Must great love stories end in tragedy?

Some films are born great. Others have greatness thrust upon them. Were it not for the wonderful Fahadh Faasil, what would Annayum Rasoolam (Malayalam, 2013) be? I am not too sure of the answer to that. The kind of implosive energy that the actor brings to his role of an obsessive, unrelenting lover (if the film was made today, he would be called a stalker) transports the satiny tiptoeing sneaky romance to the stratosphere of extra-specialness.

The extraordinary level of commitment seen in the film’s hero Rasool is fluently transposed to the narrative which never falters even as Rasool’s passion gathers momentum in a swoop of swooning ecstasy. This is a man in love, who takes the ferry every single day from Kochi so that he can be on the boat with the girl of his dreams Anna (Andreah Jeremiah) as she travels home. The ritual becomes so fixed, that other passengers on the boat begin to recognize Rasool.

“Don’t you have a job?” an elderly lady asks,not impolitely. Rasool is not the least embarrassed, even if he seems at a loose end. Dammit, he is in love! Can’t the world understand his feelings?

The narrative unfolds through the voice of Rasool’s friend Ashley (Sunny Wayne). The characterization of Rasool’ s friends is in a league of its own. They are committed, quirky and querulous.They give Rasool sound advice. “Why do you want to fall in love with a girl whom you

have to follow every day on boat and who doesn’t even

look at you?”

Why does a love that requires herculean levels of self-abnegation always seem like true love?

Fahadh Faasil, that magician of an actor, expresses Rasool’s earnest feelings of love with a blend of rhapsody and reality. He knows he is on slippery ground, especially because of their differing religious beliefs. But he also knows that if loses Anna, he loses his chance to be happy in love. He would rather take the chance.

Of course, like all great love stories, Annayum Rasoolam comes to a tragic end. But not before we are tansported into a world of furtive glances and hurried touches that are as fleeting as that breeze that blows off the Kerala beaches. Director Rajeev Ravi gives an unhurried languorous feel tothose hurried fleeting moments between Rasool and Anna as he catches her in her workplace, a saree shop, on the boat as she goes home, in the Church and at home.

By the time Rasol’s romantic dreams have had their fill, the film is so suffused with the aura of love and ‘foreverness’ that you pray it won’t take the tragic route. Alas, what is a good love story without a tragic finale? And what is a routine romance without Fahaad Faasil to uplift its mood from the mundane to the meditative and melancholic?

Director Rajeev Ravi, who is a first-rate cinematographer leaves the luminous lensingto Madhu Neelankandan who captures the working-class rhythm of romance with much the same fluency and anxiety as Mani Ratnam’s Alai Payudhe. It’s a dreamlike world inhabited by sweaty commuters and idlers who pick fights because they have nothing better to do.