Netflix anthology ‘Navarasa’: A tale of 9 emotions

The most difficult element of ‘Navarasa’, a nine-film, five-hour anthology that features some of Tamil cinema’s biggest actors, isn’t its length. It’s the haphazard and arbitrary way in which Indian dramaturgy’s nine emotions have been conveyed to the cinema. But, with a couple of exceptions, Netflix’s ‘Navarasa’ does a good job of presenting a diverse spectrum of cinematic experiences.

‘Navarasa’ was produced and presented by Mani Ratnam and Jayendra Panchapakesan.

“Two of the entries, ‘Project Agni’ and ‘Roudhram’, strike a chord, one for its audacious flights of fancy, the other for its sharp delineation of place, time and people. Two others, ‘Edhiri’ and ‘Inmay’, grab attention, thanks both to the performances of the lead actors (Revathy and Vijay Sethupathi in the former, Parvathy Thiruvoth and Siddharth in the latter) and the emotional layering they impart to the stories,” NDTV wrote.

The opening film, ‘Edhiri’ (Enemy), directed by Bejoy Nambiar, is about ‘karuna’ (compassion). It raises hopes with a horizontally split screen opening, revealing the two principal characters. But eventually, it isn’t so much about compassion as about anger and violence.

Gautham Vasudev Menon’s homage to love, ‘Guitar Kambi Mele Nindru’ (Tugging at My Guitar Strings): Sringara/Love, is the anthology’s final film. A 32-year-old Chennai singer, lives with his mother Tulasi and aspires to be a global music composer and performer in London.

The biggest letdown in ‘Navarasa’ is Priyadarshan’s ‘Summer Of `92: Hasya/Laughter’. A successful Tamil cinema comedian visits his school to inaugurate its centenary celebrations and proceeds to reveal how much trouble he got into with his teachers.

‘Navarasa’ is a tangled mess: two sections are excellent, two others are fair, and the rest are mediocre.