life and the other rich extravagant life style. What it teaches the boy is a question! How he can chose from those two? It confuses the audience as well. Why the rich life style was needed in the plot? It should have been restricted to village life alone which would have made much more sense to the overall flow of the script - that the boy wants to get connected with Nature

6. While the setting of the village life and characters are done well, the finer aspects are found missing. As an example, the costumes used by the character Vanitha is not suited for the village life and the surroundings. It should have been more down to earth.

And it can go on and on. Wished the movie could have been much  brighter, tighter and lighter for the sake of the good plot and the wonderful Anbu!

Movie Review : Sitaare Zameen Par

Do not wish to even go to the full form of this movie name! At the end there were no “Taare” or “Sitaare” coming down from the sky when a story and script, successfully released twice earlier, was so badly ill-treated and abused by Amir Khan and Team. Nothing in the movie touched any of the known human emotions. Everything felt so shallow, so flat like the PK faced acting of Amir Khan whose character itself seemed so inconclusive. After a while the stress on the face of Amir Khan started to get on to the nerves of the audience! None of the relationships, the mother-son, husband-wife, coach-team, seemed to have any bonding in them at all! Only saving grace is the presence of the differently abled actors who brought some genuineness in an otherwise very fictious attempt.  Disappointed. Disheartened.

Movie Review : Gol Maal

Throwback Movies : Gol Maal (1979), Language : Hindi, Genre : Comedy

Though I returned to "Gol Maal", which is as old as me, to laugh over the weekend, this time the movie made me wonder than actually laugh. Watching it more closely, I was awestruck at the measured, balanced and subtle performances of Amol Palekar, an artist trained in fine arts with a career in Theatre and Utpal Dutt, yet another towering figure from Bengali Theatre whose leftist revolutionary dramas ran packed shows in 1960s. Both, under the direction of Hrishikesh Mukherjee, considered as one of the greatest in Indian cinema, raised this simple movie to its deserved classic comedy status!

While the characters of Ramprasad Dashrathprasad Sharma and Bhavani Shankar, played by Amol Palekar and Utpal Dutt respectively, are class apart as the ones' who drive the story, every other role are also notably etched with pin-point precision – may it be Ratna as Ramprasad’s sister, Kedar Mama, Deven Verma, Kamala or Buaji. The guest appearances of Amitabh Bachchan, Rekha and many others along with the way how "story within story" theme was brought in, made this otherwise simple script more interesting and unique. Lyrics of Gulzar gave us the “Gol Maal Hai Bhai Sab Gol Maal Hai” adage and the equally philosophical “Aane Wala Pal Jaane Waala Hai”, both of which got blessings of R.D Burman and when they finally reached us through Kishore Kumar it naturally turned them into classics! 

A feel-light, feel-good, feel-happy, feel-joyful, live-in-the-moment movie for a weekend!

The Light Thief (2010)

The Light Thief (Svet-ake)  (2010)

Kyrgyzstan

A plausible plot. Weak narration. Weaker depiction. That is what we feel as The Light Thief take away those 80 minutes from us. The soft background music, the mountainous Kyrgyzstan landscape and the strong winds bring some energy along with few vertical shots.

But other than that the Aktan Arym Kubat movie fails in all other aspects. The role of protagonist is vague. Several scenes seemed unnecessary. The village itself is portrayed as barren with lazy people. Old men playing cards and rusty youth after horse riding. Naturally, the traditions, the culture move towards its inevitable doom.

There is nothing to take for the viewers at the end which is the biggest disappointment - the light really gets stolen! May be the movie is a reflection of the economic hardships of Kyrgyzstan which happens to be the second poorest country in Central Asia. A movie for those who don’t know anything else other than watching movies.

The Clown (2011)

The Clown (2011) – (O Palhaco - Portugese)

Director: Selton Mello

Country: Brazil

Duration: 90 minutes

Language: Portugese

Watching the performance of the clowns she bursts into laughter. Then when the "bravest lady" enters the stage, her face turns gloomy. She is Guilhermina, the little girl of true wisdom.

"The Clown", brilliantly picturised in the backdrop of Brazilian landscape takes us to the realm of "spirituality" in a very unique way. The movie neither preaches, nor makes any statement. In a very subtle manner it demos the power of morals and strength of unflinching belief through the mind of a little girl, who for me is the real protagonist.

All through the 90 minutes, we travel along with the circus troupe with a group of uninspired artists just trying to do what they know. We feel their helplessness, their unheeded little needs, deep pain behind their laughter, shrewd deceit and the unparallel hardships.

Among all these common traits of everyman is little Guilhermina whose mother always teach her the right way and true morals of life.

"If you ever need anything pray to Saint Genesius. He's the patron of musicians, comedians and clowns."

The words of her mother get hardcoded in her little mind as she turns out to be the saviour of the circus troupe.

"I'm brave and protected by Saint Genesius the saint who looks after the artists!"

Selton Mello portrays the dispassionate circus life in a creditable way.

Cinematography is just brilliant with dusty South American landscape brilliantly fused well with the bright colours inside the circus tent. The unique background score comes with a fresh whiff of breeze and the screenplay is easily the best without getting noticed much. 

A fantastic movie for all!