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Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cinema. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Through a glass darkly


Existential questions have always intrigued me. The answers are often unanimously dogmatic, with people belonging to different wavelengths of the colourful spectrum of opinions trying to vociferously voice his/her own opinion as the eternal truth. The enigmatic nature of the questions sometimes makes the answers seem equally probable, though it might not be the case in reality. But what is this reality we are trying to define here? Isn’t reality another name given to a product that’s a powerful edifice chiselled by the human mind? The problem with trying to answer existential questions is that, the answers are likely to be dictated by your subconscious. Your thoughts and actions are guided by your beliefs, rationalism plummets to the backseat and your emotions reign supreme. Equivocation becomes the debater’s best friend in times of intellectual oblivion, obfuscation the obvious strategy of the argumentative disputant trying to establish himself as the unquestionable oracle. 

The ones that try to tread on the neutral path, plainly trying to examine the mysterious unknowns with the curiosity of an innocent child asking his dad what exists beyond the sky and the stars are often belittled. You’re likely to be accused of being a chicken not big enough to form an opinion. But these opinionated myopic eyes that disparage you of being indecisive don’t realize the fact that such a cold-eyed stance could actually help you stay at the centre of the spectrum thus enabling you to gape at the titanic beauty of nature which encompasses these talking heads.

A dispassionate stance, one that appreciates the exquisiteness of the phrase “I don’t know” with all the humility in the universe can actually lead to a comprehensive analysis that subtly tries to take the best out of every extremist stance. The study of a mind with such a stance or the study of a work of a person with such an attitude can be extremely fascinating. One such mind is Ingmar Bergman and one such work is “Through the glass darkly” , which tries to investigate diverse perspectives from a birds-eye viewpoint, coincidentally and ironically playing god in the process, though playing or reaching a conclusion about god maybe the last thing on such a person’s mind.

Whether Bergman was an atheist is a debatable question but the pointers seem to be too evident especially in the latter part of his life. There is no explicit confession in his autobiography too, but you’re tempted into conclusion, like in most situations, including the god question. Bergman could have died an atheist but my instincts tell me that Bergman hadn’t formed an opinion when he made this film. He was born into a religious family, his dad being a pastor. He probably started questioning faith during his formative years and “Through the glass darkly” was probably a product that resulted when his mind was witnessing a tumultuous war between his theistic persona that could be attributed to his upbringing and an iconoclastic, inquisitive side that wasn’t willing to ignore the logical loopholes in his beliefs anymore. The convolutions have resulted in one of the best films I have seen, probably the best you are likely to see.

I’d like to share a few interesting things about the movie here. The only female character in this movie, Karin, is shown to be a mentally ill person. She has supernatural visions and is shown to be living in her own sweet world and she seems to enjoy that. Her problem begins the moment the line that separates her perceived world and the real one starts blurring. This probably represents the state of mind of Bergman in his earlier years when he started questioning religious faith. He wouldn’t have had problems being a closet theist but the disastrous nature of the “disease” would have started troubling him the moment his intellect started questioning the veracity of the holy angels close to his heart. Rational questioning and introspection can be assumed to be a disease only by a fanatically raised theist told to be embroiled in his faith, come what may. His atheistic side or the rationalist side should I say, takes over satirically as he takes a dig at revelations and supernatural envisioning by allegorically classifying them as a mental delusion that keeps the victim away from material reality. On the other hand, it was hard to ignore the fact that the other characters in the movie would have appeared to be mentally ill from Karin’s point of view. This is evident from the way she disregards her own husband at the expense of a god that might (MIGHT) make an entrance through a big door in that perceived reality of hers. Bergman probably tries to imply here that the extravagant possibilities and the positives that could arise out of the existence of such an omnipotent god actually drive people into frenzied faith and hope that they exhibit; so much so that they disregard the immaculate material advantages that their faculties could appreciate, like a caring, freethinking and handsome husband in this case.

Another thing that struck me about the characterization of Karin is the degree of sexual exuberance and tension on exhibition, scene after scene, something that’s brave and anachronistic considering the fact that the film was made in the black and white era. The way she goes about happily kissing and embracing her brother with evidently palpable lust, the manner in which she uses subtle occasions to trigger conversations about her brother’s sexual fantasies give us brief glimpses of the free spirit that Karin could be without the societal limitations. The allegories happen to be the dad and her husband for the patriarchal stranglehold the society (she moves about without restrains and converses without inhibitions when her dad and husband are gone) has over women and the supernatural visions for the influence of religion over the freedom of women. The portrayal of incest again appeared to be subtle here. The director must have had all the audacity in the world to choose incest as an abstract representation to convey something. For a promiscuous viewer, it might appear to be blatant proselytism of incest but the brother here probably just represents a non-chauvinistic male community ready to give women their due with respect to sexual freedom.

