Bejoy Nambiar’s film on student politics is all over the place

Bejoy Nambiar’s Por, shot concurrently in Hindi as Dange with a unique solid, is a movie on campus politics. There are shades of his mentor Mani Ratnam’s Ayutha Ezhuthu, and one of many characters is even named ‘Yuva’ (the movie’s Hindi title). However whereas the 2004 movie was a few pupil organisation combating corruption in politics, that is an up to date, ‘woke’ model that tries to usher in a number of points to the forefront.

Por means ‘battle’, and there are a number of wars being fought in St Martin’s College, positioned in Pondicherry – over energy, love, betrayal and the previous. The movie opens with the battle in full swing, after which goes again to inform us the way it all started. The 2 males on the centre of the movie are Prabhu (Arjun Das) and Yuva (Kalidas Jayaram). Prabhu has failed his viva 4 instances, and messes it up for the fifth time as a result of he has by chance ingested hallucinogens. He’s greatest pals with Rishika (Sanchana Natarajan), who’s the college’s drug provider. Prabhu has a beard and likes to experience ATVs. That’s about it. We’re meant to search out him cool however even Arjun Das’s distinct baritone doesn’t assist us just like the character.

Yuva is Prabhu’s junior and has a popularity for standing as much as bullies. He monkeys round and is meant to be charming – besides, his traces are fairly horrible and land flat. In truth, all of the dialogues sound like they had been written in English and translated to Tamil. The traces break oddly and you’re feeling such as you’re watching a badly dubbed movie. It’s additionally unusual that the scholars are presupposed to be in school now however all their popular culture references belong to the ’80s or ’90s. I imply, why would a 20-something cite Idhayam (1991) Murali for instance of “one-side” love?

Prabhu (Arjun Das) (Picture by way of X/@dp_karthik)

With two pivotal characters who evoke no feelings in any respect within the viewer, it’s troublesome to rake up the keenness to ‘decide a facet’ because the movie’s tagline instructs us. It’s even tougher to take action after we couldn’t care much less for the battle itself. Yuva needs revenge for an episode from their childhood, Prabhu tells him to overlook no matter occurred and transfer on. There’s sufficient materials right here for a brief movie, however to stretch it into characteristic size, Nambiar brings in caste and gender politics, and the try is half-baked to say the least.

Not like Ayutha Ezhuthu the place the feminine characters had been strictly the “love curiosity”, Por provides them just a little extra to do. Gayathri (TJ Bhanu) is an activist who helps college students, and is weirdly current within the college practically on a regular basis. Surya (Amruta Srinivasan) is a pupil and a politician’s daughter who has ambitions of her personal. Vennila (Nithyashri) is her ex-girlfriend who seems to be from a Dalit caste, and is now taking her on in pupil politics. To compensate for all this ‘progressive’ characterisation, we have now a lady pupil named Bhama who simply says “Aama” for all the movie and is in love with Yuva’s flamboyance.

Not like Yuva, Por / Dange provides its feminine characters extra to do than simply be the “love curiosity”. (Picture by way of X/@georgeviews)

The plot threads by themselves are attention-grabbing, however Nambiar doesn’t know what to do with them. Contemplating the layered narratives on caste which have come out within the Tamil movie trade, the movie’s engagement with it’s disappointingly shallow. Vennila, as an example, disappears and pops up every time it’s handy for the plot. The arc is defined away merely in “inspirational” traces whereas the decidedly torturous testosterone battle between Prabhu and Yuva receives way more display time than it deserves.

The thought is that every one these threads come collectively to create that one massive battle with which the movie begins. The screenplay, although, is in all places. It’s divided into seven chapters, however the construction looks like one more instance of indulgent filmmaking of which Por has loads. Cut up screens, references to outdated films, an ’80s tune used within the climax, handheld and monitoring pictures from time to time, thumping background music to underline and amplify the whole lot, the chaotic lengthy take in the long run – to call just a few. If something warrants a comparability to Idhayam Murali’s “one-side” love, it’s the filmmaking itself.

Essentially, a movie about pupil politics must be rooted. It wants cultural specificity. However Nambiar treats it like a giant dumb motion film with an earnest “tick-the-box” wokeness that doesn’t discover something with any seriousness. Melancholy, sexuality, gender identification, caste violence – all of those are mere pegs on which Nambiar hangs a drained, done-to-death plot. When the battle lastly involves an finish, you have got just one thought in your head: What on earth was that?