Cherans directoral brilliance at its best yet again in Pokkisham.. Techincally this should be the director turned actors best product not comparing his previous successes with autograph... Cheran has always been known to revolve his stories around true emotions in relationships and this time around the core of the movie is love and romance..
Pokkisham is the poetic journey down memory lane of Lenin and Nathiras love Set in the backdrop of 1970 .. Is this cheran movie another feather in his cap.. is it going to be a movie that tamil audiences gonna treasure ?... lets find out...
Mahesh ( aryan rajesh) is in search of some old documents accidentally comes across a set of old postal covers mails , diary and some documents of his dad Lenin ( Cheran) preserved by his mom in a very old trunk.. He decides to go through them which takes him into the irreplaceable memories of his dads past life ...
Lenin is a marine engineer in calcutta comes to Madras to attend his just operated ailing father (Vijayakumar).. Nathira(Padmapriya) admits her mom in the same hospital and the aqqunitance slowly blossoms into friendship when Lenin has to financially assist Nathira for an emergency operation even as her dad is in Malaysia.. Lenin has to leave back to calcutta even without wishing adieu to Nathira .
What he takes back with him the are memories of all the petty talks they have spending the wee hours in hospital taking care of there ailing parents.. Lenin is particularly impressed with her knowledge and philosophical talks inspite of the conservative orthodox muslim girl thats she is ...
Soon in calcutta Lenin gets an mail from his dad who has been just discharged from hospital wherein he mentions that Nathira was dissappointed that they couldnot bid adieu and hence requests him to courtesy mail her to her Nagore address..
Lenin decides to continue his friendship with Nathira and posts her a mail.. The pain , agony wondering whether all is well with her as there is delay in response turns into ecstacy and joy as he finally gets a reply from Nathira and then from there on the communication proccess continues.. Slowly but steadily both realise that there is more to there happiness and they long for there mails and yes they well and truely realise they are in love...Time passes as one fine day Lenin makes a Trunk call and Nathira for the first time eversince they left Madras expresses the desire to see Lenin..
Lenin travels all the way to Nagore to meet Nathira.. What happens thereafter .. whether he meets Nathira , .. Does he succeed to win over her hands inspite all odds .. is all that uncovers through the memories stored in the diary and the letters that has been kept in that trunk as a treasured poccession...
Cast :Cheran as Lenin does a fair job but then his acting is getting too sedate and unidirectional. His expressions keeps reminding you of his previous films and then with the cut mousch and drabb looks he looks totally stressed out making the movie...Cant say that of Nathira played by PadmaPriya though.. Her eyes are so expressive through the half hidden weil and she looks beautiful and apt as the typical muslim gal who hails from the orthodox and conservative background .. The only other star performer is the veteran actor Vijayakumar who plays his father and as a widower taking care of his grownup sons gives a flawless performance..
Support staff:The other major boost to such a slow paced movie is the man behind the camera .. Rajesh yadav.. brilliant work .. mesmerises the audience with his artful camera work... some of the shots are really poetic and carrys the mood of the movie ..Sabesh Muralis rerecording is good and couple of the songs are good but not very impressive especially : Nila ...athu vaanam kaathu" is well picturised.. Cheran has done his homework well as he potrays the early 70s with amazing precision be it the costumes the art work.. the locales.. the nonexisitant kelvinators lamberattas.. lunas .
The horse carts.. the cycle rickshawas so be the public transport systems.. even the bus where in people on the left used to sit perpendicular to the ones on the right..and not to forget the old fashioned postboxes .. the 100 ruppee notes .. old cycle headlamps .. telephones clocks calenders and the old fashioned passenger cabins of the indian railways ..
Cheran is well authorised to use the slow pace of the movie as it does make you feel the snail pace at which the postal mails used to travel those days.. The wait for letters to get delivered and the agony as it grows when you dont get a reply as you are not sure whether your letters have got delivered in the right hands .The wait for the answer on the recievers end when a trunk call is placed even as the postmaster keeps reminding you of the people waiting for other calls to be made and the stop watch clicking adding to the pressure.. It definitely also reminds you of the glorious work done by our postmen in the past collecting invaluable letters secluding seperating and delivering them .. Cheran has captured every minute detail brilliantly and it obviously carrys the movie on its shoulders..
Minus : slow narration , overplayed expressions of cheran reminds us of his previous films , makeup on the old nathira gives up at the end even as she emotes , songs dont impress much ..
pluses : Cheran is a master to glorify human relations with loads of dignity , brilliant capture of pain agony , anxiety, madness longingness in a long distance relationship.. touching performance in the climax. I am very Certian it would not get the desired appreciation in todays world with the growing communication standards , as time we take to express love and build relationships that we make in todays life is lightening fast .
Just over an sms, chat an webcam or an email..wheres the time to think over the relationship between mails.. You hardly cant even think if someone would ever carry these emails and sms's and treasure them in years to come.anyways even if they did the passwords would never would let there predecessors to know ... wait I can hear people already screaming at me .. are you mad?.. Wheres the time to even think of such a thing?
But Look back and yes everyone of us a decade back used to carry all the greeting cards and other postal letters that our loved ones used to send.. where have they all gone..do we still have it and treasure them? ... Thank you cheran for reminding us on where we are heading .
Verdict : Finally yes the movie is slow paced but then the contents and the manner in which it has been treated and provided warrants and overcomes all the shortcomings... sit back ask yourself ...is our relationships today strong enough to take us through the difficulties and time ?...
Do we have time to think over a relationship and what most importantly what do we treasure?... the answer is very obvious ..aint it .. Yes pokkisham reminds you that .. watch pokkisham to trigger you that sensitive virtue that we all poccess but have forgotten .. search yourself .. pokkisham is not for commercial entertainment .. the verdict is clear... Its a simple honest and straighforward good clean movie....with the required elements to booster it ..
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