It’s not the mere presence of the name Faasil in the titles of the movies Njan Steve Lopez and Ennennum Kannettante that makes it impossible for me to think of either of them without a thought about the other tagging along. Maybe it’s that theme of unrequited love that runs in both of them, though I’m not quite sure if unrequited is actually the term that fits here. In Ennennum Kannetante, feelings are reciprocated ultimately but remain unfulfilled while when Steve finally opens up and confesses his love, it’s almost too late too. Both films deal with end of innocence and the angst and the struggles of coming to terms with the world of adults in dissimilar ways but the emotional journey of the young lead protagonists and that of the audience are not too distinct in either.
Kannan returns to his ancestral home to spend the vacation from Trivandrum of yore while Steve’s abode is Thiruvanthapuram. They might be from different eras and generations but they’re almost the same person. It’s his extended family and the dynamics of it’s rustic ecosystem that controls the fate of Kannan. Steve on the other hand thrives in the urban community where it’s mostly friends,
neighbors and the society at large that writes his destiny. At the fag end of adolescence and the cusp of adulthood, it’s naivety and pure passion that drives Kannan while it’s his idealistic yet naive world view that motivates Steve.
It was never my intention to turn this into a character study but it seems I’ve digressed and done exactly that. Ennennum Kannetante is a coming of age story and Njan Steve Lopez is a social commentary, two distinct genres while not without it’s parallels. All this said and reminisced it’s that sense of loss and longing and perhaps angst to an extent, that connects both films for me as a viewer. Perhaps maybe it’s the fact that all of us have been a Kannan or a Steve at some point in our lives.
gopakumarpurushothaman 