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Somewhere in the middle of the movie Kumbalangi Nights (2019), Franky walks to Simi’s and Baby’s compound to pick their football and notices the parked Royal Enfield motorbike. He realizes that its owner Shammi could be home. We realize the same through his simple glance, because, in the beginning, we have seen that Shammi is a bit obsessed with his motorbike. Shockingly he finds out that somebody has destroyed their football. We see Simi’s reaction and we are sure it is Shammi, her husband, who ruined it. When Franky inspects the football, we see a deformed chewing gum sticking on it. Shammi has spit a chewing gum to ridicule and disrespect the kids.
Later in the end portion, when Simi confesses to her husband that Babymol might run away with Bobby, Shammi switches on the bed-side table lamp. One half of his face is in the shadow, to foreshow how evil he is gonna be in this sequence. By the way, if you look closely, near the table lamp, we can see an old Boomer branded chewing gum. This has two purposes. The first one is to give us an option to form a psychological bridge between the scene in the middle portion and this current scene at the end. The second one is an added layer of sarcasm foreshadowing that he is going to act like a boomer (urban catchphrase which denotes stereotypical negative attitudes of the older generation) in the upcoming scene. Latter is a layer intended for those who rewatch it, but the former is quite common in all flawless movies.
Nowadays, movie-buffs use the word “brilliance” to cite these adequate aspects of the movies and praise the crew (mainly the writer and the filmmaker) for making the movies so foolproof. Especially after the release of ‘Maheshinte Prathikaaram’ (2016), all those who watched the movie seriously started observing certain elements that make the scenes so interlinked with each other. Somebody gave it a nickname, “Pothettan’s brilliance” (Director Dileesh Pothan’s brilliance), and it became a new common terminology among Keralites.
Every movie can be divided into conventional three-act or five-act or whatever-you-feel-like-act structures, but each of them would have a Beginning, a Middle, and an end, right? It would be wrong to imagine these three segments as three blocks. Because that would make you think that the beginning segment is just connected to the middle segment at one single point sideways and the middle segment is connected to the end segment at another point sideways. The better way is to imagine the beginning, middle, and end as three ropes in distinct colours. The whole filmmaking process is making a beautiful braid out of these three distinct ropes. One such link which intertwines two or three segments of the movie is technically known as mise-en-scène.
The actual translation of the French word Mise-en-scène is placing on stage. In the film production world, it simply stands for the arrangement of everything that appears on the screen. How the actors portray each character, how they are composed in the frame, the costumes they wear, the properties they use (and the other ones we see in the frame), their make-up, how the production design team designed the set/space (where the characters live, work or where ever we see them), the lighting setup the cinematographer chooses and so on everything adds up as the mise-en-scene to support the visual narrative.
For example, in the very first scene, we see Franky and his friends playing football. On all the others’ jerseys you will see their first names and surnames, but on Franky’s jersey, you will only see his first name. Then through the first song sequence, they showcase many properties like the old sarees which are seen under the roof in Saji’s room and the abandoned sewing machine, which suggest the lack of a mother. Franky’s nightmare and how he stares at the portrait of mother Mary and infant, concretes this point. The narrative later constructs a psychological bridge between this beginning and a scene which comes in the middle portion, in which we see Sathy and infant on a boat replicating the picture on which Franky was staring earlier. Franky, who was already happy with the presence of Nylah, becomes more happier than ever. When he smiles we almost tend to mirror his emotions.
These little moments give us an emotional continuity. They make us be there in that space (and time) with those characters, to intertwine our emotions with theirs and enable us to get carried away till the end credits roll.
What are the signs of such “brilliance” which you have observed in your favorite movies?
He was institutionalised for 6yrs in a Film Institute, to forget about the 4yrs which an Engg college stole. Inveterate dreamer who dreams to utter Spielberg’s words, “I dream for a living.”
