FREE More Newspapers & Magazines https://t.

me/theIASonly
 THE HINDU
weekend
Saturday, March 2, 2024 at the movies 7
Chennai

Malayalam
쑽

An
immaculately-
crafted survival
thriller

SR Praveen
praveen.s@thehindu.co.in
Sharp thriller on India’s ivory trade
othing exists without a reason in Chidambaram’s Richie Mehta’s new drama series backed by Alia Bhatt is a humbling look at India’s
N sophomore film Manjummel Boys, not even the
habit of one character to scream loudly whenever
he is excited. Or, even a tug-of-war competition that the
eroding ecology, as elegiac as it is hopeful
hot-headed principals indulge in. Each of these elements
comes back into the picture, when you least expect it,
delivering satisfying pay offs. Malayalam Poacher unsavoury crimes put food on the table.
Mala values nothing more than preserving
Malayalam actor Nimisha Sajayan is
engaging as Mala. Through a tough
With his debut Jan-E-Man, Chidambaram proved what 쑽 the ecology and bringing the evil exterior, she conveys the disgust and
Director: Richie Mehta
he is capable of, deftly balancing the tonal shifts from the poachers and their buyers in. So does mortification of someone who routinely
humorous to the morbid. In Manjummel Boys, inspired Alan, Neel and most of the other bruises against hard truths. Mathew is
from a real-life incident, he is not required to do such Cast: Nimisha Sajayan, crime-fighters in the show. They keep late always less involving when playing
Shilajit Mitra
balancing acts, but no less are the challenges. Especially Roshan Mathew, hours, ignoring their personal lives and clean-cut, morally upright characters,
shilajit.mitra@thehindu.co.in
so when the audience is aware of how the events will Dibyendu Bhattacharya, well-being. Mehta has based these though he finds moments of lightness and
turn out in the end. Kani Kusruti, Sooraj characters on real-life heroes; this humour (like asking a suspect if he attends
Things take off rather casually in Manjummel Boys, ive years after Delhi Crime, Pops reverence, however, comes at the cost of church on Sundays and later presenting
with the gang having fun as uninvited guests at a
wedding party and getting into tiffs with a rival gang. The
easygoing mood is maintained right till the moment one
of them falls into a ravine. But,
by this time, a good number of
F Richie Mehta returns with a
dense, detailed and somewhat
airless series spun from a litany
of harsh facts. In the 1990s, the forests of
Kerala were a buzzing hot zone of a
Episodes: 8

