Classmates: A fulgurant movie; a director's special!

Read on; I will not make the story public.

I saw the Malayalam movie Classmates starring a range of talented performers, yesterday. The movie can be summed up in one word as classy. The story was the hero; and you have four alternatives in Prithwiraj, Indrajith, Jayasurya and Sunil (aka Narein). It is undoubtedly, the best Malayalam movie based on a campus story to date. Lal Jose has directed the movie in such a way that it can be hailed as a director's masterpiece. So much care has been put into every shot, and the spanking campus life is endearingly copy-pasted into the film reel so that there never was a dull moment in the whole two and a half hours.

The dynamism of campus politics, the amorous love letters and cursory jawings are all typical of any campus, especially fifteen years back. The director has looked into the minor details to make the film more realistic when recreating visuals of one and half decades back. Prithwiraj as a left student's group activist was immaculate and his brother Indrajith, I thought was the best character in the movie. He was faultless in his transition from a friendly, caustic and acerbic vexer to a mature married man. Jayasurya performed well in his portrayal of a negative-laden knavish right activist. Sunil played an entrancing music boy role and would gain a lot of attention through this movie. Balachandra Menon and Jagathy Sreekumar were so naturalistic and fitting in their roles. But I bet, you will like Indrajith's character the best!

Well, the story is about a group of students in the Chemistry batch of 1991 in a campus that incorporates active and violent student politics. Normal and natural love threads, strikes, songs and all find places in the movie. They plan to meet together after 15 years, wherever they are then. This is the theme of the movie. What prompts such a move, what happens thereafter etc make the movie complete. The last shot in the movie was so impressive!

The fights scenes and the climax were pictured pretty elegantly. The two heroines Kavya Madhavan and the new face Radhika impersonated their roles touchingly. The music, thanks to Vayalar Sarath Chandra Varma, Alex Paul and a bunch of singers helped the movie quite a lot with some true campus rhythms and nostalgia. The song 'Ente khalbile' comes twice in the movie with two scenic appearances. These would give you a catch of how brilliantly the film was taken by Lal Jose. Rajeev Ravi has done a great work behind the camera so that the picture in front of us is so beautiful. Bust sides? You may hear some grotesque autopsy report in the film though!

I would give the film 8 out of 10 and would recommed you the same so highly! Enjoy!

Photo: Varnachitram