I am not able to recall those exact lines from a Greek play that I had studied back in school, though I have narrowed it down to it being from either Oedipus Rex, or Antigone, where the chorus defines tragedy as not something unhappy, but rather something predestined, that has to be fulfilled at any costs. It is filled with tension, speculation, drama, but never sadness.
This definition of tragedy somewhat outlines the 2013 Malayalam hit, Annayum Rasoolum, a love story (amidst a lot of other things) between a Christian girl and a Muslim boy. Beautifully shot in Kochi and it's adjacent islands, the director, Rajeev Ravi shows us life of the working class and subsequently the Christian culture that thrives there.
Compared to the colourful and scenic Kochi of Martin Prakkat's Charlie, here the city is teeming with activity from fish markets to bazaars to the residential areas and its people are painted in colours of grey, blues, greens, and browns. Only Anna's (Andrea Jeremiah) saris of pink and yellow stand out amidst them. Take the scene when Anna asks Rasool (an excellent Fahad Fasil) to meet her outside of work, the subsequent shot is an birds eye view of the busy street, where both of them make their way through, and we can easily spot Anna in her yellow sari, but it becomes harder to find Rasool in all that hustle and bustle.
Scenes indoors are mostly shot from behind a curtain, or from a corner of a wall evoking a feeling of being watched, especially Anna, who we mostly see from behind her room curtain.
Such scenes of loneliness, silence or helplessness are further amplified with background conversations that don't involve the main leads. Take the scene on the ferry, when Andrea is contemplating on whether to message Rasool, and as she does so, in the background, the ferry owner and Anna's neighbour haggle about the payments. On Rasool's side, the tv blares out news, as he stands by the window and replies to Anna. Even when Francis and his mother visit Anna's house, we watch Anna making tea, but hear Francis's proposal in the background to marry her at the same time. All this makes the scenes more authentic and more spontaneous, like on one of the ferry rides, a stranger asks Rasool, after he gets off the phone how he knows Bharthan, and comments that he is close friends with him. This isn't necessary in anyway for the plot, but small inserts like this, makes the screen come more alive.
This definition of tragedy somewhat outlines the 2013 Malayalam hit, Annayum Rasoolum, a love story (amidst a lot of other things) between a Christian girl and a Muslim boy. Beautifully shot in Kochi and it's adjacent islands, the director, Rajeev Ravi shows us life of the working class and subsequently the Christian culture that thrives there.
Scenes indoors are mostly shot from behind a curtain, or from a corner of a wall evoking a feeling of being watched, especially Anna, who we mostly see from behind her room curtain.
Such scenes of loneliness, silence or helplessness are further amplified with background conversations that don't involve the main leads. Take the scene on the ferry, when Andrea is contemplating on whether to message Rasool, and as she does so, in the background, the ferry owner and Anna's neighbour haggle about the payments. On Rasool's side, the tv blares out news, as he stands by the window and replies to Anna. Even when Francis and his mother visit Anna's house, we watch Anna making tea, but hear Francis's proposal in the background to marry her at the same time. All this makes the scenes more authentic and more spontaneous, like on one of the ferry rides, a stranger asks Rasool, after he gets off the phone how he knows Bharthan, and comments that he is close friends with him. This isn't necessary in anyway for the plot, but small inserts like this, makes the screen come more alive.
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