Lucia(2013) / Enakul Oruvan(2015)

Lucia is a Kannada Psychological Thriller  a first of its kind in the  Kannada industry directed by Pawan kumar. The film was remade into the Tamil film Enakul Oruvan after a year. Though having minor difference in the story and the narration both films have a similar story line. Unique story line and narration method sets these films apart from all the commercial films in the industry.




Cast (Lucia) : Sathish Ninasan, Sruthi Hariharan & Achyuth Kumar
Cast(Enakul Oruvan) : Siddarth, Deepa Sannidhi, Aadukalam Naren & John Vijay

Plot and Summary:

The film has a nonlinear narration having two stories, one in the real world and one in the dream world. Both are played back to back one in color and one in black and white. the lead is in a very critical stage in a hospital and the narration starts.



Nikki( played by Sathish)/ Vicky (Played by Siddarth) is a torch shiner in a old theatre, he suffers from sleeplessness and almost always awake. he lives with his friends who keep odd jobs, One night wandering sleeplessly he meets a random guy who sells him a drug which can make him sleep - LUCIA. Not only does it give him sleep but it also makes him dream of a life which he wishes for and the same dream continues every times he takes LUCIA. The second plot of the film begins with the lead being Vignesh/Nikhil and the two stories develops as the film progresses.\

The story of the torch shiner is  comic and fun filled, the character as such is not very serious, a common man perhaps, Nikki/Vicky meets his lady love- Shwetha(played by Sruthi)/ Divya(Played by Deepa), a waitress in a pizza store, she is very beautiful, somewhat really out of proportion for the story line, Though she initially refuses his proposal,  he wins her heart at the end. His character though begins with a comic note, he is faced with many hardships in his life, his only mentor and guardian - Shankaranna(played by Achyuth Kumar) / Durai(played by Aadukalam naren) dies in the hands of a moneylender. After which he runs his theater on his own, makes the theater famous, learns English to impress his lady and finally succeeds in life.



Nikhik/ Vignesh is movie star, one who has achieved stardom, His character is one in which every thing in life comes off easy. Even love comes easily to Nikhil, he meets his lady love in an ad and makes her a big star by making a film with her. Things become rough between  the leads after some time when she does a film without his consent, The dream finally becomes a nightmare when all things go wrong for Nikhil. Shankarana/Durai is the personal assistant for Vignesh/Nikhil , their relationship is more of a father/ son. The story which happens in the dream tends to be more real, a deception we fail to notice until the end.



There is one more story which adds to the pace of the film, the police trying to find out the suspect of the murder attempt, At the end of the investigation the three plots beautifully get connected at the end. The dream falls apart when Nikhil/Vigneh's life falls apart when both his girlfriend and his companion leaves him and there comes a point where the question of which is the reality and the actual truth.



After finding the truths of the Lucia drug, the police find the truth and also through the media interview which Nikhil/Vignesh give breaks all mystery. The interview is one of the improtant scenes of the film where Nikhil tells his wish " to be ordinary for a single day, to be a torch shiner in a movie theatre, to find a beautiful girl , to fall in love with her" , " there is a lot of fight in this common man's life but that's what is life isn't it?"

The film ends with Nikhil's life support getting removed one by one and his dream collapses and he is finally ends up on the shores of reality ( iterally at the shores- Inspired from INCEPTION i suppose!). He wakes up from the coma. Finally Swetha drives to Nikhil who owns a theater along with Shankarna. they eat pizza at the end!

Both film the background score is done by Santhosh Narayanan, Its is really impressive job  and it suits the film's genre.

Verdict:

Though the film begins with three unrelated stories and each having very little or no connection between them, the director connects them brilliantly at the end without loosing pace till the end of the film. I felt Lucia to be more fast and more suspenseful than Enakul oruvan. What enakul oruvan lacked in pace and suspensd was compensated in visuals, dialogue and subtleness.

Moreover I found Lucia's lead sathish more convincing, I could believe that he is a torch shiner and a movie star at the same time ( I am not blaming the Kannada stars) but his look was really convincing, while in Tamil siddarth had to do a complete make over to be a torch shiner. At the end , the leads pay tribute to all the artists in the cine field which was really a good gesture
"Your small life is some one else's big dream"

Lucia was produced by lots of small production houses may be even thousands. It was released in London film festival and subsequently I'm India. A film which was completely different and very experental, it got good critical reception all over India and the world. Many who viewed it could not get the ending of the film since the mystery is not broken as explicitly in Enakul Oruvan. It will be remembered for a long time in the Kannada industry.


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