KERALA – Land of Enthralling visuals... captivating locales... land of culture, religion, drama and beauty, a Land perfect for the ultimate vacation of the mind and the body.
Thanks to my colleague, Neethu, I had a chance to watch a Promotion Video on Kerala, issued by the Kerala Tourism Industry called Your Moment is waiting. This movie by Kerala Tourism is basically to attract the International audience to Kerala and in turn exponentially increase the growth in Tourism sector.
Well, I saw the video… Uhmmm… In a word, it’s Different!
Firstly, as an expat Keralite, I cannot identify myself with the Video. The Video should have ideally triggered a tug to my heart strings, instilled feeling of shame and guilt at having seen so less of my homeland. But NO… the only thing it succeeds in doing was getting me scared, confused and disappointed.
It’s a particularly preposterous take on Kerala, much like the recent blunder, Raavan. If they wanted to 'capture the soul of Kerala'; I think that’s it what was the initial intention was, it definitely didn’t work out. Not for me at least. In my perception, it was a twisted, violated, beaten and traumatized version of the otherwise calm and composed Kerala’s scenic beauty.
As we have seen in the movies, Our film makers make it a point to spoon feed us… they are just to terrified to let go, making films scrupulously, with plots, subplots, twists and packing it with mindless nonsense. The concept of leaving many things unsaid is completely absent.
Most importantly the images are not powerful enough; the Colorist of the Video totally ruined the natural colors, giving everything a largely Grey overtone. The only captivating scene is none other than the last shot where in the Girl interacts with the Elephant. That I believe was an interesting and arresting shot. It was a highly abstract and inconcrete interpretation of Kerala. It didn’t touch upon the exotic aesthetic beauty or the Supernatural spiritualism that seems to be the maker’s prime motive.
The blatant Concentration on the Model, took away most of the charm of the video in itself. Having an asymmetrical face, she lacks both the European Energy and the Asian allure. She almost was like alien being amid the wild African Forests.
The poor Kathakali artist, Kalamandalam Gopi has been reduced to a mere caricature, and forget tourist, even residents who see someone like this in the early fifties making such expressions would doubt the man’s mental stability. How inappropriate!
The music used for the video is too tribal and raw to have any correlation to the Subject of the Video. The Most important and crucial part of Kerala, its dance forms, its temples, its people, its tranquility, its resourcefulness, were all pushed to the back, with the Model trust forward as a Focus of Attraction.
Quite Honestly... It was a beautiful video but is disappointing in terms of Promotional, inspirational video... Not really an encouraging promotion to showcase Kerala to the world! And Oh… It also forgot to include the most important statutory warning to alert the prospective visitors about the famous Kerala Bandhs!
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