‘Aaro’, starring Joju George and Anumol in the lead, takes you through the streets of Thrissur, constantly reminding us of the city’s beauty and soul. After all, Thrissur has a certain charm to it, thanks to its slang, free-flowing dialogues, and the perky characters. ‘Aaro’ too rides on this charm and delivers a decent first half, introducing us to various nuances of the town and its people.
Anumol plays Thamara, a single mother who sells flowers in the Sree Vadakkumnathan Temple compound for her livelihood. She boldly stands up against the men in her colony who never miss a chance to harass her. Her son Shiva is independent and kind, though he runs into trouble with the police often for his involvement in petty theft cases.
Despite the interesting setting, what ails ‘Aaro’ directed by debutant Kareem, is its weak writing and execution. Though the makers try to create some intrigue in the first half by focusing on a stranger Murugan (Kichu Tellus) who tries to reach out to Thamara, the film does not offer anything new or interesting in the second half. The makers also try to introduce a twist at the climax, but it fails to create an impression on the audience, especially due to its old-school treatment.

Director Kareem, who has also co-written the story along with Rasheed Parakkal, seems to be a fan of Mammootty, throwing in references from the veteran actor’s previous films, including the 2010 film ‘Pranchiyettan and the Saint’. Kalabhavan Navas, who plays a hopeless lover in the movie, serves as a spoof character and is often spotted wearing Mammootty T-shirts.

Joju George plays a police officer in the film, though he does not have a full-fledged role. He is a constant presence in the town, gaining the people’s trust through his soft demeanor. Though his character is extremely under-written, it is still a joy to watch the actor onscreen, given the intensity with which he portrays his character. Joju has essayed cop roles multiple times, but he still retains freshness in all his cop characters.
Anumol, who has often portrayed female-centric characters in films like ‘Padmini’ and ‘Rockstar’, pulls off Thamara well. Jayaraj Warrier, Sunil Sukhada, Kichu Tellus, Sudheer Karamana also did justice to their roles, though it is the young boy who played Anumol’s son who stood out for his performance. The songs by Bijibal don’t make much impact on the film, which is largely story-driven.

Review: Directed by Mathieu Turi, ‘The Deep Dark’ is a claustrophobic thriller set in the shadowy confines of a subterranean cave. The film opens in 1856 with an explosion that causes a tragic collapse, hinting at the dangers that await a new group of miners tasked with recovering valuable artifacts. The story centers around professor Berthier (Jean-Hugues Anglade), who leads a team of young men into a mine with the promise of riches. However, the team’s collective greed and the professor’s insistence on going deeper into the cave result in a landslide, trapping them inside. As they attempt to find a way out, they awaken a deadly creature that was best left undisturbed.

One of the film’s most striking features is its use of black and white cinematography (by Alain Duplantier), which effectively underscores the dark theme and creates a sense of claustrophobia. However, the monochrome visuals can be tiring over time, and you might find yourself craving a splash of color to break the monotony. Turi’s direction emphasizes the eerie atmosphere of being trapped in an enclosed space with threats lurking around. The film’s slow-burn approach allows for a gradual build-up of tension, but the real action doesn’t kick in until later, which can test your patience.

Once the killing starts, however, ‘The Deep Dark’ delivers relentless bloodshed with some of the most gruesome and creative slayings seen in a horror film. That said, faster pacing of this Lovecraftian horror with more spooky action and less talk would have been ideal. Performances are decent but Amir El Kacem as Amir and Diego Martín as Miguel stand out. Also, because their characters have been fleshed out better than the others. The film relies heavily on jumpscares and special effects, with mixed results. The creature design is appropriately grotesque, but it at times feels gimmicky rather than genuinely terrifying. Despite this, the overall atmosphere and the sense of impending doom keep the audience on edge.

‘The Deep Dark’ succeeds in its primary goal of creating a tense and unsettling horror experience, though it struggles with pacing and character development. Once the action gets going, the film becomes a relentless bloodbath, leaving the audience gasping for breath and longing for daylight. While it’s not without its flaws, Turi’s commitment to a dark and suspenseful narrative makes it a decent addition to the horror genre.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is purportedly the first in another trilogy of films that will show the evolution of ape society from its current hunter-gatherer phase and develop the character of Noa. As such, director Wes Ball – anticipating a few years’ lucrative employment – has taken his time laying the foundations in that deliberate manner familiar from other Hollywood franchises. This makes Kingdom a slightly ponderous proposition that may satisfy fans who have dutifully followed the previous films, but will do little for those seeking mind-numbing entertainment on a Friday night.

