Annayum Rasoolum

Watching ace cinematographer Rajeev Ravi’s first directorial venture “Annayum Rasoolum” along with a full house made me realize how badly our audience are suffering from the so called crap commercial entertainers. It is a movie that demands the patience as it tries to narrate a romance in its possible natural and raw format. The long and minute detailing in the script is indeed a drawback, but still the movie deserves a watch for its unique making.

The story is about the romantic love story of the title protagonists Anna and Rasool. Both are of the same lower middle class backdrop. Rasool is a taxi driver and his friends circle includes mainly quotation gang members from Mattanchery. Anna is from a Christian family and she is a sales girl in a private textile shop in Cochin. The movie depicts the love story of these two and how it goes through its miseries and all.

The specialty of Annayum Rasoolum lies in the backdrop of the story. It is a romance that we can easily relate to. Rasool and Anna have that innocence that is required for an intense love story. Throughout the movie the communication between the protagonists are largely through expressions. Enhanced with raw making and realistic approach by Rajeev Ravi and Santhosh Echikkanam, Annayum Rasoolum moves on in an engaging slow pace.

On screen, Fahad continues to impress with a natural rendering and as an actor I salute his confidence in selecting these kinds of movies. Andrea is largely silent in her role. But the character demanded an intense silence and she conveyed that portion neatly. Sunny Wayne was satisfying. Aashiq Abu did his first silver screen entry neatly. P Balachandran and Ranjith were also convincing in their roles. After Choonda in Chapters, Shine again shines in the role of Abu. Soubin Shahir is also a smart choice from Rajeev Ravi. One small yet catchy performance is from Srinda as Fasila.

In the making, Rajeev Ravi who has been with Mr Anurag Kashyap for a whole lot of time has really followed the style of Mr Kashyap in this movie. Sarcastic natural jokes, rough camera for most of the urban shots and strange frames with unique use of BGM are those things which you quite often find in a Kashyap movie. The script is an engagingly slow paced one. The level of detailing they have given is something that will disturb you as a viewer. Cinematography of Madhu Neelakandan is really a smart one. The quality of the camera used for some of the outdoor shots was disturbing. But still the frames were eye candy. The editing wasn’t that great in my view. Music is a smart package. Some tracks stayed in the mind while some didn’t synced in.

Overall, Annayum Rasoolum is a unique experience as a Malayalam movie. At the end of the film I felt the movie has close resemblance with Anurag Basu’s Hrithik Roshan starrer Kites in terms of structuring of the story. This is not a pop corn fun film and it’s neither an art house film. To get the best out of this movie I recommend you watch it along with a limited audience. I am giving 3/5 and thumbs up for this Rajeev Ravi movie.