Spoilers ahead…
My reading of the title is that it is a cry for help. “Please pay me attention.” That is what the screenwriter indirectly says, both in cinema and in this particular movie.
At first, it feels like one of those films where a bunch of bachelors live together. They cook. They booze. They all want or wanted to enter the world of cinema, and they talk nonstop about cinema. They talk about Mammootty and Mohanlal. They talk about Jomon T John and Syam Pushkaran. They talk about how lucky Karthick Naren was, because his father financed his breakthrough film Dhuruvangal Pathinaaru. They talk about the moral policing in Ishq. We even get a character whose ringtone is from the shower scene in Psycho. Every now and then, we get a little non-cinematic note about a character – sometimes through a cross around the neck or a thread that runs around the torso, or sometimes through lines by someone who cannot get married because he has to marry off his sister first, or sometimes through the man who wants to be a cinematographer but is working as a driver to make ends meet.
You can read the rest of the review here:
https://www.galatta.com/malayalam/movie/review/attention-please/
And you can watch the video review here:
Copyright ©2022 GALATTA.
Enna koduka sir pera
August 31, 2022
Wow, sounds like a very interesting movie and what a review!
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Caesium
August 31, 2022
Sounds like a powerful movie!
On a minor note: “And all these stories are dark and disturbing, with the cleverly constructed background sound effects making the narrations even more dark and disturbing.”
Is it “more dark” or just “darker”?
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brangan
August 31, 2022
Caesium: Grammatically, yes, it is “darker” 🙂
But I repeat “dark and disturbing” again in the next paragraph, so did not want to lose the “sound effect” of the phrase.
PS: The film is in a few theatres in Kerala, so cinephiles from the area – do watch! I swear, I wish I’d watched it on a big screen, even though it is “just” a bunch of guys talking.
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brangan
August 31, 2022
In general, posts with many links get shunted off to “Pending” (i.e. awaiting moderation), or Spam.
I just rescued one of Rahul’s comments, but do be aware of this. I may not be looking all the time, since I have been forbidden to moderate anymore 😀
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Rahul
August 31, 2022
Thanks, BR, I noticed this a couple of times before also and figured it’s because of the links. Will find some way to get past it. NBD.
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ravenus1
August 31, 2022
“I may not be looking all the time, since I have been forbidden to moderate anymore”
Wait, what? BR is forbidden to moderate on his own wordpress site?
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brangan
September 16, 2022
This fantastic film is now on Netflix.
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vijay
September 16, 2022
Not seen this yet, but just reading the review, the screenwriter as the metaphorical outcast crying for attention is quite a re-think, a slap to wake up the powers that be..
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thar.rocker
September 22, 2022
It’s a nice little gem! Thanks for the strong recommendation BR. I wouldn’t have watched it otherwise. I feel the screenwriter directly says “give us attention”. He says at least blame it on poor writing when a movie bombs. If this is the plight of Malayalam script writer, imagine if a similar movie was made by Tamil screenwriters (if they exist) 🙂
Btw the movie and the stories within are most definitely very dark.
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Satya
September 23, 2022
Watched the film today on Netflix, and I must admit the ending puts a lot of things that happened until then into perspective. Even the framing isolates Hari most of the time when he is with the group. Reminded me of SPB’s small speech about Jaladi Raja Rao after singing the latter’s “Yathamesi Thodina” from Pranam Khareedu.
Those who watched the film, might see these lines from that song in a related context: “Kootha Nerchinolla Kulam Kokilantara? Aakalesi Arichinollu Kakulantara?” (The caste who are educated sing like cuckoos, and we who cry of hunger are simply crows). Here, Kootha could mean either formal education or Sanskrit, and is open to interpretation.
SPB’s performance and speech I was referring to: https://youtu.be/Rlu8Bm8HjGQ
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vijay
September 28, 2022
This was terrific overall. Although I wonder if the director could have made his point about screenwriters being treated like the worm without bringing in the dalit angle at all which is a different serious issue that cuts across ALL professions not just screenwriting. So it’s not enough that I need to empathize with him for just being a struggling screenwriter but then he is also a Dalit on top of it and the movie veers off into his humiliations because of his appearance, caste etc. from childhood days which detracts a bit from the main issue. Also, making the character so openly self-pitying because he is a Dalit made it more literal and less symbolic. That’s the only issue I had.
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