The film works very well until the interval point, but the big twist is defused soon after. The second half suffers from pacing issues. But all said, this is a solid debut.
Level Cross welcomes us with these words: “Beyond time and space, deep inside our mind, there’s a place in solitude…” As we gaze at the first few frames, these words acquire a new meaning. The “place in solitude” turns out to be a barren landscape surrounding a railway track, where the only thing seems to be a house painted in red and green: these are the same colours as the flags waved at passing trains by the level-crossing guard, named Raghu and played by Asif Ali. The barren landscape is presented to us with both pain and the strange beauty of an abstract painting by cinematographer Appu Prabhakar – and it could well be a metaphor for the mind. The film is a psychological thriller, and we will slowly go on to delve into the minds of Raghu and two others: a mystery woman named Chaitali (Amala Paul), and her husband Zincho (Sharaf U Dheen). In case you want a taste of the flavour of this narrative, let me tell you that Raghu talks to a donkey that may or may not actually exist.
The initial scenes are populated by just two people, Raghu and Chaitali. The actors are great. Asif Ali is done up with prosthetic makeup that makes him almost unrecognisable from certain angles. He is a man who has let himself go – not in the sense of putting on weight, but in the way a hermit who has renounced the world lets themself go. Raghu looks half-crazed. He clearly came from someplace in civilization, and his backstory is one part of the mystery. The other mysterious backstory belongs to Chaitali, who makes an appearance in a red dress. Usually, that spells trouble. If noir films were made in colour, the femme fatale would certainly be clothed in red, the colour of danger. But Chaitali is suffering deep wounds – the bruises and scars are not just on her body but also inside her mind. Similarly, with Raghu, the external “ugliness” holds a mirror to something inside his psyche.
Asif Ali delivers a wonderfully eccentric performance, and he and Amala Paul make a terrific odd couple: the beauty and the beast, if you will. But you wonder if Chaitali can adjust to living outside civilization like Raghu. After all, she is not alone, like he is. In her flashback, she seems to have built quite a nice life with Zincho, even if the line between doctor and patient has been crossed. (You will have to watch the film to find out what this angle is.) The director Arfaz Ayub apprenticed with Jeethu Joseph, and Level Cross asks the same question as Drishyam did: “Can you trust what you see?” Or, as the posters for Drishyam said: “Visuals can be deceiving.” By the time we get to the interval point, we are left wondering if Raghu is telling the truth, and later, we are left asking if Chaitali is really who she says she is. The key line of Level Cross is uttered by Raghu: “I don’t think God cares about us humans anymore.” This is a nihilistic world, with no moral compass.
Sharaf U Dheen has the smaller role, but his performance is tight and impactful. There are mirror images all around. If Raghu’s past is recorded in newspaper clippings, Zincho’s past is recorded in a diary. Both appear to have been unlucky in love. Some audiences may think Level Cross is really a twisted love story. Watch Chaitali lower her head on Raghu’s chest and then slowly turn away, as if resisting the pull of romance. Watch Raghu gaze at Chaitali when she is bathing and then slowly turn away, as if resisting the pull of lust. The film works very well until the interval point, but the big twist is defused soon after. The second half suffers from pacing issues. We understand this is not exactly a nail-biter, but the film’s travel from the abstract to the concrete isn’t smooth. But all said, this is a solid debut. It reimagines a pulp story with ambition, and the craft is superb. I found it interesting just to keep up with what’s real and what’s not, and then found myself thinking: “Is anything real?”
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