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Name You Malayalam Short Film – Understanding the core: There is nothing in this designed for a particular reason and we cannot say what is wrong and what is right.

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Appreciation and critic:

First of all, I need to appreciate the team for making a film that is quite different from the practiced film making. We cannot say this as a film that can be viewed in a theatre but can be viewed as a play. The format of this filmmaking is kind of a play where all theatre artists perform their part and attract the audience. The time limit is about 1 hour which is 53 minutes. So throughout the film, the main idea of the character of the protagonist is trying to give a message in every dialogue and the script is doing the same.

Hope we all came across the word “abstract”. This film is a kind of abstract art but it is an abstract play. So this movie is about a person who does the people call him a fool. Why it is not a theatre watching the film? Because at the theatre watching films must have certain aspects which make the audience feel and enhance their entertaining views. Similarly, when it is a short film it should have similar aspects of theatre film. The aspects include a camera, artist, makeup, costumes, cinematography, lighting, music, sounds, dubbing, and all other things. This film is a theatre play. Theatre plays will have live sounds, sometimes dubbings if necessary. The way of acting or the way of making a script and the way to execute the script will be unique and different in a way people experience and a new way of theatre watching.

We can break this Name You Malayalam short film into three parts.

Introduction, subject, and conclusion.

Name You Malayalam Short Film Introduction part:

In the introduction part, the protagonist introduces himself to the audience. He admits himself as a fool. So the first dialogue of the protagonist itself is attractive. Later on, he started doing his daily activities and how the world sees him. He states that from his age of 15 he realized that he is a fool. The color of the first scene is blue which is unique and it conveys the cool manner of the protagonist. The next scene with the flashback concept having a black and white color explains what the protagonist I was doing during his teenage years. I don’t know how to peel coconut; don’t know how to change a bulb, and here and the interesting part is that the protagonist reads books. We can hear two voices in the voice-over which are his dad and mom. We can assume it like that. The father keeps on scolding him for not doing anything and cursing him because of his inability to take care of himself. because at his age his father looked over the family and took care of it and the protagonist’s parents worried about how is going to run a family or take care of himself. His father refused to take care of his study, but the protagonist has an uncle who is in the USA as a backbone, just trusted him and made him study for his bachelor’s degree with pharmacy specialization. The team showed pictures of USA Wal-Mart and a building in the USA just to show us the subject and the foreign element. If we minutely noticed the team used both on spot live sound as well as the dubbing sound mixed. The sound mix and the layers in it no way disappointed the view. Just right it and conveyed what it wanted to. So the introduction part introduced the protagonist and his state which will allow us to understand the film for further story. The camera is not at its best. The quality and the screen presence are not as expected or to watch interestingly. As I said before, this is not a theatre film but a theatre play. For a theatre play the story and the script is more important

Name You Malayalam Short Film Subject part:

The subject starts when the frame was showing us the protagonist was reading a few books and marking something. The story says that he is researching about fools in the world by reading books and he also started imagining his dream world. So the main subject is here. From seeing this frame and scene, you can confirm that this film is like a theatre play.

The protagonist claims that he is intelligent and everyone is a lunatic. Five people are listing out what are activities they do regularly or listing out their traits of Normal people. Each one of them is saying a trait. The dialogues and traits are what a general public has in common. This particular scene alone can have an impact on the audience. Also, it may not be a favorite scene for the majority of the audience but still, it is an admiring scene. I feel this scene could have done better in the technical aspect wherein a dark room with little lighting and focuses. The idea of the costume and especially the hat is attractive in this scene. When everyone is done, the protagonist narrates the common traits of humans. Also, they are claiming it as a foolish activity. The traits include selfishness, greediness, hatred, etc.

The story moves to another subject – Marriage. The voiceover keeps on going, explaining scene by scene. The protagonist is getting married to a woman. The woman doesn’t know his inability or his weakness. So the woman, later on, finds the truth that he is incapable of doing everything. The team was very clear and clever in the way of showing the protagonist as a fool. The scene is about the way of eating. The protagonist mixes curry, side dishes, desserts together, and eating. So it is clear that the team made some research on fools and their behavior. Without a proper understanding of fools and their activities, they cannot make this film. So the film did background research. That thing is appreciable. The surprising part is that the protagonist also has a girl child. Like the mother, the child also doesn’t know that his father is a lunatic. When she realizes that later she starts to maintain distance from her father. The scene carried in a way that even the child has no dialogues on the screen but voice-over. There were no on-screen dialogues when the main part of the film was telecasted. The characters are speaking only in his imaginary world. This is what is a unique feature of this film.

The protagonist often reads books and goes to his imaginary world where everyone in the society is lunatic and the fools are intelligent. So again the same set of people coming and telling the truth reaches humans which we think is intelligence. At this time the protagonist asks everyone to tell them what are the advantages of being a fool and what people think of themselves as intelligent. 5 people are narrating the dialogues. Now, this part is interesting. The protagonist will sit on the ground and ask each one to say the advantages or reality of being and intelligent. Four of them will speak in favor of intelligence while one person speaks in the favor of the fools. Instantly the Other four will try to take him down. This part alone is attractive. So ideologies are fighting together. Everyone will wear that hat and narrate the dialogues. So that hat is a symbol of authority. The film wants someone to take the authority & narrate the ideology.

The screen faded-in and another scene where all the five were lying down. It looks like they fell in tired or died after a fight. That is what the stories wanted to show. All the philosophies are fighting each other and everything will die one day. The protagonist will look at everyone and think. So it is time for us to think.

Then the protagonist will wake up from his dream world. There is another scene after he woke up where he will bend down his sleeping daughter’s leg. In the voice over it conveys that he is apologizing for breaking her leg while he writes bicycle with her. That part alone was very nice. The concept of touching the leg and bending is very emotional and the scene was during the night while she was sleeping! That is even more touching.

Conclusion:

The protagonist and the story are trying to say that there are people with a lot of philosophies and everyone has their philosophy. There are a lot of people in this world and everyone has unique ideologies tastes and preferences. Is there anything in this world called right and wrong? No. There is nothing in this world that is designed for intelligence and designed for fools separately. The film tried to expose the truth of people’s ideologies and wants to break the wall between maturity and happiness. As the viewer, I feel like this is what I understood from watching this film.

Though this film is not technically good, the ideology and the script, screenplay, story, and every written aspect are extraordinary. We can also consider this film as an abstract script. That is what I said earlier. This is not a theatre film, but a theatre play. people can watch this film when they are alone and have plenty of time. Without giving oneself to this day I cannot understand the real meaning behind the script. I also feel that if this film had technical support too, this script alone can win lots of awards. Apart from winning awards, this can stand in everyone’s heart. From the acting of the characters, the dialogues and the screen presence of the protagonist, the background music, and everything is great. To be honest I am not satisfied with the colors and transitions of the film but I am compromised for the script. To be precise – emotionally.

If you ask me, whether I will suggest this film to my friends or not, sure I will. Because this film had the content which the world needs to know for a peaceful society.

If you ask me to give ratings,

For story and screenplay – I would like to give 10/10

For direction – I would like to give 9/10

For cinematography – I would like to give 6/10

For sounds – I would like to give 7/10

For music – I would like to give 8/10

For DI – I would like to give 5/10

For creativity and innovation – I would like to give 9/10

Overall I would like to give 7.0/10 for the Name You Malayalam Short Film

“IF YOU ARE NOT OPEN TO CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM, THEN YOU’RE NOT OPEN TO TRULY GROWING AS A FILMMAKER”

Watch Name you – Malayalam Short film Now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu54lX7qOgE

This Short film review Credit goes to Thozhamaiyan.

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