Saturday 9 February 2013

KADAL- A COMMENT AND A REPLY




Hi Ajithan, 

     very detailed and nuanced - if not a highly cerebral (wink wink :-))- review of the film. as someone with very little knowledge about cinema and its visual grammar, i learnt a lot from your review. thanks.





from what i understand, the expressionist tradition in cinema wants to highlight/emphasize the inner subjective experience/turmoil of characters, and cares more about the visual projection of inner experience. And in order to do this, it often purposefully distorts the surface reality to underscore a particular point. Movies like Faust, Metropolis and Nosferatu comes immediately to mind - philosophical theme, existential, filled with harsh streaks of light & shadows, silhouettes, asymmetries etc. 

Tuesday 5 February 2013

KADAL



                          Sailing the sea of eternal conflict


  “This movie analysis has spoilers”

        Kadal (2013), ace Indian director Maniratnam’s new venture, is gloriously expressionist in the tradition of great movies of golden age like Charles Laughton’s ‘Night of the hunter (1955)’ a  thriller movie with similar plot elements of good vs. evil with different perspective.