The movie has a universal theme that is likely to be relevant perpetually. The music (J.S. Bach?) is haunting and extremely appropriate. The film is basically a drama caught in camera but then an intricate study of the camera is likely to reveal something else. The movie as such is extremely talky and the director chooses to go for long shots when he could have gone for close-ups everytime just to give us a taste of the setting and the abstract expressionism on display. The outdoor shots in the movie are exquisite. We often get to see the splendid, calm sea through a window as the characters engage themselves in a serious conversation inside a room. It seemed to be subtle mockery of the behaviour of the human race that is always seriously involved in its own problems, failing to appreciate the beauty to the big, gigantic embodiment of gorgeousness around it.

The dad’s character in the movie makes a good case study again. He’s shown to be in possession of a vacuous emotional drive with the anomalous expressive bursts happening occasionally.       He finds out at one point that life is possibly pointless and even contemplates suicide. He miraculously escapes death and the twist in the tale enamours faith and hope in him again. He develops new found love towards his children and becomes relatively selfless. He drops a tear at the family reunion, the allegorical play that his children stage strikes a chord. He garners the guts to confess his errors and makes an honest attempt to complete his transformation process. The theist in Bergman takes over here as he even makes an explicit statement before the curtains are drawn: “Love is the evidence of god”. The son, Minus, asks a few questions that put his dad in a soup but the dad reassures him that there is hope as long as there is love. The boy appears confused, but is convinced: not because his dad was cogent but because his dad had finally spoken. His dad, his idol, his hero probably, whose ways were unknown to him, his symbol of hope and his personal god that he was ready to trust.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Nanban:Review laam illa ba, chumma jolly kosoron


                               WARNING: I didn't like 3 idiots.
        WARNING 2: I don't like Vijay and for the record, I'm an Ajith fan! 



1.       New pilim, director Indian Speilberg Shankar. Orey the brahmanandam, sorry brammandam. Never seen before visuals like painted trains, colour-colour flower beds, big big glass mahals, heroine's midriff close up shots. Wah-re-wah, Indian Speilberg OFC. You disagree; you suck because the ilayathalapathy himself agrees you know.
2.       Remake of 3 idiots. Brilliant cinema in which the number of lectures given by a single student outnumbers the lectures given by all the professors in that particular college. One man army ba, sooberu!
3.       Very intelligent film which has a vital message at the end of it. Woah Indian cinema is going places in terms of novelty.
4.       Brilliant dialogues. “life la exams neraiyya varum but appa onnu thaan”.  Ladies and gentlemen, presenting Madhan Karky, the new kid on the block.
5.       HARRIS. NERUPPU. TAMIZHAN. Speechless. Watch this video.

             
6.       Manoj Paramahamsa in attendance ba.
7.       Since I am an Ajith fan and am not sure if my opinion about the acting in this movie will be unbiased, I’ll leave you with a few images. 
STATE OF SHOCK

SELF-KALAAI
??!??!??
HUG SUBSTITUTES AN ELABORATE SCENE IN WHICH AAMIR BREAKS DOWN

Vijay can take heart from this snap. Yup, she is trying to cry too
                           
Thiruvizha la kaanama ponaa kuzhandha.

King of Self kalaai

No comments
Enough said. DOT.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

LICENSE TO KILL


The judiciary’s license to kill is a hot topic in the country today. The fate of Afzal Guru, Ajmal Kasab and the three Sri Lankan Tamils charged for the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi hangs in the balance today. On one hand, there are people waiting to get rid of these averred murderers who have put scores of human lives in peril and on the other hand, we have people concerned about human rights, questioning the very logic of a civilized society carrying out an execution. I don’t belong to either of the categories though I’m inclined towards the latter. My allegiance grew a little stronger after I completed watching the Japanese anime series titled “Death note”. Death note not only put to rest a few doubts I had about the moral precision of capital punishment and a human being’s right to kill, but it also got me pondering about other movies that were judgmental about the power to carry out an execution.

Death note is about Light Yagami and his dream of creating a new world devoid of crime after he gets access to the death note, a notebook that could be used to kill people by writing their names on it. The turn of events as the series progressed clearly seemed to indicate the fact that it’s impossible to exterminate misuse for selfish gains when a consummate amount of power is rested on one’s shoulders and especially, when the power allows you to kill another person. It also left me wondering as to how I had appreciated a movie like Anniyan that not only advocated killing but also professed carrying it using the most gruesome methods one could imagine. I finally convinced myself by assuming that I had fallen for the literary genius of the late Sujatha, who had made myself and a million others accept something that would have garnered appreciation only in a Barbarian society.

