Revisiting a film like Premam after a decade is somehow fitting in the most cinematic way. One of the many aspects about this unruly, poignant coming-of-age drama directed by Alphonse Puthren that sticks is the way in which it asks the viewer to stay beside its protagonist George David. Played strikingly by Nivin Pauly, Premam sees George through three stages as he falls in love: childhood, teenage and then adulthood. He makes mistakes, stumbles and deals with heartbreak. Somewhere along the way, Premam insists that it all matters. (Also read: 10 years of Piku: Shoojit Sircar’s slice-of-life film refuses to age)
George David’s journey
When I had watched Premam for the first time, I was somewhat in the same phase as George David in his college. In Premam, this chapter comes midway, when George David first meets Malar- the beautiful guest lecturer in his college played by Sai Pallavi. He is besotted by her from the first moment, and Malar responds to his awkward and flirtatious advances with glee. Puthren films this chapter in glorious, novelistic detail; traversing the classrooms and canteens, carefully creating a rich interiority in the space of the college. Nivin and Sai conjure up an effortless chemistry on-screen, so beautifully registered when the song Malare erupts. It is the film’s most thrillingly realized moment, like a dreamscape of sorts for George David when he cannot see, feel or proceed anything else but this all encompassing love for Malar.
George David wakes up from this dream soon enough, with the cruel reminder that simply loving is not enough. At the first watch, I was truly dumbstruck by this narrative decision, as Malar fails to recognise George after losing her memory in an accident that occurs entirely off-screen. The unfairness of it all felt too harsh, too unforgivable. Upon a revisit, I could not shake off the notion of how little we know of Malar from the first place itself. Premam is a film that is in no hurry to anywhere real soon, but then suddenly realizes that it is time to move on. The scapegoat in this narrative template is the Malar episode, where George’s vulnerability is of greater urgence than grounding Malar’s subjectivity.
Who exactly is Malar?
Watching Premam after all this years is an act of recognition that the film operates strictly from a limited perspective. Stretches of the film is devoted to George David’s awfully careless and languorous attitude towards the present. Malar exists in Premam only till the extent to which George David can dream and care about- there is no outer life beyond his point of view. We do not know where she comes from, what makes her fall in love with a student, and whether she ever realises that this was a mistake after all. Why do we know so little about Malar even after the film spends so much time with her character? Sai Pallavi carries this effortless magnetism and screen presence that makes Malar reliable even at her worst impulses, but there is no denying that hers was the most underwritten part in the film.
The camera is so obsessed with George David growing up that it fails to recognize the other grown up people in his surroundings also exist. Not just Malar, we see very little of Mary and Celine too. Celine’s arc, which arrives with a note of predestined urgency later, feels calculated even more now after a revisit. The persistent tone of Premam might have felt cutesy and charming at first, but ten years later, it reinforces a sort of male fantasy that love is the great equalizer after all.
Premam’s focus rests in underlining what George David cares about, who he talks to, what he feels. Yes, that is important in the context of the film in all fairness, but this subjectivity never really reaches a clarity of purpose. We know very little of how George David ended up running that café with his childhood friend Jojo. Whether he had any setbacks after college, what life taught him in all these years.
There is a hidden meta-ness in this revisit of a film I liked so much, especially for a character like George David for whom I once felt such a deep allegiance. His vulnerability was extraordinary to witness. But after 10 years, this viewer has grown up to see so little of the man George David grew up to be, that the initial imprint wears off. Premam is still quite moving in its sensitivity, and Nivin Pauly is undeniably great in it. However, I could not shake off the feeling that this is a film that pursues the idea of finding purpose for its protagonist and fails to do the same for itself. Ten years later, George David certainly has wandered off somewhere and is still looking for love, isn’t he?
Premam is available to watch on JioHotstar.