Kammara Sambhavam (2018)

Kammara Sambhavam: Directed by Rathish Ambat. With Dileep, Siddharth, Murali Gopy, Namitha Pramod. Kammaran Nambiar is a crooked man whose life story as an unscrupulous Indian peasant is turned into a film where he is glorified as a freedom fighter with much manipulation of history.

“For over 25 years now, I have cited Blade Runner as my favorite movie of all time. After seeing Watchmen, I may have to reconsider.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFirst, Iu0026#39;m glad I went to see the movie alone. Iu0026#39;ve heard so many comments focused on a blue dick, or the length of the movie, or some other such nonsense, that Iu0026#39;m sure watching it with someone would have been a constant barrage of commentary and complaint. And no, thatu0026#39;s not Javier Bardem. u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eYes, the movie is long; nearly three hours. But, unlike the dreadfully insipid Titanic, at the end of this movie I wasnu0026#39;t asking for those three hours of my life back. And, as with all such movies, you must be able to look beyond the literal.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWatchmen is iconic and iconoclastic, deconstructionist and revisionist, laden with allegory and allusion. Consider, for example, the character Ozymandias. Iu0026#39;m wondering how many people who viewed the film ever even heard of Percy Bysshe Shelleyu0026#39;s poem by the same name. The character even quotes the poem on a plinth in his Antarctic lair. The allusion is amazing. Hereu0026#39;s the full quote;u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd on the pedestal these words appear — u0026quot;My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!u0026quot; Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.u0026#39;u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eClearly one must see the allusion to the work, in this case, of a superhero who hopes to leave mankind a lasting legacy, but realizes in the back of his mind that everything is eventually lost in time. Ozymandias was the first poem I ever examined from an expositional point of view, and I was blown away. The use of it in this movie is equally impactful.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThen there is Dr. Manhattan, named, of course, for the Manhattan Project, which yielded the atomic bomb. His character is an allegory for God, and his relationship with man mirrors the apparent detachment with which God sees suffering in the world He created. The deity reference is reinforced often, and one thinks of Oppenheimeru0026#39;s citation of the Bhagavad-Gita, in which Vishnu takes on a godly form and says, u0026quot;Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.u0026quot;u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIn an expository scene in the second act, Dr. Manhattan has a sort of recollection of his life. His account is dizzyingly elliptical, since he does not see time as linear the way others do. This scene has the lyrical feel of my favorite piece of fiction, Alan Lightmanu0026#39;s almost unbearably beautiful Einsteinu0026#39;s Dreams, and the reference to Einstein cannot be ignored.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut the real beauty of Watchmen is the moral diversity of its superheroes. Each is flawed in different ways, allowing us to inhabit different ethical perspectives, intellectually at least, and witness their consequences. Everything from Rorshachu0026#39;s refusal to compromise, which makes him a doomed fugitive, to the ultimate compromise envisioned by Ozymandias, who can dispassionately evaluate scenarios where millions of lives are sacrificed, calls into question our most cherished beliefs. Where does it leave you? Well, thatu0026#39;s for you to decide.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFrom a purely entertainment perspective, Watchmen is stunning. The visuals are state of the art, and do not suffer from the sort of mental rejection I have for some movies that present too many special effects to swallow at once as reality. And Watchmen doesnu0026#39;t suffer from Hollywoodu0026#39;s apparent fascination with camp in comic book movies. Camp works to some degree in Spiderman, since heu0026#39;s a somewhat humorous character to begin with. But the excess of camp rendered the Fantastic Four sequel unwatchable. Watchman proves that superheroes can use more subtle forms of humor, such as irony, without devolving into camp for cheap laughs.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnd the music, oh, the music. If you didnu0026#39;t grow up in the 60u0026#39;s and 70u0026#39;s, you will surely miss some of the impact, but donu0026#39;t worry. Even a second hand recollection of such iconic tunes will suffice. I am reminded of the painfully awful Across the Universe, which couldnu0026#39;t even pull together a decent movie built around the greatest catalog in modern music. Watchmen does it in spades.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI LOLu0026#39;d, I cried. The people in the theatre applauded at the end. I vowed to wait 24 hours before writing a review to see if my euphoria passed. It hasnu0026#39;t.”