C/O Kaadhal with a bunch of freshers and one film old names of Dheepan, Vetri, Ayra Palak, Mumtaz Sorcar, Karthick Rathnam, Soniya Giri and Master Nislesh and Swetha is produced by Shri Shirdi Sai Movies and released by Sakthi Film Factory of Big Print Pictures.
Remakes could be a safe and dicey bet too, depending on the language of the original and the audience taste of a different language. Debutant director Hemambar Jasti, having co-assisted a few big names in Telugu, sticks to the basics of retaining the content and polishing it with a sensible head, backed by the trusted names in the editorial department.
C/O Kancharapalem set in the vicinity of Vizag was a sleeper hit in Telugu, released one and a half years ago. The fresh content and importantly, the way it was presented was a winner, the audience comprising of all sections. Director Venkatesh Maha predominantly used local residents as artists for a project, staying with them and telling their story to a wider audience.
A manager insisting that an attender sit by her side during lunch as a statement of equality is something the industry had never tried. A teenager believing that it is the will of the Almighty on his acquaintance with his love interest are areas which the films down South have not dared to explore.
Live it in the terms a human being desires, even if the person happens to be from the oldest profession. With an ensemble of characters, totally alien to the film world, the director was blessed as he could have a free hand in the proceedings.
In similar lines, Jasti takes on the cudgel, introducing the characters in a subtle and unhurried ways. The fare takes us beyond the habitual cinematic settings to give an insight of the people in the dusty lanes, whose life is an open book for everyone to criticise. They are simply not bothered clear in the maxim that it is one life and no one has the right to take it from them.
You have a 50-plus man still on the prowl to find his match, not perturbed by his bachelor status. A pair of school children struck by cupid is only natural, the director hones it convincingly.
Cinematic fashions are inevitable where Jasti slips in a bit, a desperate man seeking the attention of his lady love with a song. Jasti sees nothing amiss in a youngster attached to a liquor shop falling madly in love with a harlot, whose eyes has mesmerised him to a fault.
There is the gender issues of sensitivity, the voice marauding for the dignity of labour, the ill effects of caste, religion and the so called social strata. In piecing together the collective happenings in one go, Jasti warms up to provide a fare, high in quality and content save for those little deviation when the plot widens and anxiety looms large from the audience perspective.
Clearly, the USP is the cinematography of Varun Chaphekar and Aditya Javvadi. Sweekar Agasthi’s music is the sort which lingers long after the effect has sunk in. There has to be a final thread to the anthology, which Jasti expectantly reserves it in the climactic act. Nothing forced on the audience is the deserving pat on the production house.