Storyline: In Kerala, a
drama. There are no conflicting
philosophies to animate the chase. The
rangers are painfully synchronised in
their goodness; it’s the occasional cop,
instead, who is shallow and short-sighted.
the same reasoning to draw his trust). As
the hard-shelled Neel, obsessed with
turtles, Bhattacharya is the most wise and
fascinating presence, watchful and always
on the move, too pressed for time for
the 11 friends get registered in
Manjummel notorious ivory trafficking racket.
team of committed
forest officials crack Throughout Poacher, there’s talk of a sympathy.
our head, thanks to the Boys Following committed interventions, the down on a resurgent nefarious transnational syndicate. We’re Unlike Sherni, which drove home its big
standout traits written for poachers were flushed out and their ivory smuggling racket told how the illegal ivory trade funds ecological points through satire and black
them. Director: Chidambaram creed outlawed. But a couple of decades global terrorism. Mehta attempts to tie in humour, Poacher isn’t immune to
As one of them lies later, they reappeared, killing again at wider realities — Neel, who is ex-RAW, is platitudes: “Elephants are the engineers of
precariously perched on the Cast: Soubin Shahir, scale. In 2015, The Guardian ran a piece chided at one point for using his the forest”, “We city-dwellers don’t care
edge of a rock, unseen to the Sreenath Bhasi, Balu on the poaching of 28 tuskers in Thrissur ‘Kashmir’ tactics in the wild — yet the about wildlife”, “The chain of command is
anxious friends peering down and other parts of South India. For State show begins to really sing in the latter non-functioning.” The series is primarily
Varghese, Ganapathi,
from the top of the ravine, the forest officials, it was a source of episodes, while unearthing home truths in Malayalam with a smattering of Hindi,
Jean Paul Lal, Chandu
scene cuts to their childhood, embarrassment and a clarion call to on the ground. Though the killing of English and Bengali, but some of the
Salimkumar, Deepak
to a hide-and-seek game and action. As Neel, a gruff and iron-willed wildlife was banned in the country, the writing, especially in the Delhi portions,
of them swimming in a river. Parambol, Abhiram Field Director played by Dibyendu locals continued to view the hunters with falls noticeably flat. The narrative unfolds
These are not just random Radhakrishnan, Arun Bhattacharya, says in Mehta’s series: a mix of fascination and respect. Mala as a series of raids and arrests, most of
memories; the actions of the Kurien, Khalid Rahman “This is not easy press to get.” asks her mum if her late father would them filmed at night or in the blue-grey of
little ones back then inform Poacher — executive produced by Alia have reformed with time. “Reformed? dusk and dawn. Mehta and
the events in the present. Storyline: A group of 11 Bhatt and streaming on Prime Video — Like Jim Corbett?” comes the response. cinematographer Johan Heurlin Aidt come
Ajayan Chalissery’s friends head to dramatises Operation Shikar, which led to There is also the sad everyday reality of up with the interesting visual idea of
production design, especially Kodaikanal for a trip, but one of the largest ivory seizures (around captive elephants, held in large estates having CG animals casually cross the
of the bat-filled ravine where things unexpectedly go 500 kgs) in the country. In Malayatoor, an and used for religious processions and frame, wordlessly indicating their lost
much of the action takes place wrong when one of them aging forest watcher, drunk and public entertainment, tips of their tusks habitats. The symbolism is cleverly picked:
and Shyju Khalid’s visuals of falls into a ravine conscience-stricken, confesses to his pruned for ivory. shelves of Ganesha idols, carved from
the rescue, combined with participation in the stealing of raw ivory. ivory; Alan sending a ‘Trojan Horse’ to
Sushin Shyam’s immersive but understated background His whistleblowing exposes the contours hack a computer.
score, give one the feeling of being there at that point of of a larger ring, from the foothills of the “If we observe the patterns, we can
time. But, at a key moment, Sushin takes a step back, Western Ghats to the pristine art galleries develop a plausible story,” Alan tells Mala
and lets Ilayaraja’s classic ‘Kanmani Anbodu Kathalan’ of Delhi. Mala Jogi (Nimisha Sajayan), a early on. He’s explaining the dry art of
from Gunaa take centre-stage. That sequence, which also talented Range Officer posted at the parsing Call Detail Records (CDRs), but the
works as a tribute, is so elegantly pulled off that it almost Thattekad Bird Sanctuary, is reinstated by idea extends to Mehta’s filmmaking
manages to rewrite the memory of the scene in the Neel to breach the racket (before their approach, which is clinical,
original starring Kamal Haasan. meeting, Mala stops outside the station time-consuming and rooted in research.
The references to the original event in the epilogue, and breathes in the cold night air, home His new series is a restrained yet sobering
with snapshots of the real people involved, adds to the at last). Mala is soon joined in this look at the man-animal conflict, as elegiac
impact of the film. The casting really does play a part in operation by Alan (Roshan Mathew), a as it is hopeful. In one scene, addressing
the success of the film, as most of them deliver exactly nimble data analyst whose real métier is the plight of captive elephants, a character
what was required. With Manjummel Boys, Chidambaram conservation. calls it their punishment for “being on the
pulls off an immaculately-crafted survival thriller. Clearly, Like Vidya Balan in Sherni, Mala is same planet as us”. It is a numbing line,
he is here to stay. spirited and skilled, a calm crusader with yet it also rings true.
eyes and ears to the ground. She has a
personal cross to bear: her father, we
Manjummel Boys is currently playing in theatres learn, was a big-game hunter; his Poacher is streaming on Prime Video

Can we shed our baggage and go back to basics?

