Boyz in Blue: My quick take on Netflix’s “Cobalt Blue”
I'm not sure why I couldn't write "my take" right after watching this movie (which was nearly a fortnight ago). Is it because the subject is still considered taboo in our society? Is it because of a topic with which I disagree? Was it because I was in a blue mood (sad and aloof) after watching the movie? But why am I writing my delayed take right now?
The reason is simple: after watching this film, which is very artistically shot, the aesthetics of each frame is a tribute to Raja Ravi Varma, and his backyard (Kerala), I just couldn't digest the theme and plot of the film, which a brother and sister love the same Boy who happens to be their paying guest.
Coming to the positives of the movie, the impressive setting of the story in Cochin of the 1990s is amazing, apt locations of a typical Malabar house/s with rich wooden interior, the backwater ponds filled with lotus, vivid colors used in the backdrop, overall texture and tone of each frame made me feel as if I am watching a beautiful painting. First time I loved a non-Malayali movie shot so beautifully (maybe it is the sheer brilliance of God’s own country). My appreciation just stops here.
The plot hovers around a confused and unsure boy (played by Neelay Mehendale) who is aspiring to be an author and his free-spirited younger sister (played by Anjali Shivaraman) who is more of a tomboy, and their lives & destiny change when Prateek Babbar enters their lives as a paying guest. The pace of the movie is as slow as a snail which you will find in the backyards of any Kerala house, the vividness of various hues of colors used in each frame fails to pep up the story and propel it. You may get reminded of the ‘art film’ era of the ’90s and the works of Benegals, karnaads & Nihalanis.
On a lighter note, I found Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “Sawariya” more blueish than this Cobalt blue, (I had found Sawariya very a poetic work of Bhansali but unfortunately it is known more for Ranveer’s dropping of towel scene).
If you have liked movies like “Aligarh” then you may watch cobalt blue, or else you watch Boyz in blues, yellows, and reds in action in lackluster IPL going on now.
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