The Brad Pitt-Morgan Freeman starrer “Seven” is another case in point. The antagonist orchestrates the last of a series of murders in such a way that the termination of his own life is almost impossible and a noble soul who had dedicated his life to saving lives is to carry out the execution which would eventually help spread the message and inspire mislead psychopaths. It’s an undeniable fact that terrorists are trained to be philistine and phlegmatic even in the most extreme conditions of emotional stress and aren’t afraid to sacrifice themselves in an attempt to accomplish their mission. And its also beyond doubt that the terrorists who die in pursuit will be idolised as martyrs in terrorist camps and for all you know, they could be the role-models of the next 16 year old terrorist. So what exactly are we trying to accomplish by killing people who don’t mind dying and in the process of dying, possibly inspire a million others to continue the heinous crimes they had been notorious for throughout their lifetime?

Kamal Haasan acted in two movies that pronounced opposite verdicts on the issue. If Virumaandi championed the cause of abolition of capital punishment, Unnaipol Oruvan, a remake of “Wednesday” seemed to lean towards eliminating terrorists from the face of the earth. As usual, he remained confused and confused other people by equivocating effectively and thus disguising his original opinion on the issue. But it was the mediocre “Payanam” that actually planted certain serious questions in my mind about the absence of too many options as far as this issue is concerned. If at all we are to progress towards the elimination of terrorism, we are expected to make investigative progress which involves questioning captured terrorists and hence detaining them in custody. But once the job is done, they become a financial liability besides the security concerns that are tagged to it. “Payanam” depicted a situation where in a plane is hijacked and the hijackers demand the release of a high-profile terrorist kept in police custody. In such a situation, the police and the government don’t have much of a choice but to release the captive, endangering millions of lives in the process. Plus, all the money spent on the security of the captive, the lives lost in a bid to capture the terrorist to further investigations comes down to nothing.

 This leaves us with a lot of food for thought though I think the idea that the death of thousands of people killed in a terrorist attack is to be avenged by executing the captive is flawed at the basic level as it thins the line that differentiates a civilised person and a terrorist with boorish ideals. The ability to think without emotional prejudice in times of mental stress is what separates a civilised person from a terrorist, who you would expect to bomb a city at the slightest provocation. The ability to forgive is the most appropriate representation of evolution of the human mind over time.  But do we have a choice when a question mark looms large over the survival of mankind?

The analysis of psyche of a terrorist makes the whole thought process a little more tortuous.  The conditions under which people resort to terrorism is definitely worth taking into account. The book “Mind of a terrorist” (forgot the author’s name) is a good way to start your analysis. The very reason why people oppose terrorists is reason enough to consider their clemency petitions: no human being has the right to kill another. Just like terrorism, the turn of events in life is arbitrary. And unlike terrorism, life deserves this arbitrariness. I think we ought to leave death to the cycle of arbitrariness that dictates life on this planet as far as we can.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Assorted thoughts, catch up time

It’s been quite some time since I have written something about movies. I have watched quite a few of them in the recent past but somehow, I haven’t found the motivation to write about them lately. This queer behaviour can be attributed to my newfound passion for world history, something I have found to be extraordinarily intriguing. But amidst fun filled hours of learning about the conquests of Napoleon, the diplomatic strategies of Charles Metternich and Bismarck, I have somehow managed to squeeze out time for the likes of Engeyum Eppodhum, Muran, Vellore Maavattam and Vedi. I have missed out on Vaagai Sooda Vaa and I don’t intend to watch it in spite of the positive reviews it’s been garnering ever since its release. I don’t think I’ll be able to come up with a rational explanation for that; I just don’t feel like watching it.

Firstly, I found Engeyum Eppodhum to be engrossing. The movie’s gotta great script and the screenplay could have been messed up by any typical newcomer but Saravanan(surprise surprise: Murugadoss’ apprentice) doesn’t come across as a typical newcomer. The first scene itself comes as a big surprise. Amidst sentimental directors who commence their respective films with the sound of a temple bell and a long shot of a temple, here’s a newbie who keeps all such illogical irrationalities apart and comes up with a killer of a first scene (literally). The shocking first scene gives way to an exquisite orchestration of visual poetry. The non-linear narrative isn’t a gimmick here and its justified usage creates the desired effect as the film races towards the climax. The director has received plentiful support from his young actors. Sarwanand’s casual and elegant portrayal seemed to be the best of the lot. He was a treat to watch on-screen and effortlessly went on to show that you don’t need six-packs and forced histrionics to prove your prowess. But acting, I guess, is subjective and popular opinion can be widely different from what I think. So please feel free to pick on my opinion.

