Iravin Nizhal’s impressive filmmaking overcomes ineffective writing
Iravin Nizhal Film Overview: If there’s one factor you possibly can all the time make sure of with a Parthiban movie is that it’ll by no means be a lazy, inconsiderate effort. In reality, too many concepts is a defining attribute of his movies. His fixed quest to present his viewers a distinct expertise is what makes his movies one thing to look ahead to (and barely dread, as a result of his failed experiments, like Koditta Idangalai Nirappuga, have that what-was-he-even-smoking high quality).
Iravin Nizhal, like the perfect of Parthiban’s movies, is not a movie you possibly can ever fault for lack of effort. The filmmaker really makes us see this effort with a making-of function that’s performed earlier than the precise movie. The movie is alleged to be ‘the world’s first single-shot non-linear movie’, and on this virtually 30-minute function, we see the blood, sweat and tears (each actually and figuratively) that had gone into making this movie in a single 96-minute-long unbroken shot. You usually hear filmmakers discuss how a lot arduous work they’ve put into their movies, however right here, we see it – the inventiveness in constructing the world of this movie, the heartbreaks when minor errors consequence within the group having to shoot the movie throughout (one crane error on the 92nd minute would have positively been soul-crushing), and the jubilation after they lastly handle to get all of it proper within the twenty third take.
Shifting on to the movie, it opens with Nandu (Parthiban), a movie financier, studying that the cops are about to arrest him, and making a run, with a gun, which he hopes to make use of on Patamananda (Robo Shankar), a faux godman, who’s a type of to have out him on this precarious place. As he lays ready for his goal at a dilapidated ashram, he recounts his eventful life, the individuals who pushed him into darkness, his sins and the one flicker of sunshine that is nonetheless a part of his life.
When it comes to content material, Iravin Nizhal is an too acquainted story of the rise and fall of a person. We see how a baby orphaned at start is formed up the societal forces, compelled right into a world of crime for survival, how love helps him to get out of it and the way he’s pushed again into the ceaseless pit of darkness. We see the ladies who stroll into his life – Lakshmi (Sneha Kumar), Chilakamma (Brigida Saga), Parvathi (Sai Priyanka Ruth), and Premakumari (Varalaxmi Sarathkumar) – shaping it up positively and negatively. We get the Parthibanisms (there’s even a nod to his first movie Pudhiya Paadhai). On the entire, it’s previous wine in a brand new, quirkily designed bottle.
However it’s the type that makes the movie actually attention-grabbing and distinctive. Like his earlier movie Oththa Seruppu Measurement 7, which experimented with only one actor within the forged, this movie additionally seems like one thing that may have labored as a stage play. Regardless of the frilly units, the movie is concentrated on one character, who additionally occurs to be the narrator. Regardless that we’ve got 5 actors (Chandru and Anandha Krishnan get the utmost display screen time) enjoying this character at totally different phases of his life, the voice belongs to Parthiban, which makes it arduous to shake off the Oththa Seruppu vibe.
However to his credit score, the filmmaker would not make the movie static. Arthur Wilson’s digicam is continually on the transfer, and the impact that the movie give us is that of flitting inside an individual’s reminiscences. One second we’re in 1971, when he’s simply an toddler, and the subsequent we’ve got him as a person counting his (ill-gotten) riches. On the draw back, this steady motion additionally makes it arduous for us to get into the character’s sneakers and expertise his feelings. Many a time, we want for the narration and the digicam to decelerate. Due to the best way it’s designed, the movie (and the digicam) appears to be solely in transferring on to the subsequent scene, and would not allow us to to completely take up these feelings, even when a personality is sexually abused or dies.
This strategy definitely robs the movie of being an emotionally impactful one. In single-shot movies like Victoria or 1917 (which technically has a number of photographs stitched to make it seem to be a one-shot movie), the character of the content material dictated their type. An evening of partying takes a darkish flip.. A younger soldier has to ship a message within the midst of a warfare.. These premises lend themselves to such strategies as a result of they’re primarily concerning the what-next. However right here, it’s primarily concerning the how – how did Nandu end up the best way he did and the way will he discover redemption – which requires deeper writing and immersive filmmaking.
That mentioned, Parthiban has clearly talked about in his pre-release interviews that his solely intention behind doing this movie was to seek out out if a non-linear story might be filmed as a single-shot movie. Just like the makers of the early silent movies, who had been extra involved in exploring the brand new expertise that was cinema and discovering out the way it might be used, which got here in helpful for people who got here after them, Parthiban has, with this movie, damaged a path for future filmmakers to experiment with unconventional storytelling utilizing the single-shot approach. There are a number of moments whenever you marvel on the smoothness with which the scenes transition from one time interval to the subsequent. Parthiban additionally makes use of music (AR Rahman, whose stirring rating is sort of a ray of sunshine on this movie’s darkish world) sound results cleverly to make us neglect that total movie has been shot in a single place, inside the massive set that we’re proven within the making-of video. In that sense, this ‘venture’ is unquestionably successful as Parthiban achieves what he got down to do.
