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South Indian cinema just amazes me. Right when I feel I’ve watched everything on offer, it brings out a new gem to add to my list of favorites. And the variety, from action stars punching the souls out of villains to anti-heroes desperately victimized by the system, there is so much to watch, enjoy and even relate to.

In the past few years of watching both industrialized as well as independent films in Tamil, Telugu, Malayali and Kannada languages, I can without a second’s thought say that films from South India have more originality, authenticity and variety than the offerings of Bollywood.

Released over a week ago on Netflix, the Tamil-language film “Aelay”, a comedy-drama centered on love-hate relationship between a father and a son, is another addition to the south’s diversity. Originally produced for theaters, the film had to bear the brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic that pushed back its post-production, forcing it into a TV premiere in February 2021 before its release on Netflix.

A young Parthi (Manikandan) returns to his rural village from the city on hearing the news of his father’s demise. The popularity of his deceased father Muthukkutty (Samuthirakani)—an iced0popsicles vendor in the village—waxes and wanes because of his erratic habits. Muthukkuty is not only the village’s popsicles vendor, but also a mischievous conman who has villagers wary of his antics. Again, people love him for his simplicity and helpfulness in times of need.

We also learn within the first few scenes that the motherless Parthi does not have normal relationship with his father who raised him as a single parent. Parthi blames his father for his neglected childhood and doesn’t seem much disturbed at his demise. Instead, he seems more troubled with the marriage of his distraught lover Nachiya (Madhumathi) happening in the village at the same time as his father’s funeral.

Aelay, told between the present and the past, starts like a regular funeral film where the living celebrates the life of the deceased with a lot of flashbacks. But by half time, there is a major twist that changes the whole story and leaves the audience bewildered. Writer and director Halitha Shameem has ensured the film doesn’t get too dark while maintaining a high humor quotient.

Based on a story that starts simple and then complicates as things progress, the screenplay of Aelay consistently reminds the audience that the film will not let them settle comfortably. It uses the whole village to create characters that contribute to the story. Yes, the film centers on Muthykutty-Parthi father-son relationship, but it also branches out to show relationships between friends, extended families and neighbors.

While the rest of the cast contributes its fair share to the film, it’s definitely the lead actors’ performances that help a non-glamourous, lifelike story shine on the screen. Both Samuthikarani and Manikandan fit the film’s script. I haven’t personally followed Manikandan much but Samuthikarani has been impressive in almost all his movies I have watched so far. The actor is a prime example of the versatility of South Indian cinema and with Aelay, he just adds another feather in his cap. 

The only pinching let-down is the film length. For a story based entirely in a small village with a small number of characters and no over-dramatization, Aelay’s length of 2hrs 33mins feels rather stretched, especially in the second half. If a film feels long on an OTT where the option of fast-forwarding is right there, one can only imagine how it would be in a theater.

Who should watch it?

The length is not bothersome at all for Aelay’s story, screenplay and acting. This is a feel-good comedy that a lot of Nepali audiences can enjoy and given the similarities in our social constructs, and also relate to.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Genre: Comedy, drama

Actors: Manikandan, Samuthirakani

Director: Halitha Shameem

Run time: 2hrs 33mins 

When I first read about the Indians planning to make a movie adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ 2015 bestselling novel “The Girl on the Train” a couple of years ago, I was pretty excited. Then when I read Pareeniti Chopra would be starring, the excitement waned a little. I’m not sure but maybe that’s what happened to most of the audience as the film opened on Netflix on February 26 without the slightest buzz, before or after.

Ribhu Dasgupta directs and writes the Hindi-language adaptation of the British whodunit produced under the banner of Reliance Entertainment. With a huge banner backing up the production and a tested story set in London, the film could have been molded into an unsettling thriller for the international audience. Instead, the makers chose to take a narrow path and tried to Bollywoodify the movie, making a harrowing caricature of a mystery film, one of those that are quickly forgotten by the audience.

Mira Kapoor (Parineeti Chopra), a London-based criminal lawyer has an accident that causes a miscarriage and changes her life forever. Because of the trauma, the otherwise strongheaded Mira gets diagnosed with anterograde amnesia—a condition where the patient cannot convert a short-term memory into long-term memory. The condition worsens as Mira takes to alcohol to deal with the stress and hence her relationship with her husband Dr. Shekhar Kapoor (Avinash Tiwary) comes to an end.