 It’s just that I feel we give an actor due credit only when he plays a larger-than-life character. Plus, a bad performance muscled up with histrionics designed to bring out a star’s “acting talent” doesn’t get the criticism it so badly deserves whereas a casual performance by an unacknowledged star that deserves attention goes unnoticed. On the hindsight, the bad performance is passed off as a good one, an award winning one occasionally; in cases involving a star gifted with a huge adulatory fanatic fan base, like Vikram. A detailed justification can be found here

Coming back to Engeyum Eppodhum, the other performances also came in as a pleasant surprise. Anjali has already staked her claims as an actress with considerable level of acting talent and she has furthered her case in this movie. Her voice though, is irritating. But again, it’s a value addition to the realism, an integral part of all her renditions so far. After all, how many good-looking girls are blessed with vocal cords emanating euphonious voices? Ananya has come up with a cute portrayal and this is Jai’s best performance till date but I’m not sure if I’ll be able to conclude that it’s good enough. It definitely wasn’t a bad performance though.
The dialogues were witty and I loved the Yaettu-DIG exchange between Jai and Anjali. The scene where Jai, dressed up like a corporate honcho (new, branded clothing and all that), enters a communist meeting in a bid to locate a person also impressed me as subtle humour. The music actually seemed pretty ordinary but the visuals made up for it and I don’t believe the fact that I’m almost addicted to them now.

I also managed to catch up with Vedi and Vellore Maavattam; unfortunately, at that. Sample this scene: “Hero gets beaten black and blue by 20 men double his size and four times his muscle weight, is left to die. His ear drums have just the right amount of energy to imbibe a faint attenuated version of a loud high pitched cry from his sister and realising this, the sister screams “ANNNAAAAAA” and magically, like in a Glucon-d advertisement, the hero regains full energy, gets up and effortlessly bashes up the gang of 20, also ending up disproving the laws of gravity several times in the process.” This scene forms the climax of Vedi and I think the rest, is self-explanatory. The lesser said the better. Vivek, the comedian who used to be hilarious once upon a time deserves a graceful exit from Tamil cinema.
Vellore Maavatam is another worthless movie I ended up watching. It’s a new movie that’s straight out of the director’s recycle bin known for its abundance of cop stories festooned with spice. There’s not a single reason why you must watch this movie, even if you are as vetti as the author of this article.

I also happened to stumble upon Rahman’s new album “rockstar”. It’s got two tremendously engaging rock songs, two lilting instrumentals and a sufi number that sounds similar to his earlier trysts with Sufi. The album as whole doesn’t sound as impressive as “rock on” did, but “sadda haq” and “job hi main” are truly terrific.

But one man who never ceases to entertain completed a rather boring week for me. Wilbur Sargunaraj’s new video “first class bhangra” is a scorcher. This man is truly a rockstar. Ranbir Kapoor you idiot, learn!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Mangaatha review by a Thala "Fan"atic

WHY THALA, WHY? Why the hell did we have to wait for so long? But I tell you what, this film is surely a dedication for all of you that survived and endured the likes of Asal and Aegan, those of you who took the harder route of sticking on faithfully to your favourite star, unlike other fans who walked away at the sight of stars half his height and one-fourth his charisma! As a Thala fan who believes in his star’s ideology of being frank, honest and outspoken, let me make things loud and clear. Mangaatha is definitely not the best movie I have seen: in fact, it’s a very average movie that’s slow, occasionally immature and has a leading lady at her irritating best. Then why is it being celebrated and wowed over and over again by fans and critics alike. One word: THALA!

This film is nowhere close to the likes of Saroja and Chennai28 in terms of quality and I’m sure Venky knows that. But Venky is a smart cookie who plays his cards intelligently: that’s precisely why he made Mangaatha! He has made a lot of compromises, it’s a genre which is not within his comfort zone at the moment, but then he has built up his game around his trump card: a calculated compromise which has eventually won the game for him, comprehensively at that. Unlike his other ventures, Venky has got himself to accommodate unwarranted duet numbers and romantic speed breakers into the plot, possibly to woo his leading lady (a saleable, popular star herself) into the ensemble. This is probably Venky’s biggest blunder as he should have realised at some point that he doesn’t need backup stars when the king of screen presence, who can literally walk his way through a movie and yet make it a success, is in attendance!

Mangaatha is bound to be a resounding success because its maker has effectively used the hype, the symbolism and the euphoria surrounding the movie in an innovative manner. It’s a sensational celebration, a coronation of a king’s attitude; a king who doesn’t mind calling himself one, without a hint of worry about the responsibilities that are attached to it. He doesn’t flaunt a six-pack, he doesn’t have one in the first place, he sees no point in blowing up one’s biceps to the size of balloons, he doesn’t dye or colour his hair, he doesn’t speak dialogues oozing male chauvinism and resorts to mouthing expletives if and when he gets a chance instead; he drinks, smokes and sleeps around. He is not a champion of the poor and he doesn’t hug the heroine in the climax as he dumps her earlier as soon as his job is done; instead, he hugs a bit**, shoots her and says something that would have made her repent her entire life for that one moment before she dies as cheap fans like me got up and roared. The director has intelligently gone in for a close up shot fully aware of the fact that those two precious words were going to be censored! Thala is bad, dangerous and menacing; most importantly, he remains that way till the credits roll. He doesn’t reform and head towards the Himalayas after speaking dialogues laden with ambiguity and hope. Full marks to Venky for the beautiful, consistent characterization.

