One song of Psycho goes like this:
"eno ide eno ide
ee preethili enooo ide
eno ide
ee preethili innenide?"
Displace the word "preethi" with "psycho" and thats the shortest review of psycho in song form!
Actually I am not writing this as a film review, but an analysis. What i feel about this film. But really don't know from where to start. One simple question- is psycho good? My answer - "not too good. not too bad." You may ask "why?". Here is my explanation.
Direction:
I can sense a "sincerety" in the director's work as the heroine of the film senses a "sincerety" in the voice of the hero. I can say Devadatta is a man of work. His film speaks for him. Each and every scene shows the hard work put behind it. I have seen films where few scenes are handled carelessly. Sometimes we feel some assistant might have handled the scene. Like for example ample of utter comedy scenes in films of D. Rajendra Babu, Om Sai Prakash type of movies. (we can see such scenes in Ravichandran movies directed by senior directors). But here in psycho every scene is dealt carefully. You can see the amount of preparation which has gone into the making. I appreciate Devadatta's hard work. I also appreciate his love for poems. May be the poems are written by poet Asadulla Beg. (That's the reason why in recent newspaper ads, the psycho team has thanked Asadulla Beg)
Music:
What can i say now? The whole Karnataka, sorry all over the world people have loved the songs. All songs are good. Surely can say different music. The song "ee tanavu ninnade" is the one which goes into the heart of the movie. Sad that the song "namma naaDu" song has not been included.
But what was wrong with the background music. Considering the potential of Raghu Dixit, i expected a much better background music. But was it theatre problem? I watched the movie in Mysore's Lakshmi theatre. The theatre has a very bad sound system. May be the background music was effective... but i could not appreciate it in this worst sound system. Many of the special effect sounds in the songs were coming at wrong places. Raghu Appears in "mahadeswara" song and gets the maximum applause from the crowd. But i just think the song could have been shot in a better way. The camera movements are same repeatations.
There are few very good background bits. Like the "santoor" and strings music of "beladingalante" song being used when heroine goes to psycho's house second time in her vehicle in very pleasing. And the intro music bit of "mussanje rangalli" being used when love starts blossoming in heroine's heart is good. The special effect music given during the first scene of the movie (where a man is carrying another person in gunny bag) is very different. Raghu gives a "striking chord" from his elec guitar when the hero starts his bike. But due to bad speakers, this sound does not play at the actual time!
Surely it was the error of sound system or DTS mixing. Raghu's Hard work goes in drain since most of the theatres all over Karnataka have bad sound system. The song "ninna poojege bande mahadeshwara" sounds so good in my Sony Ericsson Walkman phone, but i could not get even 50% of that effect from the theatre sound system. Sorry Raghu Kannada Industry is still not to your level! I remember during the release of the film Ranga SSLC, Sandeep Chowta was so angry with the sound settings of main theatre, that he himself went to the sound settings and set it right.
Camera:
Sabha Kumar starts his camera with full sincerety in the starting of the film. I could make out how precise the camera was in the starting of the movie. There are new innovative shots, movements in the beginning. But don't know why he loses interest a"exciting" as it is seen in beginning.
But i need to say this... Sabha Kumar has given wonderful shots all over the movie. The best shots which i enjoyed were in "ee tanavu ninnade" song. Especially when the hero in this song is running, and moving on pulsar bike, there are very good movements and shots.
And i really put my claps for one particular scene, that is- The camera shows us the house of psycho in a shaky different way. And we later realise that it totally, i say totally matches with the walking style of Vijayasarathy. This was awesome. But i observed one drawback. I agree, movement camera needs to exploit the possibilities of movements. But that doesn't mean that the camera man should stick to this rule strictly and MISS the possibilites of stillness. Yes, the continuous movements will give a "spycho effect" to the movie... But the stillness could have been used to portray the "stillness of mind". Even in the songs "mussanje rangalli ninna" song, he could have used a few still shots. But i have to say, despite these short comings, even the movement scenes are composed very well and objects are covered very well. The flat chasing scene is shot well from up. The way the shadow moves away from the hero during "nanna neraLe nanna biTTu hodante" is good.
Story and Screenplay:
Story and screenplay have been done by Devadatta himself. Hence he had a higher control over the film. But he has not made use of this opportunity effectively.
Story according to me should be in such a way that it should be difficult for a common man to explain it in simple words. Ya psycho's narration is made in such a way that we cannot explain the film easily. But the story is very very simple one i feel. I felt that the story for a title like "psycho" should have been extra ordinary. The story should have been thrilling. But it is not so thrilling.
As i said, the narration is good. We realise many many things only towards the end. Screenplay is quite slow in first half. During second half, the film picks up little pace and towards the end, it comes to normal speed. The screenplay is filled with "stuff" which was not touched by Kannada directors earlier. Somewhere i felt some scenes were relevant to today's life. I know a girl who underwent a trauma due to an unknown caller for almost a month. There are stuffs which attracts us, which makes us feel that "different" thing. But even then something was missing.
