Chimbudeven’s six-segmented movie boasts of a sprawling ensemble solid and a few intriguing performances, however isn’t cohesively stitched and fails to have interaction
Chimbudeven’s Kasada Tabara begins with a few definitions. One: the vantage level, a place from which one thing is seen (a change on this can drastically alter one’s view). Two: the butterfly impact, the phenomenon whereby a small change can have dire far-reaching penalties elsewhere (you could have heard of this in Dasavatharam or The Butterfly Effect film itself). Both these ideas aren’t new to cinema; not even to Tamil cinema.
We know from the trailer and interviews that Kasada… is a hyperlink movie, i.e. the characters inhabit separate tales which might be linked. This format too isn’t new. Chimbudeven himself admitted this in his interview with The Hindu: “Thiruvilayadal (1965) is a hyperlink subject, with Lord Shiva being the common link. My film has six episodes that are connected in some way.”
What’s fascinating —and sort of uncommon for Tamil cinema — is that every of the movie’s six segments has a unique editor (Anthony, Praveen KL, Vivek Harshan, Mu Kasi Viswanathan, Raja Mohammad, and Ruben), cinematographer (Vijay Milton, MS Prabhu, Balasubramaniem, SR Kathir, RD Rajasekhar, and Sakthi Saravanan), and composer (Yuvan Shankar Raja, Premji Amaren, Sam CS, Sean Roldan, Santhosh Narayanan, and Ghibran).
Chimbudeven’s thought in all probability was to sew collectively completely different items of fabric into an beautiful costume with the assistance of a number of tailors. The consequence, nevertheless, is a chaotic patchwork.
A mishmash of parts
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction is one other hyperlink movie that begins with a definition. Much just like the cult traditional, Kasada… too has an assortment of intriguing characters: there’s a God, a don, a conman, a police officer with a no-kill coverage, and others. There are encounters, betrayals, romances, and near-death situations. Despite all these, the movie not often intrigues.
Kasada Tabara
- Director: Chimbudeven
- Cast: Sampath Raj, Venkat Prabhu, Regina Cassandra, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Shanthnu Bhagyaraj, Premgi Amaren, and extra
- Storyline: Six inter-linked tales with a plethora of characters crisscrossing one another’s lives
- Duration: 2 hr 17 min
The prime suspect is the writing. Neither the conditions nor the dialogues pique our curiosity (there are just a few exceptions like Sendrayan’s character describing hen clear soup as kozhi moothram). Take the primary phase of the movie, for example. Bala (Premji Amaren) is a God-fearing, quintessential good man. One of the methods the movie establishes his niceness is by making him feed stray puppies. A snarky front-rower within the cinema would have quipped, “Idhellaam naanga Aasai laye paathutom!”
Chimbudeven has additionally deliberately veered away from comedy, which is definitely his forte. But even the few jokes fail to tickle. Case in level: A junior police officer tells his superior that he’s coming from a temple. The superior appreciates him and ends his reply with, “So sweet!” Junior officer: “Aama sir, pongal eppavume sweet ah dhaan irukum..”
Grand themes
The drawback is that even the intense moments don’t fairly work. Thiripura Shanmuga Sundari aka Trisha (Regina Cassandra), the lady who likes Bala, has an epiphany simply because he tells her a couple of Shiva annan, who owns a beeda stall beside a luxurious resort. Trisha, inside seconds, adjustments her thoughts from idolising the luxurious resort’s proprietor, as a result of Bala tells him the beeda stall proprietor is main a content material life.
These far-too-convenient life-altering realisations happen greater than as soon as. Sampath Raj, who performs a don, is proven feeling unhealthy for a man who stored a knife in opposition to his neck, simply because one other character tells him he’s a do-gooder. Upon overhearing his son’s (Shantanu Bhagyaraj) disappointment together with his actions, he decides to surrender his lifetime of crime. That the scene is considerably convincing, is because of Sampath’s efficiency.
Some of the actors from the sprawling solid (together with Sundeep Kishan, Harish Kalyan, Priya Bhavani Shankar, Venkat Prabhu, Vijayalakshmi, and Sija Rose) make their characters look extra fascinating than they’re on paper. But the writing falls flat. Too typically, they’re seen mouthing expository strains (the phase with Harish Kalyan could be known as Enai Noki Paayum Voiceover) or philosophy (the characters quote Bhagavad Gita and so forth).
The final high-profile hyperlink movie in Tamil cinema, Super Deluxe, additionally acquired philosophical, however solely after taking us on a blinding trip. Kasada… in the meantime, seems like a stuttering trip in an outdated automotive with principally boring songs taking part in on the radio.
Kasada Tabara is presently streaming on SonyLIV