Venky comes up with a mixed bag this time: he has erred quite frequently, his immaturity and inexperience showing up here and there. The film deserves some merciless scissoring and the film’s length would put the Mahabaratha to shame. Venky has this tendency to overdo certain things: the shot before the climax where Thala looks right into the camera lens in a staggering close-up with a sinister smile on his face is a tad too long. It makes us feel a little uneasy: the uneasiness of sitting in an interview and thinking for an answer as four stern-faced people stare at you, waiting. The scene where Thala makes Trisha understand that she has been conned, without any dialogues but with a single action very much in tune with the attitude of Vinayak Mahadevan is simply brilliant! But why the hell did he have to follow it up with a “soga paatu” in which Trisha sheds plastic tears, especially when Trisha’s foray in the film ends with that song? How many times do we hear Thala say “money, money, money” and “I’m impressed”? The scene before the climax where Thala charts out his plan with a chessboard is gimmicky and unwarranted, but it definitely serves his purpose: putting “Thala” at the centre of everything and giving him a chance to exhibit his inherent exuberance and an exhibition of the exorbitance of lazy elegance that he’s famous for! Come on. It’s a star vehicle, stop looking for logic and meaning or relevance in every scene. The same holds for the very first scene.

Most of the songs are horrible and are a pain to watch onscreen. But Vilayadu Mangaatha was brilliant and Thala looked awesome! Machi open the bottle is peppy and offers us a pleasant treat: THALA DANCE! @Thala: graphics thaaney? :D The background music is apt and beautifully enhances the feel. And the grand trumpeting to signal the arrival of Thala in his fiftieth Avatar: WHAT AN IDEA YUVANJI!

The rest of the cast don’t have much to do but Arjun does impress with an extended cameo. Mangaatha is a gamble that has been materialised with two big gambles in mind, two sacrifices done in the hope of achieving a bigger bounty: Ajith at the expense of Venkatprabu and the box-office result at the expense of the film’s quality. Fair deal, I should say! GAME WON! Make way for the king and for the first blockbuster of the year. Ajith fans, enjoy youselves and Venkatprabu fans, you guys have some waiting to do! And the others, it’s definitely worth a watch!

                                                            MANGAATHA DA!





Saturday, July 30, 2011

Veppam review

Give Mahinda Rajapakshe a camera and tell him to make a documentary on world peace, let Ranbir Kapoor make a movie on manliness, ask Ilayathalapathy Vijay to make a video on the art of acting or challenge A Raja to make a film on the evils of corruption. If any of the four quoted instances happen anytime in the future, you may react the way you are likely to react after seeing Veppam.

You’d normally expect a director, especially a female, who has graduated from the Gautam Menon School of cinema, to make a stylish romantic flick complete with an overdose of English dialogues. But maybe Anjana Ali Khan wanted us to appreciate her daredevilry. Maybe she wanted us to acknowledge the fact that she has the potential to break stereotypes and to explore new domains seldom associated with female directors. Unfortunately for her, she has got her most important calculation wrong: had she apprenticed under the likes of Selvaraghavan or RGV, who have made films with similar characters that are scarily close to ones that we may get to witness in real life, Veppam could have been a noteworthy product. A question mark looms large over that possibility too, because the storyline is as stale as my canteen food and the “twist” in the movie is a disgrace to the word itself. A 5 year old kid who was sitting beside me in the theatre was narrating the overtly obvious second half to his dad who was listening with rapt attention! A forecast of things to come by a 5 year old is not such a crime in a Romantic flick, but for a whodunit script that wants to call itself a suspense thriller, it’s an offence that warrants capital punishment.

Veppam could have been the “Ok, watchable” kinda movie in spite of its hollow storyline if only a little more attention had been paid to the screenplay, the narrative. All characters in the movie are uncivilized people who hail from North Madras possibly, where education is as abundant as common sense among Justin Bieber fans. Ten minutes into the movie, it’s exceedingly apparent that the characters have been sketched by a Peter(Madras Basha word for an upper middle class person who finds it difficult to communicate in Tamil due to his/her familiarity with English) or by a person who has been trained or taught to think like one. So every time one of those Basin bridge characters speaks in Madras Basha, you find it hilarious because you can’t help thinking that they have been written in English and then translated. Veppam has one of the most ridiculous set of dialogues I have come across in the recent past.  Horrible!