Telugu (Harshavardhan) sees this as an
opportunity to make political and
쑽 financial gains and sends Sundaram
with a plan. Sundaram is no saint
Sangeetha Devi Dundoo either.
sangeethadevi.k@thehindu.co.in Early on, we see him crudely
discussing dowry at a pelli choopulu.
aruvu thagginchu (reduce Everything boils down to money for
notion of the final journey bereft of
ritualistic norms.
Just when you begin to wonder
where the film is headed, it gets its
act together towards the final
stretch. In the pre-climax portion,
we, the audience, are similar to
Sundaram, watching the villagers get
journey is complete. He realises
what shedding weight actually
stands for and there is also an
explanation as to why the villagers
prefer dark-skinned people and look
at fair skin with distrust.
Making the transition from a
comedy and supporting actor to the

B your weight), an elderly man

tells Sundaram (Harsha
Chemudu), who enters the remote
village of Miriyalametta that has not
seen an outsider in about 90 years.
The casting of Harsha as Sundaram
master is spot on. Actors like Harsha
are often subject to body shaming.
This film turns the physical
attributes of weight and skin colour
on its head to narrate a
heart-warming, fable-like story. Not
everything about Sundaram Master
hits the sweet spot. Some stretches
call for some patient viewing but
towards the end, the director ties up
the different threads beautifully.
It takes conviction to make a film
like Sundaram Master, moving away
from mainstream trappings. On
paper, it must have looked like a
story that a grandparent would
narrate, with leaps of imagination,
and ultimately arriving at a few
lessons for life. Kalyan Santhosh
dresses up such a story with some
humour and little else.
Imagine a village that is so cut off
from the outside world that its
people continue to live in a way we
consider primitive — they live in tune
with Nature, cook and eat what the
forest and its surroundings provide,
work through the day and retire to
their bamboo-walled homes at dusk.
A voiceover informs us that the
villagers realised they were
self-sufficient, but the outside world
eyed their natural riches and came
to plunder them, so they severed
connections so that no outsider
would reach them.
Sundaram is a Social Studies
teacher in a Government school who
is deputed to this remote village
since the villagers requested for an
English teacher. A calculative MLA
him. What happens when he sets off
into Miriyalametta with his own
assumptions of the gullible people
forms the rest of the story.
Kalyan Santhosh pulls a few fun
tricks out of his bag in the initial
hour. The spelling error in the
disclaimer at the beginning of the
film, stating that the film bears (spelt
as ‘bare’) no resemblance to real
person, is a hint of things to come. It
turns out that the spoken English of
the villagers is impeccable since they
learnt it during the colonial era but
their spellings are all over the place.
The film acquires a
docu-drama-like tone when it tries to
address issues related to the
environment, how we attach value
to the rupee note and gold versus
what the villagers hold in great
value. The story also looks at life and
death, and presents an idealistic
emotional watching something on a
makeshift screen. Sundaram is
perplexed, then amused and finally
gives into the emotional outpourings
and realises that his transformative
Sundaram
Master
Director: Kalyan Santhosh
Cast: Harsha Chemudu, Divya
Sripada
Storyline: A Government school
teacher is sent to a far-flung
village to teach English but
nothing prepares him for what
lies ahead.
main lead, Harsha is effective as
Sundaram, portraying the conniving
nature and the transformation with
sincerity. Divya Sripada’s role could
have been fleshed out better but the
actor makes it worthwhile and gives it
more depth. Chaitanya as Oja also
makes an impression, along with
several others cast as village folks,
including Balakrishna
Neelakantapuram as the village head.
Kalyan Santhosh also tips his hat
to his favourite icons — from
Mahatma Gandhi and
Brahmanandam to cricketer Yuvraj
Singh through different threads of
the story. It is not perfect but an
earnest indie film that makes a plea
to live a little more consciously.
Sundaram Master is currently playing
in theatres

FREE More CM
Newspapers & Magazines https://t.me/theIASonly
YK
M
 THE HINDU
8 at the movies weekend
Saturday, March 2, 2024
Chennai

