Njaan

If Munnariyippu was an intriguingly intellectual film, Njaan from director Ranjith is a less charismatic intellectual debate that got overloaded by an individual’s non social emotions. Well I haven’t read the written version of this movie by Mr. T P Rajeevan. Ranjith has tried to create a character named Ravi to narrate the relevance of the character in this new age. But what I felt was that the character drifted away from this thought as the narrative moved forward.

Ravi is that present generation young lad who works in an IT company and also writes blogs using this pseudo name Kottur. The movie basically tells us about this less mentioned activist who was quite involved in the socio political developments in Kottur during the freedom struggle, through the eyes of Ravi.

There is kind of an apology from the director towards the end to Mr. KTN Kottur for sneaking into his privacy. Well I felt it was a necessary thing as the plot which started on showing us the relevance of the main protagonists thoughts in these days ended up as a very simple biography which has too much of fiction. There are some good slices of intellectual and emotional dialogues that showed the perspective and insight of the character. But with a less charming performance from the lead actor who struggled in reducing the drama in the writing, Njaan doesn’t really work for you.

On screen I would say there are some surprises. Dulquer Salmaan was perfect when you look at him as Ravi. But when it comes to being Kottur, the actor struggles to contain the character. While the other characters were being natural, Kottur looked dramatically intellectual. Muthumani was impressive. Sajitha Madathil, Suresh Krishna, Anu Mol, Mythili, Jyothi Krishna, Saiju Kurup, Harish Peradi, Joy Mathew and many more in the cast showed a very mature acting display. One guy who impressed me more than anyone else with his acting was Ranji Panicker. The till date characters (starting from OSO) played by him are nothing in front of this character portrayal.

In terms of making I appreciate Ranjith’s decision to visualize that pre independence phase with its reality. He has included a good amount of humor into the script. As I said, the vision of the character is given lesser focus and the chunk of drama in the climax phase is something hard to digest. Ranjith’s idea to make Bineesh Kodiyeri talk about the communist vision on God was hilarious. Cinematography was good. Edits weren’t sharp.  Music and BGM suited the feel of the movie. Makeup from Ranjith Ambady was very good. Art direction was also superb.

Overall I felt Njaan as a bit too complicated presentation of a possibly relevant subject. It has great performances from the supporting cast and some worthy statements that will grab attention of your thinking caps. But still the movie stays in that average zone. So the rating is 2.5/5.

PS: Those who are going to make comparisons in terms of rating given, please make sure that those movies are worth comparing with this film.