Navarasa

Navarasa turned out to be a mixed bag given the range of (on-screen / behind-the-screen) talent on board. The Netflix anthology very clearly scores more lows than highs, with just a few segments managing to leave a solid impact. The concept behind it is actually quite unique, and its tasteful packaging (from the minds of Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan) also makes for a great reason to get hyped about it. Is it worth exploring? Let's go segment by segment:

Edhiri (Karuna - Compassion): The performances (Revathy, Vijay Sethupathi, and Prakash Raj) and the score by Govind Vasantha stand out in this one. Plotwise, it was okay.

Summer of '92 (Haasya - Laughter): Priyadarshan's writing is weak, and the only genuine laugh in this one arrives at the very end. The actor who played the younger version of Yogi Babu was impressive.

Project Agni (Adbhutha - Wonder): Karthick Naren's project is an ambitious sci-fi thriller that could easily work as a 2-hour feature film. This is probably the only segment with a definite ending.

Payasam (Bibhatsa - Disgust): While Delhi Ganesh's natural performance is a plus, the rest of the segment felt like a complete miss. It struggled to evoke the emotion it was supposed to.

Peace (Shaantha - Peace): Second time in a row (after the disappointing Jagame Thandhiram) that Karthik Subbaraj tackles the Eelam issue with uninteresting results. The presentation here (also featuring a 13-minute continuous shot) is slightly better in comparison to JT, though from a storytelling standpoint, I expected better.

Rowthiram (Raudra - Anger): Arvind Swami's directorial debut is focused around a basic revenge plot but the way he stages the whole thing (with a fantastic twist!) is awesome. Santosh Sivan's attributes a certain rawness to the visuals which works. A slightly better closing sequence would have helped.

Inmai (Bhayaanaka - Fear): This has an inventive plot but the actual scare factor is zero (more like implied horror!). Performancewise, there isn't much to bicker about. Vishal Bhardwaj's musical score is remarkable.

Thunindha Pinn (Veera - Valour): Difficult to fathom that it was written by Ratnam as the dialogues are all over the place. The segment comes off as the weakest overall, with director Sarjun KM displaying no creative control over the politics it tries to profess or even the characters.

Guitar Kambi Mele Nindru (Shringaara - Romance): GVM's concept of love hasn't aged one bit. It's still superficially at first sight, starts off as platonic before sexy revelations are made, highly expository in nature, set against the backdrop of hummable tunes (by Karthik) and mug-focused expressive visuals (by PC Sreeram). Suriya's screen presence is unquestionable but the plot and its nuances feel like déjà vu.

Overall, Navarasa is an okay effort when it should have been downright amazing!

RATED 5/10 Language: Tamil Source: Netflix

Runtime: nearly 5hrs. 9Episodes and each around 35 minutes.

Total disappointment. Only surprising episode is "Project Agni", it is surprising at the same time confusing.

Surya Episiode is overdose of GVM-ism. It was cute till the motor bike ride through Adayar, after that its repetitive and overdosed.

Rowthiram is bit OK but not justified fully.

All the other episodes are not noteworthy and not eligible for movie candidate... Easily skippable one.

Once again outdated mess.

Each and every one of nine parts lags and disappoints.

1. Ethiri - Whether the casting is strong the story and emotions falls apart. Nothing exposed.

2. Summer of 92 - This emotion is named as laughter, also they had a big opportunity to do that with casting like Yogi Babu. Still went on vein.

3. Project Agni - The only good thing happened in this Navarasa. The screenplay stands tall and casting too. Too much English sequences will confuse the audience more than the script itself.

4. Payasam - They called it embarrassing, is it ? Its fully compiled with jealousy.

5. Peace - The end is not actually replicates the title. The one good thing here is that long single shot.

6. Roudhram - They call it anger, what I witnessed is Embarrassing. But the making and casting is good here. Yet it never exposed the emotion anger.

7. Inmai - Another good thing in this navarasa is this film's casting. Both siddharth and parvathy does it well. Sidhharth really exposed the emotion fear. But the execution is not great.

8. Thunitha Pin - No word is there to explain how useless this film. Really no words.

9. Guitar Kambi Mele Ninru - As usual Gautam menon stuff not great and also it takes too much of time around 48mins, in this duration they could have explained very well but still something touch emotion missing here. Songs are good and casting is great.

Overall there is no such worst anthology like this. And please stop doing like this.

Navarasa, with 9 different segments, didn't quite stand out as an outstanding portrayal of life. I would say that roughly 3-4 segments were good and the rest were either average or totally disappointing. The last segment, featuring Surya was a sure disappointment, since it might have been the most hyped segment.

The cinematography was without a doubt good throughout the series, along with the music. Some episodes felt shallow, as if they were being forced to describe the societal fundamentals, rather than portraying it.

The best segment was the Project Agni and the most disappointing was the last segment.

My Rating : 6/10.

For all its hype and relentless online marketing, Navarasa definitely scores high for its technical brilliance and production design. In fact almost all of its nine stories, put together has a runtime of 5 hours, and has a very few parallels on the technical side that can match Navarasa head to head, in Kollywood. But the screenplay and writing has more misses than hits, only 3 stories intrigued the viewers minds, while another 3 offers nothing new and 3 more are just boring and a makes a painful watch.

Episode 1: Edhiri, Very Good but not brilliant, Actor Vijay Sethupathi's talents goes under utilised here.

Episode 2: Summer of 1992, Has a few laughs but Director Priyadarshan offers nothing new.

Episode 3: Project Agni, Brilliant concept but director Karthik Naren rushes to tell and do too many things in a very short time.

Episode 4: Payasam, An Authentic 1960s tale, aided by some brilliant production design and costumes. Prakash Raj would have been an better choice than Delhi Ganesh here.

Episode 5: Peace, I never new LTTE spoke with such funny accents and wore makeup, before operations.

Episode 6: Roudram, Brilliant tale that intrigues the viewer minds for its entire run time. Arvind swami stuns us with his caliber as a director.

Episode 7: Inmai, Parvathy shines in this rather insipid folklore, that tries hard.

Episode 8: Thunintha Pin, An outright dud from the screenplay pages of Ravaan or Ravaanan (2007), that didn't make the final cut. Really? Mani sir?

Episode 9: Guitar Kambi Mele Nindru, A Typical Gautham Menon, blah blah blah that I have been watching for 20 years now. Frankly Mr. GVM, don't you have any other ideas? A Brilliant Song by Karthik in a dud within.

Overall, Watch Navarasa for its technical brilliance and a wonderful Toorigha song, when you have absolutely nothing to do, sans higher expectations. 6 out of 10 stars for a promising anthology which goes flat eventually.