Spoilers ahead…
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/article/lens-movie-review
For a while, Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan’s Lens makes you think it’s one of those Se7en-like thrillers featuring a bald villain with a God complex. This one (Anandsami) keeps speaking of Satan, but he possesses godlike omnipotence – he sees everything, knows everything, controls everything. His name is Yohan, which may be a dry joke. The name means “God is merciful” – this Yohan seems anything but. (And God certainly hasn’t been merciful to him.) A few scenes into the film, we discover he’s drugged a woman into a deep sleep. He says, “Ellaarukkum indha thookam kedacha indha ulagame amaidhiya irukkum.” If everyone slept this soundly, the world would be a peaceful place.
The line has to do with Yohan’s yearning. He’s troubled – he could use some sound sleep himself. The line also hints at Arvind’s (Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan) sleepless nights, which end up shattering his peace. His wife Swati (Misha Ghoshal) thinks he’s on calls with clients in the US. But the first time we see him, he’s wearing a Salman Khan mask and video-chatting with someone named Julie. What are they talking about? Let’s just say his boxers are by his feet.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2017 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Jyoti S Kumar
May 11, 2017
There was a time sex was an unapologetic part of the Tamil mainstream. In Sarada, Vijayakumari burned with unfulfilled longing because her husband was impotent. In Sigappu Rojakkal, the protagonist was a psychopath who was scarred by sex. In Thappu Thalangal, the heroine was a prostitute. Now, everyone wants a U certificate, and sex has been reduced to wink-nudge item numbers and double-meaning dialogues.
This is exactly the point I was trying to make in the Swathi muthyam thread… Obviously written better by the master writer! 😊
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Anisha
May 11, 2017
That was a gripping review. I only saw the trailer for this, but I could already envision how this movie would play out thanks to your review. Really want to see this.
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Srinivas R
May 11, 2017
TAMIL movie like this.. had no hopes at all. Thanks to Vetrimaran as you said
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Balasubramanian Ramakrishnan
May 11, 2017
Sad that the movie is not getting a proper release even in certain parts of Tamilnadu. I’ve to travel 100 odd kilometres if I’ve to catch this movie. When will this change? 😦
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Anuja Chandramouli
May 12, 2017
It seems like one helluva concept for a movie! And what a fantastic review… Watched films like Burma, Sairat, Haaramkhor only because your reviews caught my fancy. Ditto with Lens. Color me intrigued! These guys ought to be thanking you on bended knee…
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doctorhari
May 12, 2017
Thanks for bringing another interesting movie to light BR. Saw the heading of your review along with the star rating, promptly booked the tickets, saw it, and now back at home reading your review.
Happy that such films are being made in Tamil. One small ‘could have been’ I thought about while watching this: once we see the start of the flashback, and the crisis the couple land up in, then the film starts travelling the expected route; a route we are quite used to seeing in so many Tamil vigilante movies. A few more (or at least one more) plot twist brought in organically – like the shocking identity of the woman lying in the bed in the first half – could have added some more interest post-interval. And I wish the bald villain had more layers to his character. His character didn’t strike me deep as the character of the protagonist did, with its varied shades.
On ‘the titles appearing like Google search and cinema as consensual voyeurism’ … I’m sure even the makers didn’t think this much when they decided on it. 🙂
This movie was running just one show at one theatre in Coimbatore, with hardly 50% occupancy. High time some kind of alternate channel is created to connect movies like this with viewers.
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brangan
May 13, 2017
doctorhari: “then the film starts travelling the expected route; a route we are quite used to seeing in so many Tamil vigilante movies.”
SPOILERS AHEAD
True. But that’s only the structure, the surface. Because in a Shankar movie, this would be a PHYSICAL space (i.e. the chase, the killings). Here, it all unfolds in a PSYCHOLOGICAL dimension. (The cops etc are almost an afterthought). That’s why this angle did not seem a cliche at all — and I wrote that it “upends” the vigilante angle.
Because how many regular vigilante movies show us the flashback of a man we thought is the villain but is now the wronged hero — and even his “vigilantism” is not so much to punish this guy (though that is a part) but more to end his own suffering in front of the man who brought him to this situation.
“YOU did this to me. Now YOU watch me die.”
Surely, a very different approach despite that structural similarity.
The only real annoyance for me — apart from “performances could have been better” — was how Arvind stumbled on the video. I know the point was to show how even an “accidental” thing like that can destroy lives, but this seemed way too much of an accident.
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doctorhari
May 13, 2017
Spoilers alert *
BR: ‘..it all unfolds in a psychological dimension. That’s why this angle didn’t seem clichéd.’
Of course BR, I didn’t mean it was clichéd or boring at all. Just that we could easily guess what would happen next lessened the interest gradient a bit, for me. There was nothing post that flashback to keep us deeply absorbed in the goings on.
One thing I could think of is, the villain could have had little more edginess and unexpectedness about him. He need not have been created as a good, saintly vigilante at all. The call girl he substitutes when removing the wife’s dress… it could have been the wife itself. Maybe he could have sat and cried in front of the protagonist later on pushing him to do such a dastardly act. Maybe he could’ve started with the real intention of killing the man’s wife after undressing her, and later his tears awaken him to his senses on what a beast he has become, and it’s at that point near the climax, he decides to kill himself in front of the protagonist. It all could still be happening in the psychological dimension, but such a sense of progression in his character would have sucked us deep into his world, and made us sympathise with him more.
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
May 13, 2017
Re: Unfolding in the psychological dimension wonder how Christopher Vasudev Nolan would have handled this…..
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
May 13, 2017
sravishanker1401: Christopher Vasudev Nolan? Lol
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
June 7, 2017
There’s a bit of dissonance from a largely English/Malayalam film being dubbed into Tamil
Technically, this isn’t a Tamil film. It was originally made in Malayalam and had its initial release last year.
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ravenus1
May 20, 2020
Saw this only now, after coming across your review. Intriguing, with shades of Haneke’s Cache and Chan-wook’s Oldboy, if less extreme than both of those. It’s less about style (although stylish in its own context) and more humanistic. The flashback was overdone and I began to fidget, but the way the script moved after it came back to the present made it interesting again.
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