A distraught Mira then spends her time traveling around in the local train every day, watching the world outside from the window. On her multiple journeys through London, Mira one day spots Nusrat John (Aditi Rao Hydari), at her home in Greenwich. In Nusrat, Mira sees her past. She sees Nusrat as a woman living a perfect life. Given her condition, Mira attaches herself to Nusrat’s life and when she senses that Nusrat’s perfect life might have an anomaly after all, she decides to take matters in her own hands. That’s when she gets involved in a murder she has no memory of, and is pursued relentlessly by Inspector Dalbir Kaur Bagga (Kirti Kulhari).

This will probably sound strange but The Girl on the Train, a film made by Indians in England, lacks diversity. In Bollywood’s England, everyone is Indian. Or at least everyone understands Hindi perfectly, be it brown, black or white folks. The makers of this film seem to come from the same schooling. And this is not the only creative blunder that the filmmakers partake in.

The film’s characters are so banally written that almost everyone seems like they’re acting in a spoof. Take Kulhari’s Inspector Bagga for example. Inspector Bagga is a London cop who functions like she’s in Mumbai or Delhi. She starts interrogating suspects whenever she pleases and even slaps them at will. And in a crime mystery with multiple suspects, there’s not a single mention of a lawyer. The filmmakers seem to forget that OTT audiences have access to international cinema and these yesteryear Bollywood theatrics will not go down well with them.

Maybe bad writing is the reason behind the otherwise talented Kulhari’s lackluster performance. Kulhari tries too hard to become a strict London cop. So hard that her struggle is both visible and painful to watch.

Talk about struggling, one can definitely sense the struggle in Chopra’s efforts too. The Girl on the Train is Chopra’s most prominent role thus far in her career and gives her plenty of screen time. But as the 2h long film progresses, we realize she cannot make the best of what’s given to her. I personally would blame the lazy writing more than Chopra, but still, after years spent in Bollywood, the audience definitely expects better performance from her.

Who should watch it?

I fear I might have been a little too critical of the movie, specially coming to it straight from the Luxembourgish thriller “Capitani.” So I think, The Girl on the Train with all its Bollywoodish devices could be a decent watch for audience who enjoy ‘soft core’ thrillers. But for the more serious audience for whom all aspects need to make sense in a movie, you better stay at the platform itself.

Some books make me want to grab every person I meet and say, “Read this.” Books that have me wishing I could do a mental rewind just to be able to read them again for the first time. “The Rosie Project” by Australian novelist Graeme Simsion is one I want to hold, stroke, and hug. The main character has a piece of my heart. 

The Rosie Project is narrated by a 39-year-old genetics professor, Don Tillman, who doesn’t quite get social norms and has his own unique understanding of the world and how it works. He reminded me of Adrian Monk, the chief protagonist of the American comedy-drama detective series ‘Monk’, whom I was absolutely smitten by during my college years.

In Monk, Tony Shalhoub plays the role of a former cop who has obsessive compulsive disorder and struggles with day-to-day activities. But he’s a genius when it comes to solving crimes. I had the hugest crush on him for years. I watched all eight seasons on television and then watched it all again on DVD after the show ended in 2009. Tillman reminds me of Monk and I have, in my mid-30s, a newfound crush.

Tillman may or may not have Asperger’s Syndrome. It’s never explicitly stated but there are many, many hints that he might suffer from autism. He abhors physical contact, has a detailed meal plan that he sticks to week in, week out, and doesn’t seem to react to emotions in the conventional way. After several failed attempts at finding a ‘compatible’ woman, he decides to turn to science for a solution. He devises a questionnaire (which is 16 double-sided pages) to hand out to women to test their suitability. This is what he calls the Wife Project.

But along comes Rosie Jarman, who is evidently the world’s most incompatible woman for Tillman. She’s disorganized, irrational, and tends to do things spontaneously. And she’s often late and a vegetarian. It’s all really blasphemous in Tillman’s world. But then as he embarks on the Father Project, helping Rosie track down her real father, he finds himself feeling differently about the one woman he should logically be staying away from.

