Backpackers Review: Exploring the beauty of life to love beyond unseen limits
Ace filmmaker Jayaraj's ‘Backpackers’ is a celebration of life, rather, the beauty of life. Set in the psychedelic and pristine green canvas of Kerala, the love saga follows two youngsters, Khalil and Daya, who are diagnosed with cancer and with only months to live on earth.
Ace filmmaker Jayaraj's ‘Backpackers’ is a celebration of life, rather, the beauty of life. Set in the psychedelic and pristine green canvas of Kerala, the love saga follows two youngsters, Khalil and Daya, who are diagnosed with cancer and with only months to live on earth.
Ace filmmaker Jayaraj's ‘Backpackers’ is a celebration of life, rather, the beauty of life. Set in the psychedelic and pristine green canvas of Kerala, the love saga follows two youngsters, Khalil and Daya, who are diagnosed with cancer and with only months to live on earth.
Ace filmmaker Jayaraj's ‘Backpackers’ is a celebration of life, rather, the beauty of life. Set in the psychedelic and pristine green canvas of Kerala, the love saga follows two youngsters, Khalil and Daya, who are diagnosed with cancer and with only months to live on earth.
Their pallid state brings them together and they fall in love.
Khalil, played by Kalidas Jayaram, is a band singer who, after the initial turmoil and agony, breaks free from the medical prescriptions and prophecies to jump the gun.
He gets a perfect match of a cohort in Daya. With her, he reaches the fringe of the hill, to touch the sky, to cheer, to laugh and to revel.
Khalil, the scholar gipsy, is a musically inclined and down-to-earth guy who shares the pain of a fellow being –- who becomes his companion in the journey to the world beyond the grasp of the naked eye.
He takes the initiative to chuck the barriers and get the backpacks ready to set off to explore the myriad hues of life blinded by social norms. Kalidas Jayaram has superbly balanced the character.
Though Daya relates with Khalil's efforts to languish in the unseen labyrinths of life, she has her own whims, caprices, anxieties and idiosyncrasies to struggle through.
All the same, along with Khalil she forms a fortuitous union and flies high to unknown horizons.
Karthika Nair doesn't make it look like her first character in a movie.
She keeps Daya so real that, one would for sure ask her, when you meet her on the streets, if the treatment is still going on.
Renji Panicker as Rawther, Khalil's tycoon father, emphasises the toughness through crisp histrionics and dialogues.
Sabitha Jayaraj as Laksmi, Dr. B D Gangadharan as himself, Shivajith Padmanabhan as Jolly Katturan, Jayakumar Parameshwaran Pillai as Ammachan and Keshav Jayaraj as Mathukutty add substance to the story.
Ullas Pandalam, within the short span of time, makes his mark for comic relief.
As the dream-like narrative gets on the track, subtlety overrides reasons. But it's a story that sails like a breeze, wafting with fragrance of ethereal beauty.
The melodious strain lends it a poetic whiff and may pull you down to the fathomless depths of true love. The music by Sachin Shankor Mannath is stupendous.
The visual treats of the green, the mist, mountains, waves, drenching drizzles and cascading brooks rhyming with the music of the forest might at the same time lift you to intoxicating heights.
In one of such moments, there is the formation of a heart symbol that naturally appears when two lovers kiss - a first in a movie. The camera cranked by Abhinandan Ramanujan does magic with the storyline and its backdrop.
The whole visual canvas can be enjoyed as a sensuous painting, where the air is thick with love and the shades are as fresh as life and where the drizzle showers down like poetry.
Backpackers is a different musical to enjoy a day in the lap of nature away from the bustle and sit wondering if the places were so beautiful and love so much refreshing.