Sufiyum Sujatayum Movie Review: It Frames Aditi Rao In Celestal Hues!

Sufiyum Sujatayum(Malayalam, Amazon Prime Video)

Starring  Jayasurya,Aditi Rao Hydari,Dev Mohan

Directed  by  Naranipuzha Shanavas

Rating: ** ½ (two and a half stars)

A potentially explosive  subject gets  massively diluted by the  director’s obsession with visual resplendence.

 Imagine if Sanjay Leela Bhansalui was all about just epic visuals,  and no soul. It would be wrong to say that  Sufiyum Sujatayum has no soul. It strives hard  to tap into a volatile and sensitive  subject  of forbidden  love between   a Sufi Mullah and a mute  Hindu danseuse with  eyes that melt each  time she looks at  her  Sufi beloved.

 Thank God for  Aditi Rao a stunning beauty and a joy forever.She  gives her character Sujatha a stunning spin. The camera loves her  beautiful face and  well…she  keeps on  her toes throughout. Literally!  A lot of  the bonding between the Muslim cleric and the Hindu romantic happens over  the Sufi dance form where the dancer balances on just one toe while twirling to the  sound of a music that echoes the universe.

 Sadly the music is at best, functional. The  thumri in Hindi is so awful my tears for the fate of the star-crossed lovers  dried up.In the  latter-half  the film  becomes a replica of Sanjay Bhansali’s  Hum…Dil De   Chuke Sanam with the  kind  compassionate husband(Jayasurya) escorting his wife  back to her home town to see her  lover one last time.

That look of  unfathomable  love  in  Aditi Rao’s eyes stays with  you. I  was completely taken up with her  obsessive  love. But the film, so  beautifully shot feels empty  at heart.  There is a  shot where the camera  follows a gravedigger on his bicycle in the pitch-dark with  just one light beam  as  a bunch of hopeful people watch  him go. The shot is composed with  such lack of subtlety  that  its  inherent  lyricism begins to seem bogus,  almost plastic.

 Very often one feels the  director straining  for visual resplendence at  the  cost of credibility. This is true  specially of  the  climax where a corpse plays  a pivotal part.

 Love is  a grave matter in Sufiyum Sujatayum. The characters die in love. Others  choose to live saddened for a lifetime.