The film A Poet is about living as a poet, which is different from merely being a poet. The poet in A Poet had won notable prizes in his youth. In the present, he is seen as a drunk by others, except by his mother and some close ones. As he considers himself a poet, he does not want to waste his life on any work, but he had no choice and worked as a teacher. He tried to encourage his students to write poetry, even though they rarely wanted to become poets. Some boys like poetry because it can help them win girlfriends. The poet doesn't object to such aspects of poetry. He dreams happily when boys ask him about it.
Among the
students, he finds a girl who writes poems and draws in her notebooks. He
encourages her to write and participate in a poetry festival. She lives in a
crowded joint family. Although she doesn't want to be a poet, she writes all
her feelings and thoughts directly, without needing editing—poems that come
naturally. At the poetry festival, she recites her poem and receives applause,
but during the party, she gets drunk, vomits, and falls unconscious. The poet
carries her on his back, like a sack, at midnight, and leaves her at her
doorstep, waking her relatives by throwing small stones at the window. The
narrow spiralling iron stairs lead up to her apartment on the top floor. He
leaves her halfway up the stairs, unable to carry her further. Soon, her family
accuses him of molestation, and the festival organisers bribe them to stay
silent. He was fired from his job for this reason. However, the student later
writes to the poet’s daughter that her father was innocent and only wanted to
make her a poet, something she does not actually desire, as her ambitions are
typical of many young girls, like fashion and money.
In the
final scene, the poet begins to write again, inspired by the student’s attitude
towards writing and learning from her poetry. He realises that poetry has
nothing to do with becoming a poet; it is simply about expressing one’s
feelings and thoughts through poetic imagination. This scene marks the poet’s
return to his true self. He recognises what he aspires to through the student’s
poems and his own attitude toward writing, which he once expressed in a drunken
dialogue claiming that Gabriel Garcia Marquis craved fame.
Writing
about a film is not the same as experiencing it. Some films feel more like the
medium itself than its theme. This is a film in which, by watching it, one does
not just feel like an observer but feels as if one is living it. Perception and
affection merge on the surface, which is this film.
Mukundanunni
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