To Veppam’s credit, it has a good looking protagonist (Nani) and an apt second fiddle (Nani’s elder bro in the movie) who have come up with good performances. Karthik and Nithya Menen are seen in extended guest roles as usual. It’s commendable on Karthik’s part to have accepted this kind of a role with so little scope, possibly to shed his “American Mappilai” tag but I think it’s going to take more of such efforts to convince us that he can be something else on screen.  Veppam has extraordinary music but unfortunately, it’s a misfit again. If the songs from Pudhupettai had been replaced by the ones in Vinnaithaandi Varuvaaya, this is what it’d have looked like. The instruments used in the songs are the sophisticated ones, the ones that tales of romance yearn for; this kind of a movie calls for a few raw tunes with the spirit of the setting intact: we get the opposite.

But the most hilarious aspect of Veppam is the “ammaji” character. Outrageous casting. The character’s looks, her body language and the outfits that she sports in the movie guarantee her a place in one of those BRU ads where the maami says after a brief coy grin “ithu BRU naa”!

I am not daring enough to conclude that a GVM assistant or any Peter for that matter can’t make a good movie on people involved in shady deals in the dark streets of north Chennai. After all, Vishnu Vardhan surprised me with the chic Pattiyal, one of the best gangster movies I have come across in Tamil. It’s just that a GVM assistant is more likely to be coronated with the crown of success when she attempts a stylish romantic flick or a glossy cop movie where the focus is on characters that speak English most of the time. Anjana may go on to become a good director; this is her first attempt after all. But I presume that she’d boost her chances a tad more if she attempts a genre that she is familiar with. She’s just got to get her heart and mind together. Right now, they are miles apart!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

DEIVA THIRUMAGAL: REVIEW

When Vijay of Madrasapattinam fame set out to make Deiva Thirumagal, I, for one, wasn’t too excited. Vijay could go on to become a film-maker of repute in the future,  but ever since he released the first feelers of this film he’s been busy telling people that “I am not Sam, I’m director Vijay; I have an identity of my own.”

I still remember watching the trailer for the first time during the interval of KO in a theatre. I could hear comments like “Dai over ah nadikaatha da”, “Kudutha kaasuku konjam jaasthiyaave nadikaraaney” from behind. They were basically echoing my feelings on the issue. Vikram is a class act, no doubt, but then every time I see his antics unfurl as the supposed-to-be-gallant-but -devastatingly-funny-Kandasamy, I wonder what happened to the Vikram who amazed us with a relaxed depiction in Dhool. Every time I watch scenes from Bheema, every time Lingusamy frightens me with those close-up shots of the macho man’s overgrown Biceps, I sigh and yearn a tad more to watch the slim and fit Vikram who gave me goose bumps with an effortless performance as an aspiring cop. Every time he goes Mambo-ma-mia with the garish voice of his on isayaruvi or sun-music, I can’t help feeling sorry for another fantastic actor who wants to be a Kamal-like-all-rounder. Kamal is a once in a generation magician gifted with just about everything, why does every frigging actor want to be a Kamal Haasan.

Every Vikram fan out there would definitely agree upon the fact that Pithamagan is the actor’s best performance till date. But I wonder if it’s the best thing that could have happened to the actor: ever since, Vikram seems to be pushing and punishing himself by working too hard for every movie; the casual, laid-back and the totally unfussy portrayals don’t seem to find a place in Vikram’s priority list anymore. Yes he came up with Majaa but we still didn’t witness the Vikram we know, did we? My facebook news-feed is full of posts and comments heaping praises on Chiyaan. But as an uncompromising fan, I have to admit that I’m far from satisfied. You have to watch Pithamagan again to discover the underplay and delightful subtleties that Vikram is capable of. And you have to watch “I am Sam” before you watch DTM to understand the degree of over-acting that has come from totally unexpected quarters.

Vikram owes his success as an actor to the directors he has worked with. Almost obstinate dedication to the roles he has played thus far has helped Vikram reap rewards. He has worked under the likes of Bala and Mani Ratnam, who certainly know how to make use of the best efforts put forth by an actor. He has faced commercial success under the aegis of Dharani and Hari, who certainly don’t belong to the league of Mani or Bala but are masters at mass attraction (that, if you forget their recently-released forgetful ventures). But I feel it’s a gross waste of talent and effort when he works under people like Vijay and Susi Ganesan. It’s as if Vikram wants us to notice his “acting talent” one movie after another. Is there no end to his portrayal of larger-than-life characters?

Coming to Deiva thirumagal, it’s actually Vijay’s (the director) autobiography with a tweak at the end. Vikram has reprised the role of Vijay, a mentally challenged with an IQ of a six year old and Sara, the small child in the movie who has been used a metaphor to symbolize the audience. The child is six years old because Vijay assumes the audience to have an IQ level on par with the child. Nasser plays “Gowravam” Sivaji’s grandson, the way he positions his mouth consciously to indicate his parental lineage is stroke of directorial brilliance I say! 

