Spoilers ahead…
There’s whimsy. And there’s WHIMSY. The former is the product of a writer’s fevered imagination, a director’s feather-light execution. The latter is the result of a music director who’s conducting his orchestra not so much with a baton as a machine gun. Keep playing, or else… Aby is a WHIMSICAL film. Quirky music is slathered on it, like a tour guide who won’t stop jabbering and let you take in the sights yourself.
Read the rest of the review on Film Companion, here:
Copyright ©2017 Film Companion.
Posted in: Cinema: Malayalam
Baradwaj Rangan 
Rahini David
March 8, 2017
Hey, this idea of posting the first few lines of a review in the blog is a good touch. Thanks.
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Deepa
March 8, 2017
How does this work BR sir, where do we look for comments and discussions about the film that is reviewed by you?
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brangan
March 8, 2017
I think you will find comments here and on the FC site.
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Rishikesh
March 8, 2017
will you review veeram..?
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Enna koduka sir pera
March 8, 2017
I liked the layout of the review on the FC site this time. Without any intruding photos or links, the text was seamless and your writing as usual was very enjoyable. Especially, I could totally relate to this line: “These episodes paint a laidback portrait of life’s little nothings that we seem to get only in Malayalam cinema. The lack of event itself becomes a form of event.” So true. This is what makes me go watch Malayalam movies even if I don’t totally understand the language.
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brangan
March 8, 2017
Enna koduka sir pera: Thank you. The site is still a work in progress, and we are getting there 🙂
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praneshp
March 8, 2017
Ha, FC site looks better. Now please fix yours, still unable to see the pictures in Ramki post, for example. I tried installing windows 10 like another reader suggested, then realized I don’t like you THAT much.
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MANK
March 8, 2017
These episodes paint a laidback portrait of life’s little nothings that we seem to get only in Malayalam cinema. The lack of event itself becomes a form of event.
This is a direct influence of european cinema especially from the neo realist nouvelle vague period which has gone a long way in shaping the storytelling techniques in malayalam cinema from the late 70’s onwards.it really started with purely art filmmakers like Adoor and Aravindan, then spilled over to the middle stream cinema of Bharathan, padmarajan, K.G.George and their ilk and finally in to the actual mainstream in the 80’s. to the extend that every mainstream movie – irrespective of the genre- started following these ideas The Great screenwriter\Actor Sreenivasan( who is the father of Vineeth srineevisan) was the most successful exponent of this in the mainstream cinema space in the 80’s and 90’s .he was most inspired by Bicycle thieves and its screen writer Cesare Zavattini’s ideology that films needn’t be about great heroes or epic subject matter , but could very well be about an ordinary man going to a shop for buying a pair of shoes.
This aspect of malayalam cinema was lost for a long time but has been reclaimed thanks to a bunch of new gen filmmakers who have grown up worshiping guys like Padmarajan and Sreenivasan. now we have films like Action hero Biju which is almost a ‘nothing’ film about a cop, where the entire film is about these little moments in a cop’s life that would have hardly found mention in earlier cop stories
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MANK
March 8, 2017
Elated to hear the news of Vinayagan being selected as the best actor for Kamattipadam in the Kerala state Awards. Ditto for Manikandan
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/malayalam/movies/news/kerala-state-winners-2016-complete-winners-list/articleshow/57520218.cms
A glass ceiling is being broken here. this could be called one of the most pathbreaking award selections n recent times
http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/malayalam/kerala-state-film-awards-2017-why-vinayakan-as-best-actor-is-an-unconventional-choice-4560091/
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MANK
March 8, 2017
Praneshp, ,Ramki’s cartoon and AR Rahman link is visible in Both Firefox and Chrome in Windows 8
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Rohit Sathish Nair
March 9, 2017
MANK: I am happy about Vinayakan and Manikandan’s selection too. Slightly crushed about the fact that Kammatipaadam didn’t win a lot of other awards, but still, happy to see a State Award verdict being lapped up, after some time
Missed ‘Manhole’ and ‘Kaadu Pookkunna Neram’ at IFFK, so don’t know how good they were. I guess one deserving award Kammatipaadam won which very few noticed was that of Best Editing. IMO, in Malayalam cinema, the art of editing is at best invisible and at worst, inexistent. That’s where Kammatipaadam came into the scene. Even the cuts and transitions seemed to be telling a story in this film.
PS: Did you get to watch Guppy? How good is it?
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praneshp
March 9, 2017
@MANK: Its fixed now for me (Mac, all browsers). I commented on some other thread, I think.
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Jyoti S Kumar
March 10, 2017
These episodes paint a laidback portrait of life’s little nothings that we seem to get only in Malayalam cinema. The lack of event itself becomes a form of event.
Lovely line, sir
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