Aviyal HD Released

 

Watching characters evolve through the challenges of life to become what they are can be truly inspiring. In the Joju George – Anaswara Rajan starrer Aviyal, we watch the life story of a young Krishnan transforming into a sensible ‘grown-up,’ over a handful of episodes from different stages in his life.

When his daughter calls him up to share two ‘secrets’ of her life, musician Krishnan (Joju George) is amused, but he decides to give her company and open up about his own life, to teach her a thing or two. Aviyal shows how the duo’s trip back home also turns into a travelogue of his life.

The film by Philips and The Monkey Pen fame Shanil Muhammad, was shot over a few years, to showcase the metamorphosis of the young, school boy Krishnan to the man he eventually becomes. The team deserves appreciation for trying out this rarely attempted, probably patience-testing method of filmmaking to showcase such a narration, which makes the ordinary life look a little more than that, due to the sheer passage of time captured in a nutshell. Actor Sirajuddin, who plays a young Krishnan, gives a consistently dedicated performance in this time-lapse study of a boy’s life and there are quite a few moments in which one can identify with his heartbreaks, rebellion, confusion and other complicated emotions. Same goes for most of the other actors too who have done their parts well.

While the episodes featuring his school days and initial days of parenthood are interesting, the presentation of the other two don’t win one’s attention much, as does the overall tying together of his life story over the journeys undertaken by the lead characters. And at times, you can’t help thinking that the story in itself is hardly unique, with its many predictable events and narrative dead-ends, even when you don’t forget the pains probably taken to shoot such a film. There are no particularly gripping events either, except, probably, for the realness of the regular events.