Seems like realism, once the preserve of the art house and the parallel cinema world, is now mainstream.
A run-of-the-mill revenge story like Autorsha invests quite a bit of time in some realism before it takes the usual route.
The film, directed by Sujith Vassudev, has dedicated almost the entire first half to look at the world realistically from the point of view of autorickshaw drivers.
Anitha (Anushree) is the new entrant and the only woman among a group of autorickshaw drivers at an auto stand somewhere in Kannur. The prologue to the film, in which she is shown purposefully taking a weapon from her vehicle, gives you a hint that she is not whom she seems to be.
But all that would have to wait for later, as the attempt in the first half is to tick all the columns of realism. And, they do get it right at many instances too.
Quite a bit of time is invested in showing her interactions with the wide variety of characters who take a ride in her vehicle — from an old man with a memory problem to a couple who wants some privacy.
Brought out well
The relations that she builds over time is also brought out well, like the one with an unseen old woman staying alone in a flat for whom she does all the shopping.
Although, some of the scenes, executed well as standalone bits, does not really have anything to do with the central narrative.
But the second half of the movie though is quite a different story, when it sheds all its realistic pretensions. Anitha soon gets a convoluted background story, where revenge is clearly the only way out.
The way the second part of the film is treated makes one wonder if its two different movies put together to form one.
Cinematographer SujithVassudev made his directorial debut two years ago with the melodramatic ‘James and Alice’.
A dampener
Though Autorsha is a shade better than that film, the second half of the film is a dampener.
As for comparisons with the other famous film on the life of autorickshaw drivers ‘Aye Auto,’ this auto trails several kilometres behind.
S.R. Praveen