'Kshay' Movie Review - Classy, bold and brilliant

Kshay (Corrode) – directed by Karan Gour

Obsession – When you don’t know why you like it and want it, but still you madly need it.

Kshay is the typical portrayal of middle class people in our modern society. By looking at the high class people's lifestyle, the way the middle class people dreams about the money, wealth and fame is far beyond comparison. What Karan Gour has done with Kshay is classy, bold and brilliant.

If ‘Avatar’ plot can be compared or related to the fight of nations for natural resources, concepts of Hinduisms, Neyitri's character as mother nature etc., Kshay’s  plot can be compared with the struggling Indian middle class, their obsession towards wealth in their day-to-day lives. Arvind, a hard working family guy, struggles for the completion of an unfinished construction. He fights with his contractor who loots a portion of his monthly wage consistently. Chhaya, a typical middle class house wife gets obsessed with Hindu Goddess Laxmi's statue, which is far beyond her need and scope of owing it.

Hit by a stone on her cheek, Chhaya walks with a scar the whole movie, which she ironically carries as the bandwagon status that the society imprints on the face of middle class. When goddess Laxmi’s statue flashes in front of her face, she gets the glimpse of wealth, a hope and a leap of faith. With lot of factors drawing and captivating her to own the Laxmi statue, she attempts desperately to buy the statue at any cost- yes, AT ANY COST. What will be the heights of extremity that she will reach to get it, lies the plot which is so obsessive in depicting the levels of craziness and insanity.

In Kshay, black and white texture has been well chosen and used at its best, along with the natural lighting. To picturize obsession, not necessarily one needs glorious colors to portray it. Colors are not needed in detail for a subject, to get obsessed with. Entire film lies in Chhaya's obsession in acquiring the Laxmi statue. The texture of black and white draws us well to feel her obsessiveness. The haunting background score blends well with traumatizing cuts, composed and edited by Karan Gour himself.

It’s unfair to compare our very own Indie filmmakers with others. But, If Q, the director of the Indie movie Gandu (2010 SAIFF winner) was termed as the ‘Gaspar Noé of India’, then Karan Gour has every right to be called as the ‘Lars von Trier of India’. What Darren Aronofsky and Danny Boyle did with addiction in ‘Requiem for a Dream’ and ‘Trainspotting’, Karan Gour does the same with obsession in Kshay.

I felt some sorts of Lars von trier’s ‘Antichrist’ moments while watching Kshay. The scene where Chhaya worries to Arvind about her miscarriage (the stunning, slow, steady, b&w prologue scene from Antichrist where the baby falls and the couple worries later), the tree art in the boy’s T-shirt at the statue shop (the same tree under which Antichrist duo make love, with satanic images around them in delusive sots), the way Chhaya hears and feels certain strangeness in and around her home (when Antichrist heroine hearing voices and whispers around the woods).

Kudos to Karan Gour & team for making Kshay possible amongst all odds. Kshay is a pure work of passion and a genuine piece of art. Art, at its highest level of obsessiveness swinging to-and-fro the eyes of the ultimate observer. The best psychological thriller I have seen in this year so far.

Go and grab a copy of Kshay DVD right away to immerse in the world of obsession.

You can watch the full movie online from youtube, Officially. Click Here

If you love to watch black and white films drooling all the way, check out my list of ‘Top 20 favorite B&W films’ so far. Few films in the below list has its plot dealing with certain type of psychological condition, not Intentional though. To my surprise I found this only after making this list.

1.       Breathless by Jean-Luc-Godard,

2.       The General  by Buster Keaton,

3.       High noon by Fred Zinnemann,

4.       It’s a wonderful Life by Frank Capra,

5.       The bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica,

6.       All about eve by Joseph L. Mankiewicz,

7.       Apu Trilogy by Satyajit Ray,

8.       Seven Samurai by Akira Kurosawa,

9.       Mr. Hulot’s Holiday by Jacques Tati

10.   Persona  by Ingmar Bergman

11.   12 Angry Men by Sidney Lumet,

12.   Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder,

13.   Following by Christopher Nolan,

14.   Polytechnique by Denis Villeneuve,

15.   Pi by Darren Aronofsky,

16.   Modern Times by Charlie Chaplin,

17.   The Artist by Michel Hazanavicius,

18.   Manhattan by Woody Allen ,

19.   Le Trou (The Hole) by Jacques Becker,

20. Brief Encounter by David Lean.

Mugamoodi - My Thoughts

The movie starts with this below quote.

“As you think, so shall you become.” – Bruce Lee. 

Yes, agreed..

But while thinking, do remember,

"Your mind is the scene of the crime". – Christopher Nolan

I want to confess my thoughts, predictions, premise and conclusions that I felt while watching the film.

Right from the beginning, everything seemed odd rather offbeat. Mysskin boasting about the fights and techniques used in the film, the possible ways that he was going to make a lineup of sequels, 12kg super-hero suit, actors learning martial arts and stuff. Like most of you, I thought this is either going to suck money in the blatant name of martial arts (like Surya's 7aam Arivu) or its going be a desperate attempt to make a super-hero movie from a Hollywood flick. Great snakes, to my surprise it was a compost of both and the viewers were royally screwed.

