The recent row in the Malluwood film cycles is all about the non availability of space for small films in Malayalam these days. Films should star either any of the superstars to get a decent run at the box office. Even though this situation sounds pathetic and was unimaginable two decades ago, however, you must also observe that there are no gutsy filmmakers inventive enough to try subjects not packaged for superstars. And with another storyline tried till the dead end, about love and parental opposition, Pranayakalam also answers to this dismal question about why small films don't make a better run at the box office.
It must be with little courage and guts that director Udhay Anandhan has chosen such a stale story to make his debut movie Pranayakalam, which doesn't have anything new to offer. It is about a boy (Ajmal Ameer debuting as Renjith) and girl (Vimala Raman as Mariya) who fall in love and as usual, face parental opposition. And even in these liberal times, where people are career-minded and straightforward, the film seems to suffer from regressive thinking.
Something goes wrong with the film right from the opening when the directors efforts to spoof on the Aniyathipravu stereotype presentations of love, merge into a half-grudging admiration for the genre. Renjith is a happy go lucky son of N R I Balagopalan, working at Dubai. His mother Rejani and Brother Arjun are the other members of his family who take a silent living. And once when he is back to his hometown, he happens to meet Mariya, a sweet girl who loves to be a part of her own family, even resisting her interests.
Mariya is the daughter of A.S.I. Varghese, a bull-faced father and Anna, who leads a rather distraught married life. Renjith takes a liking to Mariya at the first sight, and creates opportunities to meet her regularly .Thinking about her family and society, she offer some resistance to start a relationship, but ultimately follow suit to make a bigger affair to cherish. Renjith began to come over to Mariya's house on nights at daily basis, and one day he gets caught and things began to get tenser. As the lover hearts go through all of sorts of childish arguments and misunderstandings, their parents are trying a way to avoid them from being together. The narration suffers for want of strong emotive scenes and incidents all through.
The story offers nothing different except that all the characters look very real and behave like normal human beings. And, there is a kind of goodness in all of them. Predictability and stale situations also take away half of the film's charm.
The screenplay by Gireeshkumar seems very sloppy and fails to make a deep impact on the viewers. The situations are full of teenybopper romance and the Balachandramenon as Renjith's pampering 'Pa' and Lekshmy Ramakrishnan as his traditionalist Mom complete the family portrait. The protagonist Ajmal Ameer and Vimala Raman shows grace in their respective roles. Thilakan as Muthachan and Murali as Varghese and Seema as Anna brings out another inspiring performance. And, just in case things go wrong between the boy and his heartthrob, which they invariably will, there is further backup in the form of a friends group ably supported by Madhuwarrier and co.
Except in the technical front, the director shows his presence only in the later half. The snailish pace that suits a film of the early eighties is that what kills half of the movie. It neither introduces inspiring talent, nor has much to sell. The film has only a few moments to nurture. Apart from these, the highlights of the movie definitely are the good moodily lit frames by Jibu Jacob and Lokanathan and savvy art direction by A.V.Gokuldas. Ouseppachan has came up with a number of classy creations in the lyrics of Rafeeq Ahamed, especially Parayoo, Prabhaathame a
