Nasir Review

Bharath Vijayakumar

The film opens and closes with two long shots. Both involves the titular character Nasir sleeping. The context is of course different in each case and had you watched the film you would know that while the calmness is intact in both the shots, the final one does hit you like a ton of bricks. Nasir is one of those characters that is bound to stay in your mind for a long long time and the fascinating aspect is that Nasir is possibly the most unfussy lead character that you might have come across in a feature film. He maybe battling out a lot of things in life which include making ends meet, caring for a specially abled son and an ailing mother. But the focus of the film isn't any of these but rather the very simple routine of this character who goes about his work in an unperturbed manner. One particular sequence involves Nasir going to deliver blazers to few students in a hostel. He is in need of money at this point. This is how this entire stretch works. He knocks a door and is almost shooed away. He then looks for the next guy and then the next but throughout this scene that lasts for sometime there is not an iota of annoyance on display on his face. We don't get to know if Nasir was a different person growing up before he settled into this persona but from what we see on screen we know that he is this guy who is hardly going to raise his voice and wouldn't even think about hurting someone.

The film in a nutshell is about how the lives of many who have nothing to do with any sort of hatred and do not have any agenda being thrown haywire for no fault of theirs. The film doesn't point fingers nor does it play any sort of blame game. Even that climax that leaves you haunted doesn't show the face of anyone. Mob mentality never has a face!

To be honest, I did start getting a little restless with the the ordinariness of the characters and was hoping for a little drama or excitement but the climax hits you the way it does precisely because of the ordinariness of the preceding 80 minutes! Right through the film as Nasir keeps walking or riding through the city of Coimbatore, we keep hearing discourses blaring from loudspeakers (relegated to the background) that might probably hurt him. He seems oblivious to it. Again this could be his character trait or maybe he has gotten so used to it that he has learnt to live with it. Nasir is a character who relishes solitude and it might be difficult to know what is going on inside his head. Arun Karthick sensing this has Nasir having an imaginary conversation with his wife ( almost like a love letter) who has gone out of town for a wedding. Again the content of these conversations are nothing out of the ordinary but we get more intimate with him and get to know the kind of mind space he is in. He maybe a loner but that doesn't mean he isn't playful or doesn't enjoy life. You don't need further proof than him pinching the nose of a mannequin that is on display in the shop he works at.

Bottomline:

A terrific arthouse film that would keep lingering in you for quite a while. Some say that the best art is political and Nasir is precisely that!

Rating: 4/5

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