'Urumi' (Malayalam, Historic)
Director: Santosh Sivan
Cast: Prithviraj, Genelia Dsouza, Prabhu Deva
Santosh Sivan concocts a heady mix of grandeur and style in ‘Urumi’, a film that grows in stature and intrigue with each frame.
The period drama artistically bottles up the essence of yore and cleverly balances style with substance making it an overwhelming experience to the senses. ‘Urumi’ is definitely more than a technical wonder with visual highpoints as it carries a multilateral narrative beneath its seemingly exotic facade.
Santosh Sivan builds a spectacular cinematic experience block by block and all his frames ooze finesse and opulence. It is a pleasure to watch the pastoral idyll, the antique amplitude and the rustic milieu breaking into an impromptu Bohemia. His vendetta tale is not devoid of blood and gore and has its share of visual and visceral crudity.
But most of the combat sequences are orchestrated impressively and the climax frames are awful tableaux shot in a sedating excess of slow motions. Low points are very limited like the tasteless Prithvi-Genelia song sequence and some inessential cliches.
Sankar Ramakrishnan’s script interweaves history with fantasy churning out a pulsating tale of struggle and survival, love and deception. Right from the symbolic coiling blade there is a palpable undercurrent of socio-political dialogue. With ease and élan, he juxtaposes past and present conveying his message loud and clear - the colonial past about to resurrect in all its menacing pugnacity.
Though the dialogues are penned with precision they sound a bit lengthy and over poetic at times. But the colloquy is never lost to archaic outlandishness and there is also a blithesome play through a series of visual and verbal innuendos.
Prithvi’s Kelu is all muscles and acting is put on the back burner as he goes on assaulting with the aggressive relish of a maniac. He looks amiable and more human whenever the wooden expression plastered on his face softens. Genelia breaks her perpetual imbecility morphing into Ayesha, the warrior princess. Her character is not reduced to the customary cheer-leader role in the film and she claims an equal share of valour and gallantry.
With willowy martial moves, aggressive expressions and impulsive demeanour she outlives the annoyance created by her lip movements. Though the Vidya Balan character is shrouded in an aura of mystery, a couple of her dance movements make her look like a glorified item girl.
After a long time, Jagathy is at a role where he is actually required to perform. From coy smiles to the conniving smirks of a Machiavellian plotter, he switches from role to role effortlessly.
Robin Pratt and Alex O’ Neill have come out well and so is Arya as the local macho man.
While the background score is fairly good, the music by Deepak Dev is just passable. If costumes look less authentic they don’t pose a jarring discord either, in fact, they look completely in tune with the fantasy fiction the film unspools.
‘Urumi’ is not a film for historians looking for accuracy as the filmmaker is not trying to make a documentary. In short ‘Urumi’ is big, grandiose, entertaining and is the perfect cinematic eye candy in recent times.