Ko Afno – a mixture of emotions

Movie: Ko Afno

Director: Anil Thapa

Starring: Richa Sharma, Sushank Mainali, Subash Thapa, Rajan Khatiwada, Shanti Giri, Menuka Pradhan, Sudam CK, Sulakshan Bharti

In My Eyes: 2.75/5

Ko Afno is the amalgamation of human emotions. The best thing about this movie is to succeed in portraying the emotions through its characters in a controlled way. It is totally a piece that a normal audience would like to term ‘art movie’. Despite the beautiful making and the other good aspects, the screenplay has restricted Ko Afno from being the remarkable one.

The main plot revolves around the poor couple in the village whom a rich couple from Kathmandu frames to adopt their son. What happens when they have to give an only child to others for the sake of his better future but the things turn against their favor? This forms the principal conflict. Other sub-plot shows the struggle of a son (the same adopted one) with his girlfriend and his parents.

There are indeed some incredible aspects in the film. The part where Richa Sharma’s character prays to god with ‘dubo’ to show her the path for her son’s return is beautiful. And when she continues this act until later, it makes the heart ache with her pain. The writer/director Anil Thapa must be credited for bringing out this sad yet fresh and sublime character on screen with such novelty and honesty. The budding chemistry between Anamika and Prabal in the subplot looks simple and nice.

Writing is good till it deftly builds up the plots and engages with the witty dialogues but it loses its grip and starts going overboard when it makes a character go in the rather unwanted direction, without showing any clear reason or so. The main conflict of the movie is nowhere to be seen after a while until the last few minutes. This interrupts the flow of the film. Kevin is the central character here, but the correlation of his life in the city and the pain of his birth-parents on losing him is not developed strongly. Having different parts in a single story makes it look like deviating here and there from the main storyline. This has to be the main drawback of the film.

It is not clearly shown why there is a rift between Kevin and his foster mother. Neither does it show any point behind the character of Sushank Mainali being a murderer. This creates a sort of confusion on the viewer. The relation of Kevin with his foster parents does not go deep enough to grow any sympathy for anyone of them. In one scene, Richa’s character speaks words like ‘sneha’, which sounds different given the setting. The simple ‘maya’ would have been better. Meaning, such simple things could have been taken care of for its own good. The other drawback is pace. One has to be really patient to be able to go with the flow.

Apart from those hiccups in the script, Ko Afno is remarkable for its making style, which is different from all the other methods being used in Nepali cinema. The fading out of scenes into black after a certain sequence seems symbolic and creates a space needed for the flow of feelings.

Cinematography is brilliant. Every scene has its own essence and value. It looks like the pictures are flowing in the certain arrangement of beats; like the piece of painting that tries to portray certain meaning. Very very artsy indeed.

Performance is the big plus point of this movie. Undoubtedly, Richa Sharma stands out of all. She has nailed it like a champ, justifying every bit of her character and so earnestly fulfilling the demand of deeply rooted-strong performance from the characterization. The get-up, body language, dialect and the expressions – she is just so fantastic at her job. Her versatility and talent are phenomenal. Sushank Mainali is equally first-rate in his role. Subash Thapa has given one fine performance. Rajan Khatiwada, Shanti Giri, Menuka Pradhan, Sudam CK and Sulakshan Bharti are good in their respective roles.

Background score is nice. There are traditional folk scores too but largely, it has used the modernish tunes; it generates the different feel to the theme of movie, which sounds rather cool. Classic old Nepali songs being played in the background as per the situation on screen looks/sounds very nice.

Overall, Ko Afno is a decent movie about human emotions, crafted with very fine performances and a different narrative style but having the problem due to the eccentricity and unclearness in the writing and a slow pace. To Richa Sharma, you are simply amazing.

Photo Courtesy: facebook.com/Reecha.Sharma, facebook.com/koafno