I am a big fan of Mysskin right from his debut movie Chitiram Pesudhadi. I still remember the excitement and slowly building seriousness and tension while watching Anjaathey. I pretty much liked the desi-Kikujiro (Nandhalaala) and Yuddham sei. But, Mugamoodi ….. I CAN’T BARE !!!

Curtains rose at the multiplex screen, along with my expectations. Once the villain was shown and the first shot faded to, sort-of a comic, Marvel or DC Comic book pages flipping from top to bottom, I felt a slight punch in my abs. 

The Plot:

Expectations:

Hero is so passionate about Kung-fu (they call it so). Feels his Kung-fu Master his Godfather.  Hero wanders aimlessly and falls for a bieberlicious chick. Couldn’t tolerate the crimes happening in the society, hero turns himself to a masked vigilante. An invincible gang performs series of robberies around the city and a cop is so desperate to catch them. Finally how Mr.Mugamoodi caught the gang, lies the ultimate suspense and surprise in the story.

Reality:

A street kung-fu guy who calls himself Bruce wayne.. sorry Bruce Lee,  gets a boner seeing a gigantic brunette whose IQ level will definitely be topped by a kid at play school. To control his boner and to see her at night, he prepares a rexine suit with the help of a grandpa- wannabe Lucius Fox. On the parallel world, at chennai's Arkham asylum, a guy with serious psychological condition robs the city at night, after watching Heath Ledger’s inevitable performance in ‘The Dark Knight’ from HBO continuously for a month. Along with it, I assume he might have watched ‘The Town’ (masks) and ‘Kung fu Hustle’ (The Axe gang), that makes him pathetically attempt and try uttering dialogues for which even 7-year olds will give a face palm. Meanwhile Commissioner Gordon, yes you are right, Naaser tries to catch this robber. How Mr. Mugamoodi goofs up, spoofs up himself and kills the villain hilariously lies the ultimate idiocracy.

How Mugamoodi could’ve happened:

After watching hell lot of Akira Kurosawa and Takeshi Kitano movies for ‘n’ number of times, Mysskin was desperate to kick some real a$$ in Kollywood. Combining his love and interest for martial arts, voracious reading, comics, super-hero stories, Mysskin in one night stand with a Jack Daniel's whiskey, successfully turned as Ram Gopal Varma of Kollywood (hope you movie buffs can understand what I am trying to say). A script was finally written on a puked tissue stolen from a local bar (which was show in the first song). Names it as a different, off-beat daring attempt.

I don't want to write more about this. Furnishing possible,

Trivia, FAQ’s, assumptions, theories and conclusion from Mugamoodi:

·     No its not a rip off of MGR’s ‘Engal veetu Pillai’. Booo.

·     This film is a dedication to Bruce Lee. No, not to his mysterious death.

·     Nolan’s ‘Batman’ Trilogy DVD can be purchased for the ticket price at Moore Market.

·   If you want to read about tamil super hero stories, go and buy the classic tamil comics ‘Irumbukka Maayavi’ from Rani comics, 3^rd lane, Bunder street, T-Nagar, Chennai.  (Click here to trace in Google maps). Hoooo.

·     Naaser is the Morgan Freeman of south Indian films. But in this flick he fits in the role of Commissioner Gordon, than Lucius Fox.

·    Heroine is the runner up in Miss Universe. Her acting is perfect that she can be casted in Desi/Tamil version of Jersey Shore series yet to be aired in Star Vijay TV.

·     Narain has some serious condition and deep pain in acting after knowing the fact that ‘Heath Ledger’ was dead, post his 'Joker' performance.

·      No, Anguswamy’s character (Narain) was not offered to Actor Santhanam initially.

·      Mysskin fantasized Dark knight climax mating with Spiderman-3 climax for Mugamoodi’s climax.

·     Climax, shot in harbor, 30 kids in a school bus, tied and hanged from a crane, with heroine tied to a rope, villain willingly loses his hand and falling down from the..... WTF !!

·      You may get the Dejavu of Bruce Lee’s Bigboss, Fist of fury etc.. in some shots when one kung-fu guy goes and hits the other guys from his opponent school for insulting his master.

·      Reason for Grandpa Character wearing the Sherlock Holmes suit with funny hat and a pipe in climax, only god knows. (Don’t tell me that he was with the guy from costume department)

·       You will love to watch dubbed super hero movies in theatres after watching Mugamoodi.

·       I ain’t going to a Mysskin movie again unless if its shot in yellow-bulb, dim light.

·     This is what happens when an unstoppable force (experiment subject, dumbness) meets  an immovable object (mass, high budget, crowd pleasing).

·      Oh yes, this guy K makes some good BGM, Seriously.

Further contributions, comments, views, trolls are welcomed. 

For all you people who were fed up watching ‘Mugamoodi’, I suggest you to watch ‘Supermen of Malegaon’. Please do watch it. I assure that your laughing bone and brains will definitely be tingled.

P.S. If someone is offended directly or indirectly in the above post, am.... Dude just STFU, go and watch this movie for 3 hours. You'll understand my pain.