An accident has occurred in the night. A man, young in years and injured in one eye, is rushed to a hospital. There, he looks intently at a woman doctor trying to revive him, and slips into another world. A song begins to play, unaffecting the man’s journey into his past, as he walks in and out of his childhood and youth in no order, laughs with the people no longer there, and wakes up in mysterious wild yards. The song lasts seven minutes and you see a whole life evolve and pass you by.
The creators of the song call it Oblivion, a music video they conceived at a time they badly wanted to get back to work, after months of lockdown. World renowned music composer AR Rahman launched Oblivion congratulating the entire team. The work began a year ago and with the music composer Ashwin Renju creating his composition. He got KS Harisankar to sing it and sent it to director Dominic Arun and actor-writer Santhy Balachandran asking them if they could do a video of it. Dominic became its director, Santhy its writer and executive producer.
“Ashwin said that the music has a slight dark feeling to it, and the lyrics (written by Manu Manjith) have to do with a sense of nostalgia, loss and destruction. He needed a concept that would go along with that,” Santhy says.
Congrats to the entire team of "Oblivion." All the best!
— A.R.Rahman #99Songs (@arrahman) June 11, 2021
Director - @dominicarun
Writer & Executive Producer - @santhybee
Director of Photography - @nimishravi
Music Director - @ashwinrenju
Singer - @ksharishankar
Lyricist: #ManuManjith https://t.co/ulAoMUAven
She is known more as an actor, doing some lovely performances in theatre as well as films. Paapam Cheyathavar Kalleriyatte, Jallikattu, Tharangam and Two Persons are some of the films we have seen her in.
“It is exciting to explore another side of myself. As an executive producer I could also put together a team with Dominic,” she says.
Her concept for the video is layered and experimental. The protagonist (Sidharth Varma) is going through the last moments of his life. “It gave us the space to make it kind of a surreal video, one that’s not rooted to a time and space. We worked in layers. The first layer is about the protagonist and his final moments, when he is revisiting experiences he has had or it could be just flashes of images that have been part of his memory. The second layer is about senses and how all five of them are involved in creating a memory. The third layer incorporates the myth of the Norse God Odin’s quest for Wisdom and Truth (Odin is the All Father in Nordic mythology who chooses to sacrifice his eye in exchange for a sip from the Well of Wisdom, for all there is to know about the world).”
The cinematography is by Nimish Ravi and the editing by Sreenath S. The other actors in the film are Lakshmi Marikar, Karthika Nair, Irene Jose, Jess Sweejan, Immanuel Kurian, Sanal Mohan, Ashlee Issac Abraham and Vaisakh Shankar.
Watch: Oblivion music video