Spoilers ahead…
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Posted in: Cinema: Malayalam
Srinath Rajendran’s ‘Kurup’ (Dulquer Salmaan, Sobhita Dhulipala) is stylish but has little depth
Posted on December 18, 2021
Baradwaj Rangan 
Senthil S
December 18, 2021
Agreed completely. This is one movie where I’m baffled by the reaction. There’s no attempt to explore who Kurup was as an individual. This is a guy who’s been on the run for 30 years. What’s he feeling? The real life story is so interesting in how the scars of this one crime still haven’t faded. Everyone involved was deeply affected. The screenplay here has all the emotional and psychological depth of a Wikipedia page.
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Sri Prabhuram
December 18, 2021
Kind of liked it more than you did TBH.
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KS
December 19, 2021
I was intrigued when I heard this movie was about a high-profile real-life criminal who is still a fugitive, and in my head, I pictured something like a swashbuckling don, or epic conman, or psycho serial killer.
Imagine my disappointment when I read the wikipedia article to find out that this was an unremarkable man who was accused of a grand total of one murder which was quickly solved. That too with the most mundane of motives: insurance money. There is no mystery nor the thrill of a con.
Since such a dull theme wouldn’t make for a full-fledged movie, they seem to have force-fitted so many unnecessary (and probably ahistorical threads) which do nothing to make the story any more interesting than the flat one line. His family, his stint in the air force (with that Peter character who has no role at all in the story), his fake suicide and false identity (is it that easy to fool the army?), or his romance add neither to his character nor the overall narrative. So again, gimmicks like non-linearity and unreliable narrator are resorted to to give the appearance of quality film-making. Which only make the experience confusing and have no payoffs.
As for the detailing, whats with their shoddy depiction of Persia? The events are supposed to have happened either during or after the revolution, so there couldn’t have been a “sultan’s angsty son who cannot inherit the throne”-type stock character. In fact, even the setting and costumes are so inaccurate- Iranians don’t wear the Arab keffiyeh. Their Perisan portions would have made much more sense if they just called it Dubai or Arabia like in other Malayalam movies.
My complaints against this movie often generalize to many other Malayalam movies I see. Everybody keeps raving over the quality of Malayalam cinema, and I too enjoy them in parts (for eg I loved Joji). But mostly they’re all like entering a Chekhov’s armoury of blanks. An inane story propped up by so many characters equipped with quirks just for the sake of it, all of them rambling on and on, half-baked threads that lead nowhere, and a total lack of clarity on what the movie is about. Drishyam (1) was a rare exception (it was tight and sharply focused), but the sequel was again afflicted by this.
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Rishikesh
December 19, 2021
The overwhelmingly positive reviews for Nayattu, Kaanekkane and especially Bharamam, forced me to feel that you were being a bit too lenient towards Malayalam cinema. But loved your take on Kurup and Marakkar. Wonder why you didn’t speak about the problematic aspects about those films I mentioned. Is it because you get too little time in this video format to speak in-depth about the pros and cons. Also badly missing your Hindi movie reviews. When can we see one? Would be nice to know your take on Sooryavanshi, watched it yet?
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JPhil
December 19, 2021
@KS more or less agree .Not great cinema by any means .In fact the source material could have been worked into a more gripping screenplay (eg Delhi Crime).As you reckon, the original crime-while horrific-isn’t that much of a page turner anymore and nor is S Kurup some genius. The only way to make it interesting would be in its treatment ,which in this case was quite generic.
And I am getting a little bored with DQ playing the charming guy next door(once) again (with Shine left to the heavy lifting ).
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Kevin
December 20, 2021
The best film ever in 2021
Plz…thx
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I think
December 21, 2021
“shoddy depiction of Persia?”
Haven’t watched the movie yet. And don’t know if the following info is relevant to the movie.
When they say Persia, they could have meant Dubai/Abudhabi (U.A.E) or any one of the Persian Gulf countries.
I think in the ’80’s anyone who went to work anywhere in the middle east was called a Persia-kaaran or gulf-kaaran, in Kerala. When someone said they were working in Persia, it meant they were working in U.A.E or any of the Persian Gulf countries in the middle east.
If not relevant to the movie, ignore this info.
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Gautham Jayan
December 21, 2021
For those who have been looking to find out where the ‘real’ persons are currently, this article covers most of the info.
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/indian-cinema/sukumara-kurup-case-kerala-dulquer-salmaan-film-dysp-haridas-sarasamma-chacko
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krishikari
December 24, 2021
@KS @I think Yes, as you said Persia is just what Malayalees used to call the whole Gulf region. What’s depicted in the film is indeed supposed to be Dubai or Abu Dhabi not Iran.
The period looks great , but feels like a very cleaned up 70s and 80s, it doesn’t feel that different from today in the Kerala scenes and then the colour palette goes almost sepia toned in the by lanes of Bombay. We had colour in the 80s, everything was not brown! This is a thing they do in western films too.
Thought it’s no Catch me if you can I didn’t think it was that bad. Dulquer is fun to watch but the only clever con was how he got on the ship. BR is right though we don’t really get to know him, he’s just a shallow conman and we don’t get to know the cop either.
