Magic of Premam
Premam (Malayalam movie) has been one of the wholesome entertainers of the year. Though the usual commercial masala elements with some cliched sequences still Premam had an irresistible run at the box office. Post the success of the 70’s blockbuster Sholay someone asked Sippy the secret behind the success of Sholay. He answered movies like Sholay are not made to succeed they just happen. The same analogy could be applied to Premam as well. In this week’s Friday Fundas I wanted to explore some of the facets that made Premam entertaining.
Sweet Memories
The most appealing element of the movie was about memories. Atleast more than one sequence in Premam would have appealed to you and brought back the memories of your past hidden deep inside your heart. It had some similarities to the movie Autograph by director Cheran. However, Premam was more on a lighter note. The movie is arranged in three phases school life, college life and life beyond college. During the first phase of the movie, more of Macro shots had been used. The movie starts with the shot of a small wall beside the garden which is seen in a typical middle-class household in Kerala. Such type of shots has been used throughout this phase like the jars of the tea shop, close up of the juice in a glass and so on. These shots help in touching one of the five senses in you as I had talked about in Recipe for movies to connect with Audience. The entire gang hanging around in the tea shop, stalking girls, using landline phone to call friends bring back some of the good old memories.
Character Arc
Nivin Pauly’s character George is the pivotal character in the movie. The character arc of Nivin Pauly is done very well across the three phases. A clean shaven look without mustache during the school days, a fully grown beard with a black shirt and white dhoti during the college days and clean shaven with a neatly trimmed mustache look post the college phase brings in a good amount of variation. The innocence in the character during the first scene transitions to a rough and tough look and then transitions to a calm composed look. Nivin Pauly’s body language to depict these transitions is one of the strengths of the movie.
Heroines
The casting for the heroines has been a big plus. Featuring new actresses who are not from mainstream cinema has worked wonders in connecting with the audience very well. If anyone is planning on a Premam remake, use new faces rather than resorting to actresses who are already well established. This plays a very effective role in connecting with the audience well. A girl next door image helps the audience in associating with the lead character.
Musical
The songs were not added just for the sake of adding songs. Although one could argue it had commercial intentions, I felt the songs were cleverly woven into the story giving a musical tone for the film. The songs were also very pleasing and merged with the tone of the movie.
Humour
The movie had well-written humour which worked well. The absence of emotional melodrama is a big plus for the movie.
The above are some of the points that worked well with movies. Overall if the script connects with the audience irrespective of it being a commercial entertainer or an off beat film it will succeed.
Completely agree! 🙂 Nowadays, fans of other movies like Ennu Ninte Moideen are trying to degrade Premam, but it will remain a good movie for the neutral, thinking people.
Thats the problem with fanatic crowd but they can never put down a good movie… they should realise more good movies in their own respect is a good thing
I wonder how one movie becomes bad just because another movie is good for them – I noted that a lot of them are the same people who praised Premam so much earlier 🙂
true … beats me 🙂
Well… your right I guess… I also noticed atleast in my case I think men have the ability to show variety with the beard…something girls can’t do, I am sure that hair on the cheeks mean a lot for the men… and I think its something when a man is able to carry himself well with the beard, with mustache and without them playing with looks…when they add a ear ring on the ear it’s pretty well cool for them… and here the same guy in different phases of his life has brought out his charactor very well(: … the girl too… I can see the mature and modern working women and the younger, playful and happy girl here… it happens to everyone… even as we are grown the high school days we have so many innocent movements that bind us… girls who dress normally suddenly transform due to some reason but again there was something charming about the pimpled girl earlier, she was sweet and happy little girl as to the grown women who stives to be perfect inn the imperfect world… it is lovely the potrayal… I also like use of the subtle things I am sure they trigger some childhood memory(: or memory of the olden days… you know we needed nothing to keep us happy… just food, tv, walking in shops with parents, playing or fighting with classmate… well it is not so now even if we are the same person…strange na… and even the parents who were so important to us become less impt.. , only in the deep heart that little boy or girl is there hidden… I suppose we all need to connect with that little thing to be whole again(: or else life is just sort of dulled and mundane…happens to all of us at one point of time… I got on mustache you may like…let me know how it was… http://astonishingindia.net/2015/10/22/guard-at-the-ganesh-dyodhi-and-the-story-of-his-moochh/
Very true… The article is interesting one.. Mustache is definitely a style statement… Is that your blog? I enjoyed reading the article…. good one…
No my blog is https://mintymile.wordpress.com/ … I have a lot to do for my blog to be interesting(: but I give some things I find interesting for instance this film
…awesome