Regina George’s moderator — awww) are all

there.
There is a great deal of
singing and dancing complete

back 20 years later... with background dancers, that

English
쑽 and flamboyantly gay Damian
Mini Anthikad Chhibber
mini.chhibber@thehindu.co.in
Mean Girls his is not just another
Directors: Samantha
Jayne, Arturo Perez Jr. T teen movie. It is a movie
based on the musical,
Mean Girls, which in turn was
based on the 2004 movie
Cast: Angourie Rice,
directed by Mark Waters,
Reneé Rapp, Auliʻi
starring Lindsay Lohan and
Cravalho, Christopher
Rachel McAdams as Cady and
Briney, Avantika plastic queen Regina George
Vandanapu, Bebe Wood respectively. Twenty years and a
musical treatment later, the teen
Story line: movie has changed... and yet,
Home-schooled Cady remains the same.
Heron moves to United The mean girls are meaner
States from Kenya and and smart phones have upped
has to negotiate a new the game, as the 2024 version
kind of jungle follows the beats of the original
movie. Cady (Angourie Rice) is
16 when she returns to the US
and joins a new jungle called
high school. She is helped
negotiate the said wilderness by
artistic Janis (Auli‘i Cravalho)
( Jaquel Spivey).
The Plastics (“cause they’re
shiny, fake and hard”), queen
bee Regina (Reneé Rapp), Karen
(Avantika) and Gretchen (Bebe
Wood) are on top of the food
chain. There are other groups
including the math and theatre
nerds and jocks. Cady loves
maths and goes to calculus class
where she commits the cardinal
sin of falling hard for Regina’s
ex-boyfriend, Aaron
(Christopher Briney).
Math teacher Ms. Norbury
(Tina Fey) is impressed with
Cady and then not so impressed
when Cady fakes not
understanding calculus for a
chance to chat up Aaron. The
burn book, the wild party, the
protein bars that Cady
convinces Regina will make her
lose weight, the dance and the
mathlete contest (with Lohan as
all of us who have grown up on
Nasir Hussain and K
Raghavendra Rao films will
greet with counterfeited glee.
Fey and Tim Meadows reprise
their roles from the 2004 movie
while Jon Hamm has a blast as
the physical education teacher
Coach Carr. From the musical,
Rapp reprised her role and
Emily in Paris’ Ashley Park, who
played Gretchen, is the French
teacher Madame Park.
The film is mildly funny and
entertaining; that is about all
one can say about it. There does
not seem any real reason for this
movie apart from the fact that
Hollywood could, so it did. And
incidentally all iterations of
Mean Girls are based on
Rosalind Wiseman’s 2002
self-help book, Queen Bees and
Wannabes. What goes around
comes around with a
vengeance.
Mean Girls is currently running in
theatres

Snippets
쑽

Harry Potter TV series set

to premiere in 2026 on Max
Harry Potter will return to small screen in 2026. The first
installment of the TV series is set to premiere on Max in
2026, Warner Bros. Discovery has announced.
David Zaslav, CEO, Warner Bros. Discovery, said that the
series will span seven seasons. Each of the seven books of
JK Rowling’s fantasy book series will be adapted into a TV
series. “We spent some real time with JK and her team.
Both sides are just thrilled to be reigniting this franchise,”
Zaslav said.
No member from the original film series will feature in
the TV series. The cast of the TV series has not been
announced yet.

