|
Release
date:
|
June 28,
2019
|
|
Director:
|
Arun Bose
|
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Tovino Thomas,
Ahaana Krishna (credited here as Ahaana Krishnakumar), Nithin George, Vinitha
Koshy
Malayalam
|
An air of sadness
hangs thick and heavy over Luca. A
policeman is called to a crime scene. As he searches for answers to the mystery
he must solve, he grapples with questions of his own in his personal life.
Through his investigation, we get acquainted with a young couple at the centre
of the melancholy pervading the entire film.
Luca takes its name from its attractive hero, a
popular artist played by Tovino Thomas. It tells an engaging story made all the
more so by Thomas’ easy charm and natural chemistry with the charismatic
heroine. Arun Bose’s direction, the writing by Mridul George and Bose himself,
and the acting by the lead couple are designed to conjure up a halo of
heartache around this young man who has known loss and unimaginable pain.
We are introduced
early in the film to Niharika Banerjee (Njandukalude Nattil Oridavela’s Ahaana Krishna, credited here as Ahaana Krishnakumar).
She is a PhD student in Kerala for some research when she accidentally bumps
into Luca who, at first, comes across as a stereotypically temperamental
artist. Their maiden encounter is a pleasant little overturning of the age-old “boy
meets girl, boy and girl have misunderstanding, boy and girl are antagonistic
towards each other which leads to an attraction that she at least masks so that
she can have him chasing her, until at last they acknowledge their love for
each other” Mills and Boon-style silliness.
Yes they do start
off on a spat but it comes from a believable – and quite funny – situation,
unlike the contrived bunkum commercial Indian cinema has been serving us for
decades in this space. They clear up the misunderstanding almost immediately,
there is no faking of anything between them, and they become instant friends.
With its uncommon
treatment of a lead pair getting off on the wrong foot, the film ends up
getting off on the right foot, its determination to steer clear of clichés
becoming evident from here on. And for the most part, it does stick to its
goal.
Luca’s atypicalness is one of several reasons why an
aching sweetness envelops it from the start. If we get its understated
messaging, good for us, but if we don’t, there is still a simple,
heartwarming romance to be enjoyed here. The film does not seek to impress us
with intellectual profundities although it does end up having a point to make. Many
points, in fact.
Take for instance Luca’s empathy in its approach to mental
illness. Or the manner in which it educates the audience about necrophobia and
thanatophobia while neither drowning us in jargon nor sounding like a dumbing
down. Or even the emphasis on the heroine’s Malayali-Bengali descent.
Contemporary Malayalam cinema is replete with mentions of the poor Bengali
migrant labourers who have made their presence felt in Kerala society. There is
absolutely nothing wrong with a portrayal of this reality, but it helps to
remember that this community is as heterogeneous as all others. The mention of
Niharika’s Bengali father makes no difference to the plot, but it does tell us
that Messrs Bose and George are minds worth tracking.
The two have clearly
also done their homework in the area of forensic science. As an avid consumer
of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit,
Law and Order: Criminal Intent,
sundry CSIs, Criminal Minds and other American crime serials, I had somehow
missed the news that fingerprints can be used to detect gender. Now I know,
courtesy Malayalam cinema.
These little
details, Nimish Ravi’s cinematography and Anees Nadody’s production design that
combine forces to demarcate the two simultaneous storylines by seasons and by colour
palette, and the quality of the hero’s art works, especially that first
spectacular installation at the Kochi Biennale, all add up, giving the film a
certain finesse. One grouse: though the subtitles are quite good and even take
the trouble to translate song lyrics, which is something Indian subtitle givers
do not do often enough, the smattering of grammatical errors – “he pleaded me”
... “tensed” ... “anyways” – is exasperating.
What works for this
film then is Luca’s life story, the role Niharika plays in it, the suitably
languorous pace, and the whodunnit (not counting two needless red herrings that
are left unexplained). What does not work is the effort to parallelly tell the
tale of Akbar and his wife Fathima. The latter is played by Vinitha Koshy whose
considerable talent was on display in Ottamuri
Velicham (Light in the Room). She then can hardly be faulted for the lack
of spark in the Fathima-Akbar relationship – the problem lies with the
uninspiring writing of their story.
Malayalam cinema
recently pulled off a similar narrative structure with greater success in the
Joju George-starrer Joseph. In that
film though, the policeman’s personal story was not just convincing, it was
more gripping than the case he was working on. In Luca, the mystery that Akbar is trying to crack is way more
appealing than the dull Akbar-Fathima angle, which desperately needed some
revving up and depth.
