I never had great opinion about Kannada film industry. It's probably the least creative amongst the South Indian film industries. I had watched only one Kannada Movie in my entire life - Mungaaru Male - after some serious persuasion from my Kannadiga friend who claimed it as the greatest Kannada movie he had watched. I found it quite ordinary.
And out of nowhere, Lucia was creating waves in various International film festivals. Got my attention alright. So, here goes the review.
Lucia is a psychological thriller with a non-linear story line with 3 sub-plots running in parallel. The movie starts with showing Nikki, the protagonist, on life support. The police is investigating his murder and the media is debating if he is a valid case for euthanasia.
In parallel, the flash-back sub-plot starts where Nikki works as a usher at a movie theater run by Shankaranna. Suffering from insomnia, he manages to get hands on a special pill - Lucia - that allows him to construct his dreams. In his dreams (the third sub-plot), he is a movie super star with all the riches and fame one can think of. He constructs his characters from real life into his dreams including the woman he loves. The events in his life and his dreams form a logical pattern. The three plots converge to a satisfying conclusion.
Carefully constructed storyline with minute attention to details had me hooked throughout the movie. The director has smartly used visual styles (black & white and colors) to alternate between plot points. After a point you find yourselves so deeply twined with the movie that you find yourself at total ease to switch between stories, even if each one is just given a slice of only 5 seconds!
With two story-lines, each actor/actress has a double role to play. They have done their job well contrasting their own characters.
I found the movie a bit too long despite it's not-so-long 137 minute run-time. The songs could have been scrapped as they didn't add any value to the movie. In fact the length of the movie is the only drawback I can think of.
Do watch it. It's an excellent effort that thoroughly deserves your attention.
This is new age cinema. I'm not surprised to see any producer backing up this effort initially. Thankfully, it was crowd-funded and I'm glad that it succeeded financially as well.
P.S: I rented this movie online at Home Talkies, which is an initiative by the director Pawan Kumar. It costs Rs.150 for Indians.
