Urumi = Pazhassi Raja + Raavan + Asoka

Disclaimer: No, this is not a review. I can't dare to write a review on a movie when I didn't understand half the dialogues!

After a week of initiating the Lets-watch-Urumi-today mail thread among the OPT-ians, Sand and me decided to go on our own when skpan gave the great news that most of the people in the group watched it already!

So yesterday we set out to Innovative multiplex after dinner for the 10 pm show. Crowd was less.

I had read at least 5 reviews, all calling it an average-above-average movie, each one mentioning the excellent job Genelia D'souza has done in particular. Having never liked Pritviraj so much I was honestly only interested in the Genelia role that the reviews liberally lauded.

I had read the plot too. Even read that the first 20 minutes would make little sense. I was least perturbed when it didn't :-) I consoled Sand repeating what the reviewer said.

I think I rather not discuss the plot much. I would need somebody to narrate me the story again. So let the story rest in peace. Some thoughts that ran into my mind as I stifled a million yawns

1) Pritviraj's Psychological Problem(PPP):

I think Pritviraj watched Mammootty's Pazhassi Raja a thousand times that he
started empathising and after a while "being" Pazhassi Raja - a la Shobhana-Nagavalli in Manichitratazhu. He must have threatened Santhosh Sivan with dire consequences while in his "psychosis to neurosis" if he didn't direct a movie for him with Pritviraj doing a quasi-Pazhassi role. And so Urumi happened.

2) Damsels:

But Pritviraj was clear about his heroine. He didn't want the Makam style damsel of Pazhassi Raja whose only role was to weep through out the movie - Weep when hero gets up, weep when hero walks, weep when hero laughs so much that the makam lady would have had a muscle cramp(!) on her face every night! So he chose Arakkal Ayesha (Genelia) who is at her lithesome best! He left the weeping part to be done by Chirakkal Bala (Nithya Menon) in the end when she lost her love(Prabhudeva with a strange name - Vavali something?) to a bullet.

3) The Set Wet Look:

Raavan had the whole crew in drenched clothes, wet unkempt hair in the entire movie. People always looked as if they just had a bath under a water fall. Aishwarya rai's clothes were always soggy. Her hair always dripping with water. Asoka had Kareena Kapoor in water. SRK too. Drenched clothes and unkempt hair again. So is in Urumi. Genelia is dripping in water in most of the scenes with Pritviraj. All songs are shot as if in an "ancient water theme park"! All damsels are wet in at least 1 song. Santosh Sivan likes the wet look and the unruly locks of hair falling all over the face. Period.

4) Vidya Balan:

I still didn't understand what she did at the temple. Was it a dance? Who was she? What was her role? Really, can somebody appear and disappear from a movie like that! I guess it was the Santosh Sivan brand name that she fell for which made her sign this one! Santosh Sivan would have clarified her role thus "Mole, nee onnu ivde vannu mudi okke azhichu oru 4 times clock-wise and 4 times anti-clock-wise tala karakki veettil pokko." (Roughly: "My dear daughter, just come over here and let loose your hair and turn your head four times in the clock-wise direction and four times in the anti-clockwise direction and you can go home!"). Or Vidya must have taken this item song as a practice session for her next movie where she plays the famous deceased South Indian sex siren. Whatever!

5) Amigos! nao inimigos:

Vasco Da Gama provided some comic relief with his strange giggle before he started his dialogues. Almost like in the Angry Birds "he he he". Pure unadulterated fun. From where did they manage to get the cast?? Vasco's son Estevao-something was equal fun to watch.

6) Genelia D'Souza:

Arakkal Ayesha was the saving grace of the movie. The camera has pampered her well too. Never noticed that she had such lovely doe-eyes. The surma added the right charm to them and the Muslim princess looked gorgeous, even when she did apparently manly fight scenes. Good job and thank you :-)

7) Tabu? :

Appeared for 1/100th of a milli second and fled the fields, in the same outfit. Was that really Tabu or did I imagine this part?

8) Urumi:

I wouldn't have cared even if it had been a sword, dagger or a hockey stick - Seriously! Does that make any difference??

9) Cinematography:

Can't comment much on Santosh Sivan's direction. But when it comes to cinematography, he is a second to no one. Urumi would have left me sleeping in the multiplex had it not been for this. Classy location (I hear same as Ravan's), beautiful shots though some look like repeated from Raavan and Asoka.

10) The blah-blah-blah:

Sorry, but I hardly understood 40% what they spoke in Malayalam! In fact I was relieved when they spoke Portuguese, because they showed the subtitles in English then! Most dialogues were long and complicated. The ones that were short were mostly jokes. And fortunately, worth a laugh. KPAC Lalitha's narration in the beginning felt reassuring!

11) Innovative Multiplex:


I-multiplex sound system was a huge pain. The seating looked strange with so many extra cushions on most of the chairs! Most of them were moved to the nearest empty chair and piled. Wonder how they came in the first place! The chairs were uncomfortable. As always, I never got to see the full screen - the silhouetted head of the guy sitting in front of me was embedded on the screen like every time.


Back home at 1. Discussions on the movie till 1:35 until we started feeling really bad about watching it. So watched the "Poorangalude pooramaaya..." dialogue from "Pranji ettan and the Saint" on You-tube for stress-busting and fell into a comfortable sleep.