"Neel Akasham Pacha Kadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" is so sweet in parts that I just feel like giving it 10 stars straightaway. Also, there is this cute pair of Dulquer Salmaan and Surja Bala Hijam; and, more than that, the dazzling chemistry between Dulquer Salmaan and Sunny Wayn. Also, there are some memorable characters and sequences. Yet, the film falls short for some reasons.
First, the politics. This is not a political film. It is good as a love story, and even better as a road/biker film. I do not understand why the suicide of a Dalit student, the SFI, the lead character Kasi's (Dulquer Salmaan) father being a prominent person, etc. were put in the film? Couldn't Kasi and Assi (Surja Bala Hijam) have met at a college festival, or in their college corridor, or in the library, or in a coffee shop, instead of at a students' protest march? The religious angle, Kasi's Muslim family not accepting a Christian Assi is understood. The Naxalite zone somewhere in Telangana (Andhra Pradesh, at the time when this film was released) is understood. A village somewhere in northern Odisha or southern West Bengal that has been taken over by mining companies, that is understood. The communal riot in Assam is understood. Even that part where a man convicted of killing one of Kasi and Assi's friends tries to bump off Suni in northern West Bengal is understood. But why politics for no reason during Kasi and Assi's college days? If this film has been inspired by "Diarios di Motocicleta", then I am sorry, this inspiration doesn't work at all even if one were to argue that politics has become a part of campus life nowadays. For a film like "Diarios di Motocicleta", one needed a political theme, and "Neel Akasham Pacha Kadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" is, I repeat, a love story, not a political story. Assi rides from Kerala to Nagaland for love, not for politics. And even if Kasi took this road trip to discover himself, like Che Guevara did in "Diarios di Motocicleta", then what happened to that self-discovery and, ultimately, his politics - he has a memorable dialogue in the college politics sequence: "I fought for a student's right to live" - once his road trip was over? He just fetched Assi from her home in Nagaland and fled, apparently, to a city like Bangalore or somewhere where a Malayali Muslim boy marrying a half-Marathi-half-Naga Christian girl wouldn't raise eyebrows. Why couldn't the makers of this film keep it simple and only deal with Kasi's trip to meet Assi and the difficulties Kasi and Suni faced on their journey instead of raising major issues, like, a Dalit student committing suicide, education loans, campus politics, politicisation of the death of a Dalit student, etc., they had no intention to resolve?
Second, some parts of the film seem quite stilted. And I am very sad to observe that these parts feature the lead pair: Dulquer Salmaan and Surja Bala Hijam. They are just so cute I just kept staring at them as I saw them on the screen. In fact, Dulquer Salmaan is the reason why I purchased the DVD of "Neel Akasham Pacha Kadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" in the first place! But though Dulquer and Surja Bala look fantastic together, most scenes featuring them, especially the college parts, look too lame to be believable. Yes, some parts of theirs are quite memorable, like, Dulquer grabbing Surja Bala's hand in the college corridor and pulling her in his direction while she was walking the other way. But it is a sad fact I have to painfully accept: The chemistry between Dulquer and Surja Bala is just flat. On the other hand, Dulquer's chemistry with the two other girls, Paloma Monappa (playing Ishita) and Avantika Mohan (playing Fathima), is just fabulous.
Ultimately, it comes to the hero's sidekick, Suni (played by Sunny Wayn), to rescue the film. And what a rescue it is! Suni is the first character seen on the screen, and he is a scene-stealer! In fact, Suni's "love or lust" dialogue and his sequences with Gauri (played by Ena Saha) and Paru (Abhija Sivakala) are more interesting than the sequences between Dulquer and Surja Bala. Sunny Wayn is the life of this film➖the blue sky, the green sea, and the red earth of "Neel Akasham Pacha Kadal Chuvanna Bhoomi".
Sunny Wayn, and some scenes that stayed on in my mind even after the film was long over. Like, Kasi reading the book, "Long Way Round", by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, that, apparently, inspires him to make that Kerala to Nagaland road trip on his Bullet motorcycle; Dhritiman Chatterjee's character saying, "I will wait for the sound of the Bullets"; Assi, an architecture student, reading a book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Assi's home in Nagaland full of books; Kasi and Suni meeting a Malayali motor mechanic in northern West Bengal and Suni remarking, "That is why there are so many nails on this road!"; Suni amused at the sight of a potato in his biryani in Kolkata; and, perhaps the most touching sequence in this film, even more than the love story and anything else, Kasi realising, after experiencing a death in the Assam riot, that he should have performed his basic duty of looking after his aged parents instead of coming on a road trip (anyone living alone and far from one's family would identify with this scene). These are the scenes that are still running in my mind.
Even with so much going for this film - a very promising plot, a to-die-for lead pair, an amazing actor playing the sidekick, lovely cinematography, a background score that often reminded me of Shigeru Umebayashi's "Yumeji's Theme" - "Neel Akasham Pacha Kadal Chuvanna Bhoomi" fails to deliver much. Another disappointment: These two dudes rode up to Babhanhati in northern Odisha, they missed Jharkhand by just a whisker! It would have been lovely to see Dulquer Salmaan here.