Thrill aspect:
This thrill in a film will come when you see something normal, but realise that there was something so abnormal and unimaginable. It should take you by total surprise. It should startle you. The details when you get to know should make you jump off your seat. This was what i was expecting from psycho. At least there should be a thrill, an excitement. But i felt this thrill in the film only during the last 30 minutes of the film. That too when the psychologist tests the voice for matching in her computer. Nowhere else there is a thrill. I can say the thrill was totally missing.
Manipulation:
But where Devadatta really wins is that he wins in winning the minds of the common audience by making them sit silently for 2 and half hours. The common crowd which was filled in the theatre were of that category who are not ready to sit in a classroom silently for 2 minutes. These are the category of people who will start screaming and go out of the hall if the movie is boring. But the director has been successful in keeping these type of people glued to their seat and more than that, make them sit silently and watch the movie. This is what i call as psychological manipulation. There is nothing so much interesting and nothing which makes you sit silently and watch it carefully. But somehow we feel like there is "something". It is something like a not tasty stuff coated with sugar... You taste it, it tastes sweet, you start chewing with a hope that there is something better inside, but inside stuff has no taste at all. But you remember the sugar taste and feel ok. An example of this is the starting introduction scene where a man is carrying another person in a gunny bag... But in next scene, we realise that it is just a scene of a movie which the hero is watching on his tv.
Hero, Heroine:
Hero Dhanush really disappoints. How should a psycho's facial expression be? A psycho will be as normal as everyone, but at times, his facial expressions should be extra ordinary. You may say "its a natural acting". But i say no, there should be a over-acting, a dramatical performance. Only then we can say that he is doing real acting. Otherwise, it becomes a regular acting. There is very less space for Dhanush to show his skills. But he has not made complete proper use of the minimum space provided to him. In most of the scenes, his face is masked.
Coming to heroine, she has not given a good performance. The performance looks artificial. Not up to mark.
Editing:
Complete marks for B.S. Kemparaju for his editing which gives a final shape to the hard work of Sabha Kumar, Raghu and Devadatta. No such shortcomings.
Posters:
I have to make a mention about the posters. Bhushan Gheechee and others have come out with abstract and creative posters. When all films show hero, heroine's faces, this director chose not to show their faces. The "images" used to convey the hero's character are good. I can say artistic poster. The design used for writing the word "psycho" and the adoptation of crab symbol in the logo is too good. The colour combinations used are also very good. i can say the most different design in past 5-10 years.
Production:
The film is produced at a not a high budget. We can make out how the director has tried to save the money of producer. But within the given money, the director has not compromised with the technical aspects of camera, graphics etc. But better locations and better sets could have been used in songs.
Overall:
I cant say the film is too good. I cant say film is too bad. I give 6 out of 10. There is hard work from Devadatta, Raghu, Camera man. Most of the marks can be given for the hard work of these three people. And we have to surely applaud the whole team for having taken the risk of even imagining such an idea.
This is the time where we have formula movies, film titles like hani hani, manjina hani, male type of titles to bank on mungaru male success. We have been getting movies which are trying to imitate the aspects of successful films. This director had the courage to think differently. This producer had the courage to bank on newcomers. Not all can handle such subjects. It seems that Devadatta has not been able to handle this subject in an authoritative way. But i appreciate his efforts and a bit of research that he has made.
Watch this movie if you want to taste something different. Not an out of box, extra ordinary thing, but something really different for Kannada audience level and kannada industry level. The subject could have been handled better.
Theatre:
The theatre was worst. We stood in the queue as if they were giving us the tickets free of cost. The theatre staff were too bad. In Mysore, this film has been released in a worst theatre called Lakshmi. Seats are very conjusted. Sound system is terrible. Thank god, i dint go to get the "darshana" of toilet room. With such difficulty why will the audience come to watch the movie? We go to movies to relax ourselves. Forget the movie, its a torture to go to the theatre, get tickets (that too if ladies are there, we cant make them stand in this pathetic queue), and those theatre foods really bad. And the theatre is not build properly. The screen cant be seen comfortably from the balcony! Sound system is really bad. Though the film might be good, it will be really difficult to watch it in such theatres. Don't we pay money for tickets? Why can't these idiots provide proper facilities at theatres. Film Chamber, city corporations should take steps to cancel the license of such theatres. But we all know that the industry and system is filled with such corrupt people and theatres will not improve. And we will be forced to rely on the multinational multiplexes!
Additional Links:
1. Psycho film review by Akumar
2. Psycho Audio review by Govinda
3. Psycho live report by GG forum members
4. Psycho page at GG-pedia
5. Psycho discussion thread
6. Raghu Dixit at wikipedia, wordpress blog, official website