Vijay has employed various techniques to convey the message that he’s not Sam and that he is indeed director Vijay in disguise as Krishna, with an alarmingly low IQ level. First he ruins the most beautiful scene in “I am Sam” (the purchase of shoes for the kid); the characters sell their souls and manipulate their ideals if and when they feel like (Nasser and Amala Paul’s dad, cases in point. Not to forget Vikram’s change of heart in the climax!). Then there is the totally absurd, disturbingly cheap and crass comedy track featuring MS Bhaskar, his wife and Pandi. The court scene in the climax is an insult to “I am Sam”. What were Vikram and the kid behind those wooden bars in the court doing? And what was I supposed to do as they freely exhibited those circus-type antics? Without much choice and most predictably, I burst out laughing! I am often accused of being an unemotional, unfeeling *astard but this one was too hilarious to resist: only that the humor was unintended!

I wonder what would have happened if not for Santhanam and the two lovely ladies in the movie! The girl in the movie is super-cute and surely does know a thing or two about acting. Amala Paul’s got such an addictive pair of eyes and Anushka can act a bit I guess.( No I’m not talking about Shreya or Genelia) She doesn’t have much to do, but atleast she’s not annoying like the other leading ladies of today. And can someone explain the logic behind that song in the climax (duet?!?!?!) which arbitrarily pops up like an ICICI ad when one’s browsing a popular website? I felt like screaming Aala vidungada yabba!
Karthik Kumar, Tamil cinema’s aasthana American Mapillai has been given a makeover in this movie: he’s not an American Mapillai, but he’s just a Mapillai (cut American) in this flick! But yeah, a dismal fate awaits him as usual. Again, what a waste of talent!

Chiyaan, please! We’ve had enough of such rubbish. Take us back to the days of Dhil and Dhool or stun us with movies like Pithamagan and Sethu. We have enough actors to give such half-baked nonsense. (No, I’m not talking about Vijay (The actor. Hmmm, maybe I should rephrase.) ) And as for Vijay the director, please leave Hollywood classics and classy actors like Vikram alone. You will find actors of similar IQ levels (No I’m not talking about Vijay, the person who jumped like a Dolphin in Sura) in Kollywood.



Wednesday, July 6, 2011

500 DAYS OF SUMMER: THE EXPERIENCE



Ya so what’s he like?
He is, uh, yeah, he is good. He is confident, unemotional, smart, happy-go-lucky, laconic, considerate and open, mildly aggressive or energetic or whatever, you know. He has very strong notions and he is kinda religious about them.

And she?
 She, yes, yup let me see. She is emotional, the kind that wets its eyes after a touching movie. Her parents split quite early, so she has these ideas about marriage and relationships. She’s hot, talks a lot of nonsense, immature, does inexplicable and cheesy stuff occasionally, socializes at will, laughs a lot, popular. A verbose occasionally.

So what happened when he and she got together?
That’s 500 days of summer for you. And the following blog post is an account of the same seen through a pair of eyes that have gotten wiser with the experience of witnessing similar characters behaving in a similar way.
He and she get together for a casual experiment, an easy extrusion that stretches the boundaries of friendship a little farther: that’s how she describes it. He calls it a relationship, names it love, it’s magical, and he knew that she was the one as soon as he saw her.

500 days of summer is a story that unravels the process of he becoming she and she becoming he with time, 500 days to be precise. The story that unfurls the mystery of gender-definition exchange, the female acquiring the male character traits and the male mastering the art of thinking like a woman when in love. (No, I’m not discussing trans-sexuality here; discussion entirely restricted to an emotional level)
So Joseph Garden Levitt (Tom Hansen) plays the heroine and Zooey Deschanel (Summer Finn) is our hero in this love story directed by Marc Webb. This beautiful evolution of characters as they fall in love or so it seems is wonderfully elucidated by a subtle exchange of words: the leads describe a certain couple (Sid-Nancy) whose relationship had come to a futile end when Sid stabbed Nancy. Summer says she feels that their co-existence reminds her of Sid-Nancy and their relationship. Tom says they have had a few arguments but he hardly feels like Sid and that he’s very happy. Summer’s reply, “NO, I’m Sid.”
500 days of summer is a wonderful exhibition of characters that look unnaturally real. The Boss who keeps smiling, the smile is almost omnipresent, even when he is addressing someone with utmost seriousness. The friends, with almost pre-historic views on love, antique enough to deserve a special place in a museum, enlightening the protagonist about the way forward. One can’t help thinking that these friends are the drawing room versions of bosses at offices. They’re criminally optimistic, punctuate their words with a pointless smile and are seldom up to any good, constantly feeding people with hope to keep themselves entertained.
The director makes a successful knock on the typical man’s mind and gleefully exposes the way it functions when in love, much to our occasional delight and the rare embarrassment too, at having once embraced the stereotypes exposed. Men possess this constant hunger to impress their love. They play a song loudly, just to see if the girl turns back to take notice and say hi.There is also this delusion of being an intellectual, of reading into a supposedly cryptic incident, of attaching cosmic significance to a seemingly symbolic happening, that’s never anything more than plain coincidence. When she sports an indifferent expression, he assumes that she’s bored: feels that it’s time for a movie when it’s not. When she indicates that she’s tired and wants to go home, he reads too much into it, thinking that she’s bored and that it’s his duty to keep her entertained. The result, they end up eating pancakes in the nearby hotel. A casual remark becomes his gospel; a satirical comment assumes the dimension of a colossal criticism. Then there’s the childhood fantasy, the fairy tales, the sad pop and the movies. Just because the lift bell goes gong before the door closes, which also happens to occur after a hot girl passes a positive remark on his taste of music and leaves, he assumes that she is the one. That’s how it is, you know. When you see the one, when she talks, bells and chimes make merry with sound, the weather is pleasant and the sun says hi. These are results of the intertwining of the girl’s mind and the man’s heart.

