Last year we witnessed mainly 3 movies that had the main character being a hardcore communist. Prominent writer NS Madhavan called one of it as communist porn. Well I prefer to use that term to describe the quality of the new movie Kala Viplavam Pranayam starring Anson Paul in the main role. The movie is just one more exercise that tries to capitalize on the communist admiration of the common people and the story here is so brittle that one won’t even feel any sort of Goosebumps.
Due to the quality of the film, I forgot to remember the names of the characters. So our hero is this young jobless guy (such a fresh character) who has only two dreams. One to marry the girl he loved since childhood and the other one was to buy a Royal Enfield Bullet. So he is writing all the possible exams to get a job and in the midst of this he becomes a part of a protest that happens in his place against a waste management plant. How this protest shapes him as a socially responsible communist and the repercussions of that act is what the movie talking about.
Kala Viplavam Pranayam is what you get when you have only one agenda of utilizing the commercial aspect of propagating communist propaganda. Having propaganda is not a bad thing, but presenting it in the laziest way is indeed a bad thing. While we can easily predict what will happen in a scene as we have seen it in a zillion other movies, the unpredictable part is the way this movie shifts away from conflicts. From a strike against a waste management plant, it goes on to become a tale about love and further it gets this new conflict of inter-cast love marriage. This constant shifting of the movie from having a proper conflict just strengthens my thoughts that this movie was forcefully going after instances to promote the over the top heroics. Some of the scenes where our hero and heroine deliver cheesy bumper sticker dialogues seem ridiculously illogical.
Anson Paul has this rugged look and well built body. But nothing significant was there in his performance to make us feel anything special about the character. Gayathri Suresh looked harmless until she got that police station scene where she says one romantic dialogue followed by an inquilab zindabad (facepalm moments). Saiju Kurup and Vineeth Vishwam are there in supporting roles. God knows what Dharmajan was doing in the film. Quality actors like Santhosh Keezhattoor and Alencier Lopez were wasted in characters that don’t deserve them. Indrans, Maala Parvathy, Niranjana and many others are there in roles one won’t even remember.
Jithin Jithu isn’t trying to add any level of sensibility to the hastily written script of Aashiq Akbar Ali. Subtlety is one quality a movie should have when trying to use an ideology to drive it. But this movie is almost like an advertisement for the party, without bothering about having any cinematic appeal or quality. The situations are created to embed heroism. In one scene the hero corrects the police officer for calling him leader by calling himself as Sakhavu (comrade); even a true communist might giggle seeing the execution of that scene. Cinematography was average. Edits were dull and the music was just okay.
Kala Viplavam Pranayam is below Oru Mexican Aparatha in my scale. If you have felt that Oru Mexican Aparatha was a great entertainer, the chances of you finding this movie as a watchable one are high. For someone who felt OMA as a pretty ordinary movie, Kala Viplavam Pranayam was a really tough movie to sit through.
Rating: 1.5/5
For someone who felt OMA as a pretty ordinary movie, Kala Viplavam Pranayam was a really tough movie to sit through.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
