The movie ‘Amen’ must be considered as a brilliant attempt of the Director Lijo Jose Pellisseri, Script writer PS Rafeeque and Producer Fareed Khan, and I felt those people had the genuine caliber to approach cinema very seriously. Recently the movie ‘Life of Pi’ come up with the concept of Magical Realism, it gave focus to ‘Belief system, love, human-nature relationship, etc.’, but the movie ‘Amen’ discussed about social fragmentations and hardcore reality. The podium of the movie is the church controlled Syrian Christian village and it’s innocent people. The autocratic church set-up believes that every people of the village should continue their life under the shadow of church driven orthodoxy. Moreover the Village Kumaramkari’s and its forefathers took ‘band music’ as its soul for a long time and ‘Gee Vargese Band’ team is being sponsored by the church in recent years. But the constant failure of band team in various competitions Made struggle for the people who live with it. One more struggle happens in parallel, outside the boundary of the band team. The clarinet player Solomon (-Fahad Faazil Presented the character- Son of the renowned clarinet player esthappan, who is no more) finds difficulties to get along with his graced talent of clarinet playing. He is chucked out of the church band, because he unable to play the clarinet before the public except his lover Sosanna (Swathi Reddy). These parallel struggle moves till the end in a common pace and both overcome the problems in the end as well.

 “Social system needs to be developed from the scratch that is something what educated through the movie. In Indian socio-cultural system, the religion and cast never become old but their thoughts will definitely. The democratic freedom will never be agreed inside the structure. The two well-known religious practices such as Christianity and Islamism has its own richness with its social commitment, at the same time Huge amount of conservatives is stuck on it. Those who believe the Hinduism is a religion, who is also conservatives. Within this fragmented social setup, making a movie like ‘Amen’ is real courage.”

The movie begins with a historic mysterious storytelling about the popular devoted legend Saint Geevarghese Kumaramkari, who made an appearance before Tipu Sultan, when he and his military trying to control the church during Tipu’s monarchial ruling.

Let’s break The move into few pieces and continues the analysis:

ü  Kumaramkari’s Church

ü  Fr. Francis Vattoli

ü  Love and Innocence of the people

All these three pieces are different parts of the story and they are Interconnected in terms of Music – What I meant is Band Music. We detailed the political set up of the Kumaramkari church, but it is really valuable in the minds of the poor people. They need a place to get together; and we could see the pain and the crying of the people when the Priest Fr. Ottaplacken (Joy Mathew) decided to demolish and re-build the church. In some particular part of the Movie the whole society has needed someone to support and protect the social harmony. ‘Innocent people pray god in the struggle period’ – A young priest named Fr. Francis Vattoli (Indrajith) entered into the story – His thoughts, Perception of life, vision of society, and even understanding of the bible is entirely different from others but his heart driven by the peace and love. Fr. Vattoli never found difficulty to reach into the hearts of the common man of the village. He gets close to Solomon initially and to the French woman Michelle (Natasha Sahgal) also. Fr. Vattoli presented himself as a young gentleman and danced with Michelle at boat in their first meeting. After few meetings Fr. Vattoli become a splendid icon to Michelle, she might grow her love above the priest – seems a conventional attempt of the film-maker. Fr. Vattoli maintained a friendly relation with Michelle and he left to be a rebel into the diseased social system. (More part of the story reaches you when you watch the movie)

In the climax the Solomon led the Gee Vargese Band team and offers a magnificent success to the team from the constant failure strategy. Now the new priest Fr. Francis Vattoli will send to the Kumaramkari church to take the charge and he appears in the scene, kind of mind transitions also happens in a few people in the rural community.

Finally you will be asked by yourself, “Is the total village is a magical world? Who was the priest who appeared already?”

This Musical film has definitely generated an amazing mood for the viewers; the cinematographer Abinandhan Ramanujam’s work is real admirable. Frames (especially Sosanna’s room window) and many Camera movements violated all the conventional rules and did a lot of experiment to accumulate the real beauty in every sequence. The motion pace of the shots are also seems experimental – slow moves, jerked frames, zig-zag zoom outs – all supported well for the totality.My favorite scene in the Movie: Fr. Francis Vattoli helps Solomon and Sosanna to escape from the village on the of a church fest. Both were performing the cultural tablos in the occasion, and they try to escape from these by switching lights off. Solomon was in the costume of Jesus Christ. Unfortunately both of them caught by the relatives and Solomon beaten very badly. That scene draws symbolic into my mind and it seems how Christ badly treated before crucifixion. The shots and music provided an extra-ordinary feel in the right sequence