Search - Vanaprastham: The Last Dance on DVD

A Beautiful Movie

08/31/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Mohanlal, in a National Award winning performance, plays the role of a
Kathakali artist
Kunju Kuttan who is the illegitimate son of a Namboothiri. He is
married and has a daughter, but there is not much happiness at home.
Once he gives a Kathakali performace as Arjuna and Subhadra (played by
Suhasini), who is the niece of the regional king, falls in love with
the character portrayed by Mohanlal and they have a child. Soon
Subhadra makes it clear that she fell in love with Arjuna and not the
poor Kathakali player and she does not want her son to see the
father. Finally the Kunjikuttan dies without getting recognition from
his father or being able to see his son. According to the
director Shaji Karun Arjuna for me is someone who isn't aware of his abilities, but is
used by others for those very abilities. For example, Krishna. But
the battle of Mahabharata was won because of him. So there is an
identity crisis there. And though Arjuna was married to Panchali, his relationship with
Subhadra was different. It had a deeper, philosophical element to
it. Though Subhadra and Arjun had never met each other, they knew each
other through letters, through people. Both were exceptionally
intelligent. Subhadra, for her part, was a woman with a strong concept
of right and wrong. The two deeply respected each other. Their son,
Abhimanyu, was immensely intelligent, too, having heard the story of
the Chakravyuh while still in the womb. Intelligence, here, had a
philosophical connotation which appealed to me.
This was a beautiful film. Usually I am scared of art films because I
think they intentionally slow down the film which is boring . I prefer
films which are slightly faster in pace and Vanaprastham is not a slow movie.
The music is by Zakir Hussain and the
camera by Santosh Sivan. The DVD is subtitled in English.
"

Great movie but WARNING a bad DVD

10/02/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fine East Indian film: One of the better films that didn't get a released in the US last year.
BUT the DVD has a distorted image and as a consumer I feel it only fair to let other consumers know that the DVD should be recalled and re-transfered. All the characters and objects look extra skinny and elongated and it is not an artistic choice on the part of the director.
It's a shame because it is a beautiful movie. I recommend you rent it and if the image doesn't bother you then buy it. Or buy the video version, which for some reason has no distortion."