A perverted father, Aravind, who lives with his wife in an upstate apartment has a vibrant online sexual life. He becomes a slave to the online world of live-cams & sleaze behind closed doors without the knowledge of his wife who is dissatisfied by his devotion to ‘work’. One fine day the online world takes control of him in the form of Yohan who intrudes his private space & threatens him into witnessing his suicide!

Language:
English
Running Time:
109 min
Rating:
U/A
Release date:
17 July 2016
Directed by:
Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Produced by:
Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Siddharth Vipin
Written by:
Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Starring:
Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan
Anand Sami
Misha Ghoshal
Ashwathy Lal
Music by:
Siddharth Vipin
Shot by:
S.R.Kathir
Editing by:
Jainul Abdeen
Gaugin
Distributed by:
LJ Films

What’s Hot

  • Popular theatre actor Anand Sami plays the role of the eccentric Yohan who is determined to bring out the beast within Aravind with whom he is chatting with on Skype. But for the weird accent & English modulation, he performs ably showing his whole acting range. Stopping here since any more discussion on him will necessitate spoilers.
  • Jayaprakash Radhakrishnan as the perverted Aravind is perfect for the role. He exudes the right amount of charm & guile to play the grey character to perfection. Among the whole cast, it is his dialogue delivery & modulation that seems the most earnest and realistic. The ladies, Misha Ghoshal & Ashwathy do not have a lot of screen time but they still do an adequate job in their respective characters.
  • S.R.Kathir’s camerawork & editing team of Jainul & Gaugin have ensured that film does not like to feel like a low-budget independent film. While it may seem rudimentary, it is not easy to capture, cut& color a movie that has the characters in a computer screen and intersperse it with regular interior shots. Kudos to the entire technical team on this front.
  • Writer-director Jayaprakash has to be lauded for taking a relevant yet bold knot for his debut film. His film never bends to commercial compromises or indulges in sleaze in spite of the license given by the subject. It stays very true to its premise of bringing out the innate voyeurism in human beings.

What’s Not

  • The prime grouse with this well-intentioned film is due to the language chosen. While it is imaginable that the modern household is a conglomeration of languages, it looks distinctly unnatural to see Yohan mouthing philosophical lines in English when it could have had a lot more spice in Anand Sami’s native language of Tamizh.
  • The whole subplot to necessitate the action of Anand Sami seems to be of a starkly different meter of acting when compared to the present robbing the film of uniformity. Also, making the prime victim dumb seemed a touch forced& manipulative especially with the elaborate sequence where she appeals on video.

Badges

Story
Editing
Cinematography

Screened at

The Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF) 2015

The Chennai International Film Festival (CIFF) 2015 scheduled from Jan 6 -13, 2016 is an annual film festival organised by a film society, the Indo Cine Appreciation Foundation (ICAF), with the support of the government of Tamil Nadu, the South Indian Film Chamber of Commerce and the Film Federation of India.

Event Info

Date of Screening : 11-Jan-2016
Venue and Time : Symphony, 5.00 PM

About

Verdict

Verdict Stamp

Lens is well-intentioned independent film that is technically & thematically rich while it depicts voyeurism in digital space. It could have been much more hard-hitting had the language been chosen as Tamizh rather than English.