Nitham Oru Vaanam: Life is Sky

Star Cast: Ashok Selvan, Ritu Varma, Aparna Balamurali, Shivathmika Rajasekhar, Sshivada, Jiiva, and Eesha Rebba Nitham Oru Vaanam Review
Music Composed by Gopi Sundar
Cinematography by Vidhu Ayyanna
Directed by Ra. Karthik

Life has many things to offer. Many crazy depths and highs. Full of colors or plain black and white. It all depends on our perspective. Sky, the way we see it, is full of colors and our perspective defines the color, we see. But only a Rainbow can give you an idea about the common perspective – an event that is rare yet neutralizer. Your vision gets a clarity that Sky can never be just plain white or pale blue. And when you travel to the seashore or mountains you get to witness new horizons too. Well, when you go nowhere, you just watch the same colors and get used to them, only a rarity or travel can give you a new perspective and show you new colors. Nitham Oru Vaanam / Aakasam adds to this a perspective of Life being a Sky and not Dead Space.

Space holds a lot of secrets yet offers nothingness for far distances. Travel becomes time-consuming and you need special vehicles or great commitment to reach destinations. If you make life space or My Space, then you just end up in a comfort zone that never lets you look at new colors or new horizons. Even if you try, you need special motivation that ignites the spark. When you treat it as a Sky, it offers you a stunning view of Aurora, Stars, Sunsets, Sun Rises, horizons, Cloudy, Overcast, Sunny, Shady, Blue, Red, and whatever you can wish for. Each one has their own definition. Ashok Selvan and Raa Karthik came together to choose three colors and offered a rainbow to pick from each story they told. They chose – Red, Blue, and Orange to define different forms of emotional love stories. Nailed Red and Blue to get us to debate about the Rainbow that they had to offer from the perspective of being Orange. Before elaborating on the theory, need to appreciate Ashok Selvan for deciding to give himself a chance to explore the actor in him and then work hard to bring that variation out for each Character. Need to appreciate Sshivada for owning the strong lady part who starts out as an introvert and submissive, dependent. As a timid yet strong person – Shivatmika delivered a believable performance but Sshivada needed to deliver on that base. She did. Aparna Balamurali got an overwritten role and she did her best but comedy on paper did not work on screen. Ritu Varma made the character that Swathi Reddy pulled off very well in North 24 Kattam, well enough but underwritten for the story’s sake. Nitham Oru Vaanam Review 

Now, let’s get into the theory part – as the movie is made or unmade in the writing that is based on the theory.

Ra Karthik decided to use those colors as tones for his story-telling on screen. He used Reds for Veera – Meenakshi and Orange for Prabha – Mathi and Blues for Arjun – Subha. Each story has Shiva – Parvathi connection too. Veera – Meenakshi story has Shiva – Sathi connection and a reversal of Shiva being burnt in this one. Prabha – Mathi has Shiva – Parvathi connection to it. Girija becomes Parvathi with her penance and then wins the respect of Shiva, and eventually his love too. But here, Prabha decides to win Mathi’s love and every day does penance to keep her alive, happy, and with him. Now, the main story of Arjun – Subha, even though the names sound like Arjun and Subhadra, could be an inspiration but the story gives the flavor of Shiva – Sakthi. Shiva after losing Sathi, decides to roam around in search of her – lost and regretful, he finds Sakthi and she offers to come back to him in Parvathi form looking at how much he loved and what kind of lessons, he learned. She took a promise from him to carry on with his duties until she finds the perfect way to reach him as his love. When you watch the film, I think you can find the connections more prominently than just reading here. But if you want to watch it after reading this, keep those connections in mind.

Karthik doesn’t ask us to suspend our disbelief and move along with him. He throws logic at why Ashok Selvan had to do the other two characters and keeps it simple by saying that we all imagine ourselves in others’ stories. Strong logic and even stronger execution. When we see real people, the difference and excitement last for the viewers like us and for the characters on screen too. But then his writing keeps depending on cliches from time to time. Mani Ratnam kind of a filmmaker challenges himself to come up with a way to make his lead characters say love you without actually saying, “I Love You”. Propose without actually making it obvious. Prabha- Mathi story feels like an add-on after Veera – Meenakshi kind of a real-life story. Prabha and Mathi seem outlandish until their reality strikes. Yes, Arjun needed that reality check to understand how expectations differ from reality and how overthinking can spoil the present but a little more powerful, crisp version would have helped it. Mathi needed to be like Geethanjali‘s lead but ends up like Kadal – Sthotram.

Gopi Sundar‘s music in this film adds to the world created by Ra Karthik and the background score needs to be appreciated. Each frame constructed by the cinematographer (by Vidhu Ayyanna) has a meaning attached to it and while watching it leaves a thought with us. Like Reds and Browns taking over the background when Veera and Meenakshi first meet. Like how a close-up of eye strokes has more emotion than anything else in one frame. And when Arjun finally decides to travel, the greens mixed with blue take over the screen. Even Shuba’s scenes have more blue backgrounds than others. Performances have complimented the hard work of all the technicians.

Love doesn’t always have to be specific for any two people and it doesn’t have to be obvious that someone will fall in love with the other. Love happens in random ways part of writing has been growing absent with everyone making it obvious that these two will end up as lovers. While everyone knows that a hero and heroine will get attracted but writing cannot make it too obvious. Ra Karthik showed potential throughout in building characters and creating situations but lost grip in mid-portions when he had to deal with Mathi portions. Still, he used the canvas presented by the story to deliver lasting strokes of colors as we see on a Rainbow. Life can never be as simple as we wish it to be and moving on is a tough nut to crack but we have to. if we do, we have a flight to catch the aakasam.

Theatrical Trailer: Nitham Oru Vaanam Review