Those areas where the films keep advancing are costume, make-up and special effects, which have rendered the ape impersonation almost perfect. This extends to skillful mimickry of the way various apes move. It’s only when we get up close that we catch a glimpse of the actor behind the elaborate façade. Yet this degree of perfection only tends to throw the leaden nature of the narrative into sharper relief. As the story dragged on and on, I began to feel nostalgic for those days when the movies would just put a guy in a gorilla suit and tell him to start beating his chest.

Monster

Although Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set to be a blockbuster, Monster is one of those critically acclaimed films that can expect to enjoy a modest success at the box office.

Director Hirokazu Koreeda is celebrated for his portrayals of families – big, small, sometimes barely recognisable as such. This time, he focuses on a family that consists of only a single mother, Saori Mugino (Sakura Ando), and her 11-year-old son, Minato (Soya Kurokawa), living in a provincial Japanese city. As they sit together, talking to a photograph of Minato’s dead father, we can see how closely they are bonded. They watch from their apartment window as a downtown building that contains a nightclub goes up in flames.

“If a pig’s brain is put into a human head,” Minato asks his mother, “is that person a human or an animal?” It sounds silly, but this “pig brain” proposition will recur throughout the film, attributed to several different characters.

The mother-son relationship develops cracks when Minato starts acting strangely, snipping away at his own hair, coming home from school with only one shoe. One evening he doesn’t come home at all, being eventually located in an old train tunnel hidden in the nearby woods. When he sustains an injury to his ear, Saori heads to his school to see what’s going on. Minato has laid the blame on his teacher, Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama), who has also allegedly accused the boy of having a pig’s brain.

When Saori confronts the teachers, especially the principal, Mrs Fushimi (Yuko Tanaka), they become a caricature of Japanese shame and conformity, bowing deeply, apologising and promising to do better. Saori is rightly incensed by this behaviour, which does nothing to solve the mystery of her son’s strange behaviour or confirm that the awkward Mr Hori did the things he was accused of doing. The principal, who has recently lost her grandson in a terrible accident, seems almost catatonic. The teachers apologise reflexively, with no explanations. We feel as bewildered as Saori, especially when it seems Mr Hori is continuing to teach as usual, with no action being taken.

Koreeda resolves the mystery by degrees, jumping back and forth in time to show us the origins of the things we can’t explain. These jumps are handled so seamlessly it takes a few seconds each time for us to realise where we are. In this film, nothing is quite what it seems. The crucial figure may not be Mr Hori, but Minato’s classmate, Yori Hoshikawa (Hinata Hiiragi), a small boy who is disliked by most of the class because of his eccentric behaviour. It’s Yori who claims constantly that he has a pig’s brain, and who leads Minato to the tunnel in the woods, where he has a hideout in an old train carriage. Yori is unhappy at home, being raised by a beer-swilling father who is usually at work or in a bar.

It begins to seem as if angelic-looking Yori is a classic bad seed, and for Minato, a bad influence. Yori keeps confessing that he’s a monster. As he carries a stove lighting device with him and roams around at night, it seems likely he had a hand in the fire that burned the hostess club his father frequented. Look closely and one can see the club was called Gilles de Rais, named after an infamous French child murderer of the Middle Ages.

While we are trying to understand the relationship between Minato and Yori, Mr Hori is being persecuted by reporters and slowly driven mad. As we flash back and forth between past and present, Hori’s true role in the story begins to emerge.

Koreeda keeps us wondering about who, if anyone, is the monster. With each part of the puzzle falling into place, the picture keeps changing. It’s not even clear what being a “monster” might mean.

One noteworthy aspect of the film is the music, which was the final score by Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023), best known for his haunting themes in Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983) and Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor (1987). It’s a typically subtle score, hardly more than a few touches of the piano where a scene requires a little emphasis.

Monster won the Queer Palm, at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, which is a somewhat dubious honour in that it narrows the way we read the relationship between two 11-year-old boys. Minato and Yori are only on the cusp of puberty and whatever the nature of their friendship, it would be ridiculous to label it “queer”, in the way that word is now used to denote self-conscious gender non-conformity. Surely, it’s not unusual for children of that age to become passionately attached to their friends, often at the expense of their families. Are they considered “monsters” because of the closeness of a relationship that even makes Minato feel uncomfortable?

Koreeda makes no moral pronouncements, showing huge sympathy for all his characters, from the boys to Saori, Hori and the principal. Everyone has a hard time in this story, but they are given ample opportunity to declare their innocence to the audience, and the ending is not at all what one might expect. Perhaps the monster is no more than a red herring.