Aadujeevitham Review: In Blessy's Cinematic Experience, Prithviraj Is An Acting Marvel (Image: twitter.com/CinemaWithAB)
The story of Aadujeevitham (The Goat Life) is well-known—heard, read, and celebrated—but what makes it still gripping and glued to the screen is the cinematic experience. Blessy and the team have put in their best efforts to make it an emotional experience. Though we have an idea of what Najeeb went through, Prithviraj mounts Najeeb”s harrowing experience in all physical vulnerability and the helplessness in all its rawness and nakedness and gives it a language of evocative performance.
Najeeb worked as a sand mining labourer in his hometown. He is a masterful swimmer; he traverses through water and delves deep insides effortlessly. His job is to collects sands, and more or less, in his work sands are mere elements. But in the arid land, surrounded by endless sand dunes, sand is not under his control. Besides, through guns, binoculars, and lashes, Najeeb”s Arab supervisor controls and subdues him. The physical torture and abuse are hard to watch passively; through performing each tormenting ordeal, Prithviraj“s acting flexes. The physically taxing transformations he undertook for the journey are clearly shown; rather than the conversations or emotions, his fragile body speaks and emotes. In one scene, he undresses himself and runs near the water tank to bathe; the he cries in pain when water falls on his body. The body, which was at once in love and attuned so much to water, wallows each time it reconnects with water.
The visuals by Sunil KS pan at the vastness of the desert land, signaling the doomed hopes for Najeeb. The vast and greener river back at home is contrasted with the endless sand dunes. The cinematographer captures the dry heat and desert wind and the physical torment it gives. Najeeb and Ibrahim Khadiri escape, amid several challenges they encounter, once they get caught in a desert dust storm. The storm, in all its velocity and power, is captured in visuals as if both are facing a massive army in an epic war. Along with the grandness, the minutiae are also cleverly captured. While Najeeb looks at his face in the shards, looking at his wife through a button hole, reflecting his face in the camel”s eyes, and capturing his trembling facial expressions, the camera has done justice to the experience. Similarly, AR Rahman”s music added extra beauty to the movie; the background score carried the emotional upheavals perfectly and, at times of hopelessness, provided a spiritual presence.
Then, where does the movie falters, it also resides in its execution. Since movie majorly aims to recount the tortuous experience and Najeeb”s suffering, it slightly stretches the movie — a bit prolonging catharsis. Similarly, in his life back at home, the romantic scenes with his wife (in which Amala Paul”s attempt to portray Sainu was also ineffective) lie as a weak link in the whole movie. Even Prithviraj”s performance was underwhelming in those scenes. Blessy”s signature attributes to his men—naive, shattered, and driven by nostalgia—are repeated in Aadujeevitham as well. Najeeb is seeing and smelling the pickle jar, as to clutch memories of home echoes similar scenes in his previous films, though eating the stale-cut mango is difficult to watch. It”s undoubtedly a Blessy movie, considering all the emotional tonality it gives, but on a vast canvas.