Misses the mark by miles

Imtiaz Ali’s Amar Singh Chamkila
gets premiere date
Imtiaz Ali’s latest directorial, Amar Singh Chamkila, starring
Diljit Dosanjh, will premiere on Netflix on April 12.
The film charts the story of slain Punjabi singer Amar
Singh Chamkila, often referred to as the “Elvis Presley of
Punjab’‘. Chamkila — a controversial folk singer, composer,
and songwriter — was killed, along with his wife and
singing partner Amarjot, by unidentified gunmen in
Mehsampur in Punjab in 1988.
Shot in real locations, the film stars Parineeti Chopra as
Amarjot.
AR Rahman has composed the music of Amar Singh
Chamkila with lyrics by Irshad Kamil.
The Boys season 4 to premiere
on Prime Video on June 13
Prime Video announced that the fourth season of the
Emmy-winning global hit drama series The Boys will
premiere on June 13, 2024.
The drama will return with three episodes on June 13,
followed by a new episode each week, ending with the epic
season finale on Thursday, July 18.
In celebration of Homelander’s birthday, Prime Video
also revealed new artwork from the highly anticipated
fourth season.
The series, which first premiered in 2019, reimagines a
world in which superheroes abuse their superpowers rather
than use them for good.
Heavy expositions and predictable plot-lines overpower the decent performances and
some solid action set pieces in Netflix’s Avatar: The Last Airbender
English
쑽 Last
Gopinath Rajendran
gopinath.raj@thehindu.co.in
et go of the past or you will
“L never have a future.” This
is a lesson that Aang, the
protagonist of Avatar: The
Last Airbender, learns, but it is also
something that embodies the journey the
live-action adaptation of the insanely
famous animated television series of the
same name had to take. With the
tele-series breaking multiple viewership
records, M Night Shyamalan made a film
adaptation that was critically panned and
it has taken more than a decade for the
franchise to get a live-action adaptation.
While the new Netflix series is better than
the film — which performed so poorly that
a planned trilogy was ultimately scrapped
— the series still comes short of being a
befitting adaptation of the cult animated
show.
More of a crash course on the story of a
two-decade-old franchise, Avatar: The
Last Airbender willingly uses tropes that
are as old as the hills. In this universe,
kingdoms are split based on the elements
(fire, water, air and earth) its habitants
can telekinetically control (an ability they
call ‘bending’). While people can only
bend one of the elements, there’s always a
demi-god among them, known as Avatar,
who can bend all the elements. It’s
unsurprisingly a shock to everyone,
including the 12-year-old airbender Aang
(Gordon Cormier) that he’s the new
Avatar. When the power-hungry Fire
Nation people kill all the airbenders
except the Avatar, he gets Steve Roger-ed
on ice for 100 years until a sibling duo
Avatar: The
Airbender
Showrunner: Albert
Kim
Cast: Gordon Cormier,
Kiawentiio, Ian Ousley,
Dallas Liu, Paul
Sun-Hyung Lee
Episodes: 8
Storyline: The Avatar,
who is yet to master his
strengths, has to restore
the balance of the
world by standing up
against an
over-ambitious nation
Katara (Kiawentiio) and Sokka (Ian
Ousley) inadvertently bring him back to
life. The three team up to, you guessed it,
save the world.
There are quite a few reasons the
animated series gained cult status and
one of them is the goofiness you would
expect from cartoons; while the new
adaption tries to double as Avatar for
Adults, it fails to pander to both sets of
audiences. There are the occasional jokes
— and shots like Aang recreating the scene
from the animated series where he
airbends around and hits a statue — but
the series doesn’t set the tone straight and
does no justice to the fantasy world filled
with mythical creatures and magic; a
problem that we encountered with
Disney’s live-action adaptations as well.
But what’s more troubling is the
break-neck speed the series travels and
how it still rakes up a seven-plus hour
runtime. Why was Aang the chosen one?
What’s with the comet? Why are Fire
Nation folks so...fiery? Despite feeling a
little too long, the show does not get into
such intriguing details.
What comes as a much-welcomed
move is its neat casting, something the
2010 film not only failed to nail but was
also rightfully criticised for whitewashing
the cast list despite the source material’s
influence being East Asian and Inuit
culture. Cormier is perfect as Aang,
embodying the character’s childish
nature, the willingness to make friends
with enemies and the power to take
charge when required. Dallas Liu, as the
scarred Prince Zuko, who has been exiled
and is hot on the heels to capture Aang, is
equally good. On paper, the parallels
between these two are brilliant — both
were raised to be what they are destined
to be since childhood; both long for good
companions; they have their own
missions that they cannot fail at; and while
Aang looks for a mentor in many after he
loses his, Zuko’s mentor is his father who
considers his own blood to be a weakling.
However, these parallels rarely translate
on the screen.
The action sequences are quite decent
and the final episode is visually stunning,
but the visual effects are not consistently
in great quality. The animated series,
despite being targeted at children,
addressed several themes like war,
imperialism, genocide and women’s
empowerment. Considering how the new
series largely focusses on a comparatively
older target group, these topics could have
been explored further. Instead, what we
get are heavy expositions and predictable
plotlines. For instance, the minute we are
told about water’s healing abilities, we
know it’ll be put to use later in the story.
Or, when Katara is told that women do not
participate in wars, no points for guessing
if she will go on to do it.
It also gets painfully obvious that the
trio are going to be unfazed at the end of
the season and hence, the stakes are never
too high. Uni-dimensional secondary
characters and underdeveloped
interpersonal dynamics amidst the trio
don’t help either. Just last year, Netflix hit
the bullseye with the live-action
adaptation of One Piece. This time,
however, it has failed to recreate the magic
with Avatar: The Last Airbender. Despite
being a largely faithful adaptation with
decent performances and some solid
sequences, capturing the true essence of
the classic animated show seems to be a
task too big even for the Avatar. Only if he
could bend minds!
Avatar: The Last Airbender is currently
streaming on Netflix

FREE More CM
Newspapers & Magazines https://t.me/theIASonly
YK
M