ASHOK’s FIVE reasons to watch #TRANCE the 2019 Malayalam release now streaming on #AmazonPrime. Be prepared to for a mind-blowing experience as you see Fahadh Faasil in a role that is tailor made for him. Trance is also Anwar Rasheed’s comeback film after the 2012 Ustaad Hotel. The film explores several themes pertinent to religion and uses the metaphor of trance with devastating effect. The film promises you a superb build-up in the first half but loses its way in the second and fizzles out towards the end but it’s definitely worth a watch for several reasons.
1. Watch TRACE for Fahadh Faasil in a spectacularly brilliant and explosive role. This is the kind of script that’s written with Fahadh in mind and one can almost visualise how he would have moulded it and made it his very own. Fahadh plays Viju Prasad a failed motivation speaker who makes it all the way from Kanya Kumari to the international stage as pastor Joshua Carlton, the miracle worker. His transformation along the way in appearance, body language and persona is stunning.
2. Trance boasts an A team for technical brilliance with Resul Pookutty on sound design, Amal Neerad as cinematographer and Sushin Shyam for BGM. Jackson Vijayan makes his debut as music composer and screenplay is by Vincent Vadakkan. The camera angles, layered shots and metaphorical visuals make for excellent viewing and are perhaps a first for the Malayalam industry. The costumes, visual and production design are right up there.
3. Shoubin Shahir and Vinayan are brilliant in their cameo appearances. The lack of depth to the characterization of most other characters including Gautham Menon, Chemban Vinod and Nazariya Nazim exposes the screenplay in the second half and makes you feel let down.
4. The overt biblical references starting from the Kanya Kumari scenes to the constant fish metaphor or the awakening on the third day as well as the reference to Esther as Mary Magdalene run constant through the movie. Some of the visuals actually add to this metaphorical play and enhance the appeal of the film
5. The premise of the film is a subject that is controversial but merits attention. A heady concoction of religion, drugs and mental illness and the interplay between them justifying the trance connection. The commercialisation of religion and how the public can be fooled in its wake makes for interesting viewing. The story build this up well but loses its way in the second between the hallucination bouts of the protagonist. In the end, the gruesome killings and the extravagant but contrived scenes do not live up to the promise.
Go watch Trance is you are Fahadh Faasil fan. He is easily one of Malayalam cinema’s finest actors in the contemporary set and lives the role to perfection. While the film is definitely a let down from the promise of the first half, Faasil’s animal like energy as he stumbles on to the stage in a drug-induced frenzy is what you sit up in awe and lets you drift through the clumsy second half.
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