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KS
December 24, 2021
@krishikar and @I think:
But they show the airport, labelled “Tehran International Airport” in bold letters. So no, its not something that can be dismissed as a colloquial reference. It is supposed to be set in Iran, and they botched that up badly.
The costumes and characters reminded me of some Pandiarajan-movie type Arabs- you know, the “Sheikhs” who wear a towel over their heads, sport a french beard, boast of owning oil wells, and are always around whenever the villain hosts a ganster meetup with item songs. I’m not asking for subtleties here, but a movie supposed to depict a story that actually happened in reality, some attention to detail isn’t too much to demand. Especially of Malayalam cinema whose folks always act smug about being realistic and detailed.
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krishikari
December 25, 2021
But they show the airport, labelled “Tehran International Airport” in bold letters.
Really?! I missed that! But nothing about the stereotypical movie style gangster meeting put me off. There are all kinds of Malayalam movies, this one was a pretty superficial, style over substance type. If people are acting smug, not my problem.
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uri
December 26, 2021
Kurup looks like a money-making project by a star son after almost a decade of doing reasonably good work in Malayalam films. All the slow-mo shots, punch dialogues, get-up changes look like it was superficial level stuff cashing in on DQ’s looks and stardom.
I think Dulqur is being an intelligent producer by making his film to cater to all kinds of audiences from Vishakapatnam to Madurai to Hubli to the interiors of Hindi belt(it was released in 4 languages). It will be a suicidal mission if he is going to make his film at the high standard an average Malayali expects out of Malayalam films…. therefore the “Pandiarajan-movie type Arabs”. Going by the success of the film, the dumbing down worked for the movie and it is a success. After seeing the kind of films that are becoming pan-Indian hits, more filmmakers from all industry is going to make similar stuff to make money….stylish slow-mo shots, charismatic-looking leads, CGI, simplistic storytelling, attractive visuals, music, production design, and too many broad brush strokes over specifics.
There are more star sons in Malayalam films trying to make it big like Pranav…so expect a lot more dumbing down, simplistic, Pandia Rajan-like (to satisfy the taste of the neighboring states) multilingual movies coming out of Malayalam films to make money.
How cool Malayalam films are held to such high standards, especially at a time when we have films like RRR making their heroes roar back at a lions’ face or come out of fire unharmed or Allu in Pushpa doing item dance numbers in the forest and groping heroine’s breast in the name of entertainment. Nothing wrong with these films. Obviously, there is a huge audience for this and they make a lot of money.
Slow-paced, slice of films coming out of Kerala is not everyone’s cup of tea. More than being smug, I think a lot of people are just happy to have films set in small-town or villages that have themes that are universal yet local, not taking itself seriously, laughing at itself at times, style not taking over the subject. tackling many relevant issues including patriarchy, casual sexism, abortion, gender equality in marriages. I think Malayalam cinema folks should be extremely proud of the high-quality stuff coming out of their small industry. But like the filmmakers from Kerala keep repeatedly saying in interviews..there will be mediocre films coming out of their industry. Some films will be simplified to be intellectually undemanding and accessible to a wide audience.
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KS
December 26, 2021
@uri:
Your comment is exactly the kind of smugness I was talking about.
I too like the smaller-scale of Malayalam movies, which allows more to be spent on good writing, detailing and quality actors. As opposed to a star movie in Tamil or Telugu, where 90% of the budget is wasted on some egoistic star, forcing mediocrity on every other aspect of filmmaking.
But that freedom doesn’t translate as you would expect, and I am often underwhelmed by most Malayalam movies I see, given the raving hype about their supposed quality. As I remarked in another comment, they lack focus, and mistake boring non-sequiturs and rambling for world-building and detailing. As for ” tackling many relevant issues including patriarchy, casual sexism, abortion, gender equality in marriages” most movies just use issues as a talisman against criticism. Like “you don’t like this movie only because you’re casteist, sexist, fascist,…”. If they were organic to the story, they wouldn’t be singled out for brownie points like this.
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uri
December 28, 2021
“most movies just use issues as a talisman….”
As opposed to what. Getting the main lead to say moralistic punch dialogues, kill the villain and eliminate all the said evil from society and have a neatly wrapped ending?
Following is Info on Slice of life films….
Slice of life describes the depiction of mundane experiences in art and entertainment.
Slice of life films have a story telling technique that presents a seemingly arbitrary sample of a character’s life, which often lacks a coherent plot, conflict, or ending. The story may have little plot progress and often has no exposition, conflict, or denouement but rather has an open ending. A work that focuses on minute and faithful reproduction of some bit of reality, without selection, organization, or judgment, and that every smallest detail is presented with scientific fidelity.
Character building and detailing in Malayalam films are not new. It has always been the case even in older films. While other films knocks out all the character interactions and emotional damage in ten minutes, so we can get to the fun part where the hero is beating up the villain, doing song and dance, and giving lengthy dialogues expressing his inner pain and damage from society , in some Malayalam films we have 2 hrs of slow build as all of the character interactions and backstory and soft mental shifts take place like unwrapping the onion of the characters while nothing much happens in the plot.
If one is waiting for “something to happen”, then one is going to be disappointed.
I am in no way saying that all Malayalam films are great. A lot of horrible stuff gets made too.
I am just happy that there is variety/ choice and there are things other than mass movies to watch.
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