Simsion, in his debut novel published in 2013, has created a charming, lovable character whose quirky ways make you both smile and shake your head in frustration. As you get inside the heart and mind of an odd character, you realize that people, however they appear to be, aren’t fundamentally all that different.

The novel apparently did get some serious flak for not being well researched with some representation aspects even being problematic. But there’s no denying that The Rosie Project is a laugh riot of a novel that sheds light on an important issue: autism. It deserves credit for managing such tricky feats together and not letting one diminish the power of the other.

Fiction

The Rosie Project

Graeme Simsion

Published: 2013

Publisher: Penguin Books

Language: English

Pages: 330, Paperback

One thing leads to another, they say. And this time, it happened to me over Netflix. After watching the mysterious mini-series “Behind Her Eyes” last week, I decided to rummage for more Netflix series. A quick search for what’s new on the OTT platform brought me to “Capitani”, a crime drama series from Luxembourg.

Yes, you read that right. Luxembourg! Released February 2021 on Netflix, “Capitani”— which originally premiered in Luxembourg’s national television in 2019—is apparently first Luxembourg’s first crime series as well as the country’s first Netflix series. Also, obviously, the first ever Luxembourgish movie or cinema for me, which, I am sure, will be the same for most of ApEx’s Nepali audiences.

Police inspector Luc Capitani (Luc Schiltz) is called in from the country’s south to investigate the possible murder of a 15-year-old Jenny Engel whose body is found in a forest near the northern village of Mënscht. The arrival of an unfamiliar inspector stirs things up in the close-knit village where everyone knows everyone. In the otherwise peaceful rural setting without a history of violent crimes, the only police force available for Capitani’s backup are two officers, one of whom is Elsa Ley (Sophie Mousel), and who plays a key role in supporting his investigation. 

For Capitani, what initially looks like an open-and-shut case turns out to be a labyrinth of interconnected mysteries that point at multiple directions. As unwelcome as he is made to feel by the villagers, his key witness—Jenny’s twin Tanya (Jil Devresse)—refuses to cooperate. Also, the twins’ mother, Nadine Kinsch (Claude de Demo), goes through another tragic bereavement while her estranged husband Mick Engel (Jules Werner) makes his way back into her life, and right in the middle of the investigation, further complicating things.

As if the complications were not enough for our sleuth Capitani, he meets Carla Pereira (Brigitte Urhausen)—an old lover and a drugs trafficker who he has had a mysterious past with—living in the village under the alias of Sofia Santos. He tries to solve the case despite all the hindrances while attempting to resolve his issues with Carla. Meanwhile, Capitani is himself being investigated by the Internal Affairs office for his possible involvement in the murder of a gangster 15 years ago.

When I use the phrase “labyrinth of mysteries” to describe what Capitani is going through in “Capitani”, I do not overstate. Right from the opening shot, the writers of the series— Thierry Faber, Eric Lamhène, Christophe Wagner (who is also the director)—weave an intricate web of suspense and secrets which unfolds till the very end. The unexpected climax also justifies the build-up and sets up the premise for season 2, while satisfyingly concluding the first season.

Consistency in the story, screenplay and direction are the keys to Capitani’s successful breakout into the global platform. The series has no indications of belonging to a relatively new film industry and there’s no sign of inexperience in the 12-episode series. The whole production works as a package to deliver an entertainer that could easily compete with some of the most popular new Netflix releases.

Who should watch it?

“Capitani” is not only an entertaining thriller but also an educational one as it provides a rare glimpse into the people and society of the exotic Luxembourg. For example, it took me the whole first episode to realize that the Luxembourgish language also has a major influence of German and French. (Maybe Belgian, too, but I wouldn’t recognize that.)

Also, watching this series you realize what living in a “full democracy” is like. The policing there seems to be entirely different from Nepal, India or even the US, which we are used to seeing on screen. The landlocked country 57 times smaller than ours has belted out one of the best international series of contemporary times and any movie/series fan will definitely enjoy “Capitani.”

Rating: 4 stars

Genre: Crime, thriller

Run time: 5hrs 30mins (approx.)

Actors: Luc Schiltz, Jil Devresse, Claude de Demo

Director: Christophe Wagner