Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Yaavarum Nalam


Stunning camera work by PC Sriram and splendid editing by Sreekar Prasad which makes the movie complete. This suspense thriller directed by Vikram Kumar starring Madhavan, Neethu Chandra and a lot more. The important highlight of the movie is that we never get to see the ghost. It’s a well scripted thriller. You even have a lot of traces of English horror movies here and there. But not to deny the fact that after a long time tamil industry has come with very good movie.
The story is about how a joint family leaving in a flat comes across various problems with a presence of ghost in their home leads to reveal murder of a family of 8 members in the same location 30 years back. Here the women at home are addicted to TV serials. At a particular time the TV stops in a channel and a new serial is starting. The women start watching it because the serial is also based on horror. But later Maddy finds that all the events happening in the serial are real which is going to happen in his own home and to his family members in minutes. Maddy struggling to save the family, finds the hidden murder 30 years ago. How the ghost take revenge on the murderer and how maddy solves the problem and protects his family is story of Yaavarum Nalam.
This is a bilingual movie also released in Hindi as 13B.Movie does have few continuity errors here and there which are negligible and many won’t even notice it. Mind blowing camera work and lighting without which the movie would be zero. I don’t think anyone else apart from PC could do justice to the movie. Editing is also excellent but only in the climax I felt they could have rearranged a few shots. I also do feel that they had done it knowingly to reveal the assassin and to divert the movie into another direction how Maddy is going to save his family.
First half was really funny and you get pissed off in the intermission asking your neighbor is this a horror movie I came in? But it is worth waiting in the second half which is too good. They could have avoided the duet song between maddy and neethu which broke the pace of the film. This film also has quite a few small screen artists. Guess this would be good opening for them in big screen. But the director could have avoided them because they stick on in our minds when the film gets over. You feel you had a watched a serial because they are much assessable to all of us every day in TV. May be he even wanted it to divert audience mind. If he had used some new faces the impact would have been much stronger.
Do take a break and watch the movie. I am sure you would enjoy it completely though it doesn’t scare you. You would like it. Congrats for the director. Radiantly scripted and offered in a smart package.