Unakkenna Venum Sollu

Another brick in the horror wall Science has proved the desensitising effects of over-exposure (to violence, usually). I understood this theory never more than when watching Unakkenna Venum Sollu … yet another horror film. I almost felt a palpable sense of frustration in the audience I was watching the film with, as everybody realised that…

Maya

Loyal to the horror genre When reviewing Strawberry last week, I wondered how long we’d have to wait to see an inventive horror film again. Well, the answer, it turns out, is just a week. Maya is an exercise in both horror and mise en abyme. It’s one of those rare Tamil films, like Uttama…

A thousand lives: How movies influence us

A hundred mouths opened in awe as the camera swirled around Mount Everest, and then descended to show a group of seasoned trekkers taking tentative, trembling steps across the precarious suspension bridge, in their quest to conquer the peak. Suddenly, the friend, with whom I was watching the recently-released Everest, told me how “awesome it…

Strawberry

Good intentions alone don’t make a good film There are filmmakers out there who really need to be told that it’s quite all right to make films that don’t preach. Good stories subliminally educate, without its characters having to carry placards and deliver monologues. Taking on the greed of private schools is the primary agenda…

Savaale Samaali

A dialogue-heavy average comedy When I was growing up, audio movies were quite the rage. People hugged their transistors close, as they listened to these movies for what was possibly the tenth time. This was, of course, the same time when audio cassettes of stage plays by artistes like Crazy Mohan and S. Ve. Shekher…