Carbon (2018)

Director: Venu
Writer: Venu
DOP: K.U. Mohanan
Cast: Fahadh Faasil, Mamta Mohandas, Manikandan Aachari
Language: Malayalam

Sibi (Fahadh Faasil) is an unemployed 'dealer' of exotic items like precious stones (Marathakam), precious birds (vellimoonga), precious animals (elephants) etc and he can't catch a break. It is not clear whether he is a total fraud or if he can actually make these deals happen. He doesn't have much concern about his family and when the loan sharks start raiding his house, he flees from there to an estate bungalow deep inside the forest as an acting manager to renovate the place. His fascination for precious items are further piqued there when he hears a mythological piece of history.

Venu's previous outing as a director was with the excellent 'Munnariyappu' which ended up going pretty dark places. That film gives us a fair warning that the director does not guarantee a feel good ending and it helps in setting up the atmosphere for Carbon, which is marketed as a forest thriller. The actual forest adventure begins only after the interval and the spookiest scenes come even before the interval, which is not really good for a thriller. There is this scene where Sibi is visiting a house to checkout an elephant that is for sale and that sequence is the most effective scene in the movie. To begin with, Praveena as the lady of the house with one eye bloodshot is creepily unhinged and Soubin Shahir as the elephant guy and the elephant itself are quite unnerving. That scene establishes the rules for the film in terms of what is real and what is 'fantasy'. Life flashing before your eyes and a fantasy from that point is a quite common theme in David Lynch films and it seems that the director is going for it in an half-baked manner. To be fair,  it is quite hard to pull off and there haven't been that many attempts in Malayalam. Have seen some interpretations on those lines for Maayanadhi which I don't concur with.

Another letdown is the existential aspects of the film which end up as quite lame. You know things are gonna go downhill as soon as they reference 'The Alchemist', which is like Harry Potter equivalent of the existential fiction. With the people behind and infront of the camera for this film, you expect the best in terms of technical perfection and performances and you do get that. They could've easily shaved off some twenty minutes from its considerable 150 minutes running time and Vishal Bharadwaj's frankly forgettable songs can be prime candidates. One thing I liked about the film is that they don't romanticise tribal characters or their interactions. Sibi is quite an unlikable character throughout the film, which sort of hinders the film towards the end. My feeling towards the film is like 'Solo'- worthy effort, couldn't pull off what all they intended, a fantastic theatrical experience nevertheless, will probably catch it again at the theatres to check whether that elephant had any fucking chain.

Rating: 3.5/5