Of flights and fights

Producer- director- writer Mani Rathnam features a new pair Karthi- Aditi Rao Hydari in his latest offering ‘Cheliya’, a much-in-the-news bilingual venture. A love story set amidst a defence background with arresting visuals of our country’s rugged Himalayan terrain, it is a blend of action and emotion, living up to the promos and teasers doing the rounds in social media.

Taking off from where he left Kashmir a good 25 years ago with his epoch-making `Roja’, the director evokes a series of memories all through the film, unconsciously making his viewers revisit a few of his recent releases, as the two-hour plus movie unfolds. The maestro is at work, quite diligently, as his story is narrated on screen with dazzling colours and the mesmeric beauty of the snow-clad Himalayan range.

Beginning with a war sequence, shot in black-and-white, Mani Ratnam posits his flick during the Kargil war days, thereby justifying the languid pace to the proceedings. The first half, which is a flashback narration, sees the hero, a prisoner of war pining for his love from a dark prison in Rawalpindi. The love tale emerges bit by bit, mushy and at its own rhythm, at times testing the patience of the viewers who would have preferred a faster narration.

Not delving too much into the Indo-Pak skirmish during the 1999 war, Mani keeps the hostility part low key and keeps circling around the lovey-dovey couple. The hero is commitment-phobic, clearly chauvinistic while the heroine wants a level-playing field and insists on being treated equal. Ratnam plays upon the irrational love angle which obsesses the two and wants his audience to believe that it makes the two stick together irrespective of such differences.

The veteran helmsman thus weaves a tapestry of such modern-day trends and themes, including a bold marriage of the hero’s brother with his heavily pregnant girlfriend. However, the wavy pace of the proceedings and a feeling of being stuck in a limited range are inescapable. No problems, however with the performances of Karthi or Aditi, who do full justice to their partly-flawed roles of just being hopeless lovers. Every other character, some of them regulars in Ratnam movies like Delhi Ganesh are apt and effective.

The thrill element of Karthi making good his escape from a Pakistani jail and entering India via a friendly Afghanistan route impresses in the final stages of its execution, mostly for its amazing visuals and action. Somehow, the interface between war and love in the film seems lopsided and mars the film.

Film Name : Cheliya

Cast : Karti, Aditi Rao Hydari, RJ Balaji
Direction : Mani Rathnam
Genre : Love-Drama
Likes : Ravi Varman’s breathtaking cinematography, A R Rahman’s BGM
Dislikes : Pace of the film

By K Naresh Kumar