KALA

Rating: 3/5

Hridayam is a 2022 Malayalam film directed by Vineeth Sreenivasan. Hridayam is the Malayalam word for heart.

This film tells the story of the love-life of a young Malalyalee man named Arun (Pranav Mohanlal). Arun falls in love with a girl named Darshana during his early period of Engineering studies in Chennai. His affair with Darshana crashes unexpectedly. Later he tries to fall in love with another girl in order to take revenge to Darshana. Since his heart got stuck with Darshana, he is not able to fall in love with the girl. During the second half of the film, Arun becomes a professional wedding photographer in order to make a living. He meets another girl during one of his wedding photography sessions. He calls it “love at first sight.” Eventually he marries her and lives a happy family life.

I will now focus on some of the key issues discussed by this film.A philosopher named Blaise Pascal said, “Heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.” We always tend to love someone within the limits of reason. Sometimes we make a rational decision to stop loving someone but our heart does not listen to us. This film discusses the mysterious paths of love which cannot be understood in terms of reasoning. Heart has its reason that reason cannot understand. Both Arun and Darshana say that love is something that always goes beyond. Arun and Darshana cannot stop loving each other even though they had already decided not to do so.

Hridayam is a very touching love film in Malayalam after the superhit “Premam” of Nivin Pauly. Hridayam explores the concept of love. I am sure that this film will touch every heart that fell in love at least once in life. Love is an experience that we cannot capture in its entirety. Hence, we have numerous films and works of art on love. Still love remains unexhausted. That is why we always want to fall in love with someone. Being with our beloved one, gives meaning to our existence. In love, our self goes beyond itself and becomes a greater self by embracing the other. We feel broken once the love is broken.Arun always asks his lover to open her hair. Free flowing hair of his beloved is the window through which he tries to enter the heart of the girl. There are multiple occasions in this film where Arun asks girls to open their hair.Is it necessary to marry the one whom we love? This film romanticizes the idea that love is for the sake of marriage. It is a reflection of the Malayalee way of love. It is also assumed that we can stay in love with the same person for a whole life-time. Love can fade away in the course of time. Love need not be for the sake of marriage. We are afraid of the different seasons and shades of love and hence we try to institutionalize love to make it permanent.One major failure of this film is the attempt made by the director to appeal to the emotions of the audience by invoking frequent instances of the expression of love, care and companionship. Some of such instances appear to be quite artificial.This film is indeed a turning point in the career of Pranav Mohanlal. He was not able to make any impact in film industry during his earlier projects. I think that Pranav emerged as a mature actor through Hridayam. Hridayam is indeed a beautiful love film like “Premam” of Nivin Pauly.

By

Vijay Das