The other aspect of
Luca that does not quite sit well
with the rest of the smoothly flowing narration is the use of non-Malayalam
languages. It is clear from a regular viewing of Malayalam cinema that for many
filmmakers in Kerala, Hindi is an aspirational language in the way Hindi film
makers once viewed English and, for instance, chose to make a point about
coolth/class by assigning English dialogues to Amitabh Bachchan’s characters to
impress and intimidate those around him with his Anglicised accent – it worked
in some Hindi films like Aakhree Raasta
(1986) but by the time Prakash Jha’s Aarakshan
(2011) came around it had become a dead bore.
Language can be
jarring when its use is self-conscious and does not seem spontaneous, and the
insertion of the one-line Hindi refrain in the romantic number Vaanil Chandrika in Luca sounds wannabe and forced. That contrivance is put in the
shade though by the stereotyping that screams out when a song featuring a line
starting with “Ya Maula” plays in the
background while Akbar is pondering over his personal predicaments. In two
scenes. Because he is an Akbar you have to go the “Maula” way? Really? Uff. And worse, when Niharika and Luca kiss for
the first time, an English song comes up. Uff again. That latter device takes
away from what is otherwise a pleasant comfort between Thomas and Krishna
there, and the film’s own comfort with physical intimacy in an industry that is
still awkward around scenes of sexual closeness between members of any gender.
In small ways do writers
unwittingly reveal their conservatism. In this case, the latter two
instances are disappointing because in other small ways, Bose and George offer
other little touches that we do not often get in Malayalam films. How many
times have you seen a woman driving a vehicle in which there is also a male
passenger in Malayalam cinema, or for that matter in ads created across the
country? Or a woman guitarist in a band? We do here in Luca, without a big song and dance being made about it.
How often do we see
a man able to take a no from a woman who has opted for physical proximity to
him, without that woman being treated by the narrative tone as a tease? Again,
we do here in Luca.
And then that
English song plays, and I am given pause, and I wonder: are Bose and George
faking their progressiveness, or are they not even aware of how far they have
to go? Is this why they made Niharika
a Bangalore-based half-Bengali instead of a full-blown Kerala-based Malayali
girl? Cos let’s face it, “north Indian girls are easy” and “city girls are easy”
is the kind of tripe often to be heard from Malayali men if you travel across
Kerala.
So anyway...
Tovino Thomas has
already proved in successive films his ability to add subtle yet distinctive nuances to
roles that might on the face of it seem like the same natural charmer but end
up being so much more because of
him, from the loveable rascal of Mayaanadhi (2017) to the tempestuous lover of Theevandi
(2018), the chap trying to mask his insecurities with bluster in this April’s Uyare, the quiet efficiency of his
character in this month’s Virus and
the exhaustion of the money-strapped filmmaker he plays in And The Oskar Goes To also released this month. The actor gives his
Luca such an aura of sorrow and tragedy despite his boyish fun-loving
appearance, making his sure-footed performance the fulcrum of this film’s
effectiveness and poignance.
Ahaana Krishna has
a compelling screen presence and an easy on-screen equation with Thomas that
makes them perfect to play both buddies and lovers. She did need the director
to control an occasional impulse to play cute, as he should have controlled her
tendency to make her gestures and lip movements more pronounced than usual in
dialogueless scenes that are overlaid entirely with songs as though she is
afraid the viewer in the last row will otherwise not notice. Those quibbles
apart, her performance in Luca is
proof that she can carry a film on her shoulders because although it is written
from the hero’s point of view, it ends up being as much hers as his.
Barring a jarring
performance in the minor role of an industrialist called Saipriya, the rest of
the cast is fair enough.
No doubt there is
more that this film might have been, but the tone and style of the mystery
reminded me so much of one of my favourite British writers, Agatha Christie,
Bose conjures up such a Christie-like atmosphere in his narrative, and
Thomas and Krishna are so good together, that everything else is put in the
shade. In Luca’s final twist,
Christie faithfuls are likely to spot flashes of two of her beloved
bestsellers, one of which was in itself a bow to William Shakespeare’s arguably
most iconic work. I am leaving all three unnamed to avoid giving you clues, but
know this: Luca is not a copy, it is
a thematic revisitation and a wonderful tribute to Christie’s classics.
As Kerala’s
legendary rain pours down in sheets, and Akbar inches closer to determining his
answers, I could not take my eyes off the screen nor detach myself from the
grief of that young artist and his loyal companion long after I had left the
theatre.
Rating (out
of five stars): ***
|
CBFC Rating (India):
|
UA
|
|
Running time:
|
151 minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
courtesy:
No comments:
Post a Comment