Premam - Why you cant stop celebrating !

There is a scene in the movie when the main protagonist stands on a wall in the sea facing backyard of cochin, dropping to Arabian sea with a cup of drink (Obviously a brandy), From a distant shot you can visualize that he is going to suicide because his third love after 10 years has just blossomed and been crushed on the same day. When you get closer to him, you hear him singing an old Malayalam song, rather he is reciting. His life time pals who come to visit, run to him to bring him down and excite him with an absinthe. On this mood, one would expect him to ignore the 68% alcohol absinthe and weep about his luck on love. But he makes a contra scene to move on or rather take it easy with his friends. You take many scenes out of this classic, the part which has to be stereotyped but  has been completely broken with humour and thats the way malayalam movies looks bright and feels good.

Premam just deliberately pulled me out of the concentration in thinking and losing numerous wits around the mainstream. I have watched it now 3 times and I haven’t found the magic stops evolving. There is a funny comical conversation which follows right throughout the movie and it never stops till the end, even after the title card. You don’t see it, but just hear it. Some body is giggling, someone is mumbling and  those are the treasured portions of Premam which is unique and makes it watchable again and again till the end credit when George calls Mary as a “chaala” (Serdine fish ) Mary of Asianet Fame. Uniquely the movie starts and ends with a conversation about the fish.

Premam is definitely the coming of age movie for Nivin, Alphonse and also the Malayalam Industry. If you have problems in calling this as a classic in Malayalam, I can help why it is. Premam is one of its important milestone in bringing to wider audience. I always had a problem with Malayalam movies, that it never regarded the talents beyond them. But now I fear that am I falling to that “ appreciate everything in Malayalam stigma “ , But I have had enough experience to appreciate this presentation which has overwhelmingly swept over like a breeze. There are enormous and hugely impactful clichés which could have made this movie like a melodramatic work. Some are repeated and mixed frames, but definitely an exceptional visuals brings it new. I would like to hold cameraman Anand C Chandran and Alphonse Puthran and sing that thagida thagida song chasing Mary along the broken bridge on Aluva. I bet you wouldn’t have seen a better visuals in this recent years like those dark broken steps with a dimming street bulb when Nivin and his friends finish the Mary’s chapter. You know these camphor candies, Sharbath with Kas Kas exists still, but the selling point is to make you crave for it, when the actors crave for it. The camera travels along the sharbath or a fish plate, and he takes painstaking rolls to show you, how it’s made when the characters are speaking behind about their love life. Now you start craving for the sharbath and focus on mumbling of George too. That’s a double delight with Premam. The scene when he takes the reference of Rajamanickam with Nivin entering with a dollar beard and a veshti, you just have to live those years back to enjoy it thoroughly in a college.

You can end my review by telling “Yeah I have seen Autograph or the lighter version in Attakathi, convince me with atleast one visual brilliance in both the movies and also void of cliché like what happens with Celine and George. You don’t expect that in a mainstream movie but you obviously would have had experience when a small kiddo whom you know in your 20’s grows up to a beautiful girl when you are in your 30’s. For some years I have never had the urge to watch a movie twice, the last I had was when I watched Naduvula Konjam or Anurag Kashyap’s Dev D or Haider. All are strong performance turbulences in a humorous or in an emotional way. Premam upsets you to think why it wasn’t possible in a rich cinematic ecosystem like Tamil. Some way we don’t appreciate the richness beyond and we are struggling to shed the heroism in our system, we aren’t appreciating the movies like Pannaiyarum padminiyum, we don’t do a collaboration like it happened earlier. Linguistic richness has failed to become a boon and we still make movies like Anegan or Maan Karathe which goes on to become a blockbuster with no reference to what we are. Movies like Pannaiyarum Padminiyum never gets noticed because it brings a rich Tamil flavor and we don’t want to show us in our true colors or how we had been cherishing. Taking a nativity out of an art in any form makes it run for creativity and that’s what is happening with veteran directors or actors.

Anirudh, Vineeth Srinivasan sings for Alphonse, or Nazriya and Fahad are made fun off, Ilayaraja is mentioned every time the romance is felt, some where the nostalgic effect spells awesomeness when you watch through this collaborative effort. The same happened in Oru Vadakkan selfie, though it hasn’t been able to create a vibe like Premam, it was much collaborative than you can imagine shedding the heroism.

Malayali’s love Tamil cinema or Ilayaraja or Tamil beauties for that matter, we do have a strong connect linguistically and premam takeas a bold attempt to bring it without translation in two of its main songs and also through Malar. Malar could be the triggering point of its blockbuster status or the cult status. Bold, amiable you are made comfortable that romancing a teacher isn’t a big deal when there are right things around you. You can’t stop a butter fly from flying and symbolically you feel for George. There isn’t much plot, if you make a movie like Paleri Manickam or Drishyam then you are bothered about plot. Here the characters are the excitement with visuals and some great music. I would definitely like to go and watch again or may be twice more. Some movies take time to replace your boozing time favourites. Long ago there was Michael Madhana kamaraj, then Casablanca, then Dev D, I think Premam has taken over this and It would stay for some time.  Long live good cinema and this will go on as my all time favourite along the classics.