The subject of a film, especially if it’s drawn from a tragic real life story, can influence the way you look at it and analyse it. You tend to give it a longer rope, even ignoring the obvious flaws and the boring passages. Clint is one such movie, based on the life of a child prodigy, an artist who lived for just six years, passing away in the early 1980s.
Most of us are already familiar with Edmund Thomas Clint’s story, of how he dedicated much of his short life to art, leaving behind around 25,000 paintings.
His parents have preserved all his works and ensured that Clint’s talent will be remembered for generations to come. The film itself begins from his real-life parents M.T. Joseph and Chinnamma, much like a documentary, with director Harikumar interviewing them. It does not stay long there, shifting to fiction mode, with Unni Mukundan and Rima Kallingal taking over the role of the parents.
The film focusses on the last year in Clint (Alok)’s life. We see him in a kind of hurry, using up all of his waking hours to paint. The initial half is dedicated to establishing his brilliance.
But except the interesting sequences of him painting from memory and from descriptions of things he has not seen, much of the method used for this in the film is pretty straightforward and unimaginative.
We have other characters, like the painter played by Vinay Forrt, constantly comparing him with Picasso and other legendary artists. Then there are two caricature-ish art critic characters, at least one of them meant to lighten up the mood, unsuccessfully though.
Alok’s performance as Clint makes the film watchable at least in parts, but the ‘beyond-his-years’ lines that he utters spoils it a bit. The film sticks to the available material, adding just a dose of drama and a few characters, expecting the tragedy of the original story to carry it through.
But, it does not succeed much in the endeavour. Wish a dose of young Clint’s imagination flowed into the film’s script too.
S.R. Praveen
