Memories Analysis

Memories (2013)

Written and Directed by: Jeethu Joseph

Starring: Prithviraj Sukumaran

Available on Hotstar

Memories is a serial killer murder mystery, it is inspired from Se7en, not only for the religious inspirations from the killer there is also a scene of confrontation with the killer where the cop gets so close to catching the killer but misses. They miss because if they catch the killer this way, it is because of chance and not because they cracked the case. In this film the backstory of the protagonist, is strong and HIT had a similar backstory for the protagonist and the trauma is also showed in a similar setting. But here, we strongly see the need for the hero's well being to take up the case to get out of his alcohol addiction, we root for the hero taking up the mission whereas in HIT it actually felt like the hero would be better off without him taking the case.

I didn't like the usage of background score in this film, they hardly lifted any scenes and there is music playing almost throughout the film, even when they are just talking and there's hardly any drama in the scene. In films like this, there is a lot of variation in terms of the tension in the film, we see the hero and his mother talking at home in a scene and we see a dead body in another scene and the music is used to a similar extent in both scenes. Instead if we can ground the other scenes without music, the interesting scenes can get more tension with the music.

There is no misdirection in this film, whatever clues they find take them to the destination and the identity of the killer eventually unfolds event by event. It starts with the motive of religion, the cop then traces what he means by translating the texts on the victim's bodies engraved with a knife. He then finds out a relation between the two victims and calls them and their story unfolds, they get further clues about the killer being a limp and the killer's rough physical description and then the motives get unfolded before the identity. Usually the why of a murder mystery is opened after the who is opened, here it isn't that.

Prithviraj Sukumaran plays the cop, Sam Alex and he does a good job. This film was released in the same year as Mumbai Police was released, which was also a murder mystery and in that film Prithviraj's character loses his memory after the accident. His variation in both these films wasn't great acting, but it was good enough for us to distinguish them. The making of this film is also minimalist like Mumbai Police and here as well, it works in favor of the film. Memories is the film before which, Jeethu Joseph came up with the classic thriller Drishyam in the same year, which I think is one of the best thrillers made in Indian cinema.