Spoilers ahead…
The non-stop travelling by the camera reflects this man’s non-stop physical travels, his non-stop mental travels.
R Parthiban is known for being different. His latest feature, Iravin Nizhal, is the world’s first non-linear single-shot film. Now, let’s break that up and look at the “single-shot” part first. Everything is captured in one 90-odd-minute camera move around production designer Vijaimurugan’s cleverly constructed sets. Essentially, the cinematographer Arthur A Wilson and his brilliant team started moving the camera when the story began and stopped moving the camera only when it ended. So, there is no editing at all. Whatever footage was captured in that 90-odd-minute camera move, that is the movie we see. Imagine the problems. First, the lighting keeps varying from one set to the adjacent one, depending on the event described in the screenplay. You may have to light a set to resemble daylight and before the camera moves to the next set, you may have to simulate night. If any single thing goes wrong, whether in the eighth minute or the eightieth minute of the shoot, you have to start reshooting the entire film all over again – as opposed to the usual way of filmmaking, where a film is made of several little blocks of scenes and you would just reshoot a single scene.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/tamil/movie/review/iravin-nizhal/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Baradwaj Rangan 
vijay
July 12, 2022
Hope he gets some audience for this effort..atleast on OTT
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Caesium
July 12, 2022
Glad to here that movie is worth its weight in cinema, and not just a gimmick (which I was very afraid off). Wishing PR great success (in Recognition & Rewards).
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The Ghost Who Walks
July 13, 2022
Glad to hear that the movie worked for you. I always wanted R Parthiban’s movies to do well commercially, even if I myself am not interested in watching them. The fact that he has been pretty open about the troubles has continues to face to make the movies he does and yet chooses to do that year after year generates a lot of goodwill. In a way he is like Kamal Haasan. Only with Kamal, more often than not, his movies appear to be worth all the trouble the man puts himself thru to make them. Hope this film finds a sizeable audience.
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brangan
July 13, 2022
The Ghost Who Walks: Despite a few issues, I am really enjoying this phase of Parthiban. Both OTHA SERUPPU and this film are stagey. They break the fourth wall. And yet, they are cinema. In other words, this filmmaker has finally come into his own making these films that reflect his own brand of artifice and puttknh himself into his films (as opposed to disappearing into a “character”).
By that, I mean he has never been a “naturalistic” filmmaker – but earlier, his settings and style were naturalistic. So they seemed a bit off. With these two films, he can really be himself WITHOUT it destroying the illusion that we are watching something “real”. Instead, we are watching something theatrical.
Somewhere, Brecht is smiling 🙂
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Sri Prabhuram
July 13, 2022
I feel that nowadays, the quality of the film has a positive correlation with how good/interesting the music is. In the 90s and 2000s, ARR composed a lot of memorable soundtracks for not-so-good films. Now, I feel like he needs a good or interesting filmmaker to really push him to the limits like Parthiban, Mari Selvaraj or GVM.
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Ananth
July 13, 2022
Honestly kinda think its a great idea for small movies to have reviews before the actual film releases instead of having some kind of embargo until the movie releases. Easiest way to get good WoM going.
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YAML92
July 14, 2022
@Sri Prabhuram : “I feel that nowadays, the quality of the film has a positive correlation with how good/interesting the music is. ” : I kinda agree with this, but only for the case of older composers like ARR/Ilayaraja/Yuvan. Something about how as they need new song situations to inspire them truly given they have composed for 100s(or 1000s!) of movies and seen similar situations again and again.
I think the younger composers like Anirudh, Santhosh Narayanan are able to deliver solid albums despite how bad the movie is (like Beast).
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Caesium
July 16, 2022
Saw FDFS in USA (Houston, TX). While I can (and I do) applaud the effort, I can’t say that the film worked for me. Few reasons: (a) Camera movement between scenes made me dizzy. (b) Background score felt non-stop and didn’t let me breathe. (c) Scene where Parthiban slapping his second wife felt imperfectly performed (d) Cus words felt force fit / unnecessary on more than a few occassions.
What did work for me: (a) The pre-interval making portion (Probably the best!) (b) Scene where adoloscent parthiban comes face to face (literally) with his biological father (They looked so alike!) (c) Bejara song (music & choreography) (d) Arputha speaking tamil mixed with fluent english
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deepak chandran
July 19, 2022
Movie was fantastic. dunno why vikram gets to escape with U/A certificate even after showing gruesome violence and this movie gets A for what??
there should be no dearth in imagination. a visionary director who has proven what’s possible in a little over 20 crores.
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Vazhipokkan
July 21, 2022
If there is a movie that’s worth solely watching for the effort – this is it! A lot of filmmakers go about saying – “naanga evlo kashta pattom theriyuma?” after making a movie.
Edhukku, engala 2 hours kashta padutharthukka? 99% of the time audience don’t care.
But this movie is truly different and needs to be applauded and supported for sheer effort and creativity. The outcome might be middling in terms of entertainment value. But it reminds us again of the magic of the cinema medium. Hats off!
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