Movie Review of an award winning Tamil short film "Aasai" (Hope)

         On 6^th September we have celebrated Teacher’s day in our Department of English. Almost twenty students have participated and our juniors have also taken lecture in our class. +Megha Trivedi is studying in semester 1 and she has taken “Reading of a short film – ‘Aasai’ as her topic of teaching.

Here are the photographs of Teacher’s day – Click Here

      

         In this blog I have added some points of her teaching and included my observation.

Director - Sam

Editor – Shivamathi

Cinematography – Manush.P.S.Nandan

        

Here is the film: 

           This is an award winning short film. Selvam, a little boy who works in a grocery shop is fond of Telephones. His aspiration was to speak in Telephone to his mother who is at Tirunelveli (district in Tamilnadu) that too from his hard earned money. Near b y STD booth lady helps him to find out how much money is needed for Selvam to speak to his mother for five minutes. Selvam practices what all he wishes to speak to his mother within that five minutes by speaking with him. (Source – Youtube)

         

          In the very first scene we could see that there is a box of glossary items and the little boy Selvam is delivering that to the customer, and in the very next scene the boy is driving his cycle near the play ground, one can observe that the little boy should also be there in playground but he was working. The concept of child labour is there. The boy is alone in a city and mother is far away in another district, her mother has left her little child for working; poverty is reflected here.

        

         The boy is enough educated to read and write and he is very fond of telephones. He wanted to talk with his mother and was collecting the money for that by tip he gets from customer and his master. He has collected enough money but unfortunately his money was wasted and he could not talk with his mother and again he starts collecting money.

Symbolism:

1)      Telephone is a major symbol in this film, it reflects the effect upon the little child’s mind and it is also helpful in communication. Another employ is misusing the telephone which suggests that it is up to us that how we use technology.

2)    Clock is another symbol which shows the importance of time.

3)    Box of glossary items shows that Selvam has not those things which he is delivering to customers daily, but he is fond of telephones.

4)    Rajanikanth’s photograph also symbolizes Tamilnadu, and use of photoshop.

        In this film the director has used Humour to show the tragic situation of child labourer Selvam. It reminds us the technique of Charles Dickens in most of his novels, especially in “Oliver Twist”. The happy ending is also there in the film that the boy is still in hope to talk with his mother that he doesn’t lose his hope and starts collecting money again.