Regional cinema in India witnesses a major, eye opener breakthrough with LUCIA, which though has its own set of drawbacks, but is still a very brave, inventive and path breaking attempt by the writer director Pawan Kumar, without any second thoughts. As far as the commercials of film business are concerned, LUCIA literally makes fun of those 10-20 crores projects by displaying an outstanding result on the screen, shot with its limited technical resources within the budget of mere 50-70 lakhs and that too crowd-funded by about 100 investors from the director’s own social network.
The end result, doesn’t let you even imagine of such a modest budget, featuring a fine cinematography, intelligent editing and great background score, perfectly matching the basic requirements of the film’s unusual theme. Narrated in a non-linear pattern, it revolves around the distinctive lives of two contrasting characters, operating under the influence of a dream pill called LUCIA. And the secret behind their real identities is later revealed in the climax following a complex build up (using different colour tones). So far so good, but unfortunately LUCIA does have some drawbacks which actually restrict it from becoming a true masterpiece as desired.
Beginning on an appreciable off-beat note saying, “Are you a creature of Illusion? Or Illusion is your creation”, it starts incorporating too many routine sub-plots hampering its main focus. The suspense factor about the pill gets killed pretty fast and the catchy yet unwanted dance-song insertions further confuse its basic premise of an “out of the routine project” unexpectedly. The over length of the film also adds to its shortcomings and the performances range between great, good and average. Sathish as Nikki plays his part convincingly and so does Achuth as Shankrana supporting him superbly. But Shruthi as the leading lady is just ok and the same can be said by the supporting cast including the strange detective.
Having said that, the one winning stroke in its execution remains that despite all these overstuffed tracks the film never drags and keeps moving at a constant pace with compelling references of lucid dreams and hallucination till the revealing climax. Hence keeping in mind the limited setup, in which the film was surprisingly made, LUCIA does give rise to a new debate in the Indian Film Industry and surely deserves to be noticed, seen and studied for its strong worth praising merits already mentioned before.
Rating : 3 / 5
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LUCIA (Kannada) Review by Bobby Sing, Lucia review by Bobby Sing, Movie Review LUCIA, A major breakthrough in Indian independent film-making, TTP (To The Point) Review By Bobby Sing at bobbytalkscinema.com
