Bengaluru (DHNS): Daring, different, delectable, and above all, difficult – that’s Ravichandran’s esoteric Apoorva for you. It speaks volumes about the showman and the hidden artist Ravichandran is, who simply sizzles with his latest outing.
Courting craft and creativity, and shunning commercial prospects, he comes up with an engaging aesthetic experiment. If fans expect another super duper Premaloka, then they are pitiful losers.
Ravichandran has come a long way from that phenomenal commercial hit, which anointed him with the coveted ‘Crazy’ star moniker. Today, Ravichandran is an experimenter, giving expression to his inner artist.
Like late artist M F Hussain, in Apoorva, Ravichandran takes viewers on a creative, colourful sojourn which only a few can access and appreciate.
He paints a passionate, pristine picture with poetic, sagacious words. That said, Apoorva is also a vibrant cupid tale of 61-year-old Rajashekar and 16-year-old Apoorva. Caught within the confines of a mall’s artistically designed lift, the two are drawn towards each other, even as Rajashekar wonders whether it is right and more so whether it will work and find acceptance.
Outside the lift, and invisible to the audience, another tense drama is being played out.The state’s home minister has been held to ransom with kidnappers, laying siege to the mall, negotiating with the government.
Bullets, thuds of bodies, verbal battle of wits resonate between miscreants, minister and police, while inside the lift, the kid-girl and man in the winter of his life, ruminate on love, life and death. The film is brilliant to a fault till the last 25 minutes, when Ravichandran fails his discerning audience with a pedestrian ending. Of course, in that too, there is a loud message to the youth.
Centered around Ravichandran and new find Apoorva, the film is worth its while for those schooled in cinema aesthetics. As film’s ‘XXX’ goes, Apoorva is an intense exercise in — Xcellence, Xperience and Xperiment. Rest, stay away. This is no Premaloka for voyeuristic pursuers.
Apoorva : Kannada (U)
Cast: Ravichandran,
Apoorva, Vijay Raghavendra, Sudeep, Ravishankar, Pavithra Lokesh, Spandana
Director: Ravichandran
