Team FC
Kaala is an artificial calamity. I say “artificial” because the eight-episode series is an accurate example of how technology – or the idea of technology – turns film-making into a hollow footnote.
Scenes are in disservice of storytelling. Most characters don’t speak, they fill the air with empty sounds that are not music. This isn’t the first time I’m going with style-over-substance criticism for a Bejoy Nambiar-directed title.
Why would the visual aesthetic look like a continuous computer glitch? Why would a helmet-camera in a bikechase be trained inward, highlighting the pockmarked cheeks of the biker rather than the road he sees?
When we first hear of Naman Arya in a CBI meeting, an actual photoshoot of this man disrupts the scene; it’s like the script takes the term ‘corruption model’ all too literally.
If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this post-truth age, it’s that trolling is a form of flattery. Or not. So when I say that Kaala is one of the most frustrating OTT misfires in recent memory, it’s the thought that counts.