Overview:
Eccentric films are always a very crafty and delicate genre to touch upon. If done right, they work extremely well but if not treated well, it becomes sore to watch. The integration of dark humour makes it a walk on a tight rope. Bloody Beggar, unfortunately, ends up missing its mark, even with some very compelling ideas.
Performances:
Kavin leads this ensemble cast of actors, with his great act as a beggar, innocent yet bizarre. He manages to hook us in the emotional portions, really well and shoulders the film. Redin Kingsley fails to bring some great laughs to the film. The other cast is quite a mixed bag. While some perform well to the character, some end up missing to make a mark.
Cinematography and Music:
Fresh out of Nelson's creative radar, Bloody Beggar has its trademark still frames, symmetric camera framings and a very yellow-brown colouring to the frames, adding a new flavour and theme to the story, in terms of treatment. The whole palace is shot very well, and the vast spaces create a very eerie set-up for the proceedings.
Music by Jen Martin adds to the film, a quirky touch with his background scores aiding the narrative in its tense portions. Songs don't pop up as speed breakers, for the fact that it sits well with the story.
Themes:
The film's core concept has a quite dark theme of greed and its consequences, with a dysfunctional family at its centre, and a sub-plot that involves karma.
Writing and Treatment:
Now, this is where the film really gets problematic. The film has some really thought-out character sketches and a very nicely built suspense to it. True to its genre of black comedy, the narrative also brings in a quirky idea of a beggar stuck in a palace, promising some great laughs, but that is the downfall of this film.
Yes, the film has some amusing stretches but they never bring the roof down. All it manages to generate is some chuckles and that's it. The writing neither stretches its situations to its maximum, nor does it flesh out some great comic timing from its characters.
The film never makes the most out of its pulpy ideas and the most disappointing part is it's choice of narration. Starting off as a bizarre comic film, the story spirals down as a dark and serious thriller which never gels well. The central idea of 'a beggar caught in a palace' actually does not sit well with the way the story started off.
Dir.Sivabalan promises to have a clever knack of bringing some nice call-backs and touches to his narrative, but in this outing, he also misses out on some good ideas. The echo of an earlier episode in its climactic portions is a nice touch. We get a close-up of a loyal dog in a photo frame, whose idea is cleverly brought into the story and the conclusion. We get a character which has a crazy idea about the very concept of 'characters' , but it is overplayed and ends up irritating.
Again while these are some good ideas brought on the screen, it also misses out on some too. We get a close-up on a switchboard with some traps which never makes it to the major proceeding. If brought in, these trap ideas would have added a nice comical yet thrilling touch to the story.
A very glaring issue in the films is its visible confusion to treat this story, neither as an adventurous ride nor as a dark thriller with comedic undertones. Whenever the story becomes serious, we get bursts of jokes and whenever it tries to become witty, we get some serious happenings.
The film has a very nice emotional crux, which is again not fleshed out well. Yet, the impact it creates in terms of emotion is really nice. Like this aspect, the film starts out on ideas but never maximises them. The film should have actually been a dark, violent suspense thriller with humour laced to it, because the way with which the film tries to infuse humour, this idea of a dark story treated light would have caught the viewers in an off-beat manner.
Conclusion:
Bloody Beggar would have been anything far better with its ideas, but its choice of narration traps its own potential. It is quite experimental and offers some great ideas, but not all good ideas translate well on the screen, owing to its incoherent screenplay.
Comments
Post a Comment