Lucia
Posted by Anantha | Posted in Cinema , Watched in theatre | Posted on Monday, September 23, 2013
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Dir: Pawan Kumar
Cast: Neenasam Satish, Shruti Hariharan, Achyut Rao
The movie begins
with a voice reciting 'nee maayeyoLago, ninnoLu maayeyo (are you part of the
illusion or is illusion a part of you)?' - a famous devotional song by
Kanakadasa. The protagonist is Nikki, who calls himself just another sheep out
of 90 lakh people in Bangalore (he says he is from Chikkanaayakana doDDi... Got
the pun?). Nikki does the odd job of a torch shiner in a debt struck talkies -
it's a thankless job where everyone is led to their respective seats in the
darkness but the torchman remains faceless and anonymous. Life is pretty much
smooth going for Nikki except that he suffers from insomnia. A chance encounter
with a 'jadi booti vaid' gets him Lucia - the pills which not only gets him
sufficient sleep but also makes him hallucinate and live his wishful life in
dreams. The first night of taking Lucia, in Nikki's dreams, he has become a
reputed movie star. His coveted life in dreams is shown in B&W but his
struggling reality in color (with a purpose to be revealed at the end). To
Nikki's amazement, the characters in his dreams are the manifestations of the
people around him in reality. His theater owner Shankranna is his manager in
dreams, the police who played a prank in real life is actually a much obedient
cop who protects him in his dreams, his love interest - the pizza shop girl of
real life is a wanna be heroine in his dreams, a dangerous money lender is an
extortion caller in his dreams. Night after night and pills after pills, the
movie progresses with his dreams and real life in parallel. There is
professional jealousy, arrogance, detachment and alienation in dreams but a
struggle, contentment and innocence in his real life.
It's time when
it's time! His dreams and reality crash into each other and the audience are
brought down with a thud. How real were his dreams or how dreamy was his
reality? Or was it magical realism? (I thought 10 times before using this word.
The word reminds me of a famous Japanese writer whose stories I never
understood but bothered me for weeks after reading them). Was it insomnia? Or
was it a fair dose of philosophy? Why were his dreams B&W, why was his real
life colorful? Finally who is real? Nikki the torchshiner or Nikki the
actor? With a fair amount of topics like
Euthanasia, the police investigation and the science behind hallucination
thrown in, the director holds together a magnificently creative concept till
the end (the effective background score in the climax which raised my
heartbeats exponentially is worth mentioning).
One of the very few
complaints I had was, wish it was shorter by 10-15 mins. It could have been crisper.
The other complaint being, the heroine’s role could have been etched out better.
Hail Pawan!! His
first movie Life-u IshTene was much loved, Lucia is a movie to remember for
many years to come in Kannada! Don’t be surprised if a movie buff tags Lucia
along with The Machinist, The Butterfly Effect and The Inception! When I say that,
I am not comparing the grandeur of the making but the creative quotient of the
script!! Go, watch it... Its with English subtitles too.