 One usually associates confidence, loquacity and opening up with men and shyness, confusion with women. But it works the other way when in love. The girl is casual, effortlessly walks up to kiss his man. She strikes a conversation about her relationship with him and inquires about his feelings for her without any fuss. But the guy is often confused, he doesn’t know if he has to ask her out or if he has to play the waiting game. She’s on his bed and he seeks reassurance and comfort interacting with his mirror image, a metaphor for chaos and duality. He’s not sure about her stance, about their relationship status. He keeps telling himself that it is a juvenile thing to label it and bring it down to a term like “boyfriend” but deep inside, he knows that he’d be much comfortable if it were that way.

Then there are the fun moments with the friends. The typical tendency of men to brand girls as bitc**s just because they weren’t able to talk to her or she refused to entertain talks with them or simply because she was hot (sour grapes), the friends asking about the guy’s extent of progress on the sexual ladders (the jobs, that is) and the guy simply replying that they just kissed and he’s still unemployed (read: no jobs yet). The way men interact is really funny. I just realized that it’s almost impossible for us (men) to strike a casual conversation about a good-looking female without a reference by someone at some point to her being a bitch with a cooked up story to justify the case.

The director also pays homage to the film “The graduate” with a few references to the flick here and there (the final scene of the movie also finds a place in this film). The scene where Summer lies naked on Tom’s bed, with her back facing the camera certainly reminded me of the 1967 hit. Nice way of saluting the film-maker who made the classic, a proto-type for many more romantic films.

Summer, the central character, rules this movie. Her characterization sets up the experience. She is the super-cute female who does what she likes. She’s the normal girl, she talks like a girl, she sings but then the abnormal tendencies suddenly spring up, later in the day when she’s in it with Tom. She comes up with the usual bullsh** that girls assume to be cute but she can be supremely stubborn and mature when it comes to a deep-rooted ideology or something about love, life and relationships. She’s very clear about what she wants right from the beginning and it’s just that Tom doesn’t see it. The character of the other girl in the movie, the little one, is surely the brainchild of a feminist, a tribute to the independent, contemporary, mature woman who can be super smart and talk serious sense when it matters. She speaks about the illusions in the mind of a man in love and the same getting shattered with consummate ease. She is the one he turns to in times of distress, the physical stature and incompatibility notwithstanding. Men are also dubbed as emotional bunnies and idiots when it comes to love, something i can’t agree to disagree with. The scene where Tom’s male colleague over-reacts after Tom completes a monologue is a subtle stroke of genius.

The screenplay bears an uncanny significance to the mind of Tom Hansen, it oscillates back and forth, it confuses and is confused initially only to clarify and settle down at the end. The dialogues are delicate and delightful. And the lyrics of the song that keep playing in the background wonderfully merge with the situation and the music is apposite too. Best scene in the movie? The scene where Tom’s expectations and the reality are depicted simultaneously on screen. The door is gently shut on Tom’s expectations as we get a harsh taste of reality. Poetic and poignant!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Pillayar Theru Kadaisi Veedu: Review

 “There are movies that you’ll forget the moment you step out of the movie hall. There are movies that you’ll forget after two-three hours or two-three days. But there are a few movies that’ll make you forget yourself. Pillayar theru Kadaisi Veedu is one such movie. You’ll leave the cinema hall with a heavy heart and tears in your eyes. Jithan Ramesh has come up with an award winning performance. This movie will be his big ticket to fame.”

Golden words by director Thirumalai Kishore, the new face of Tamil cinema.

And what are you guys searching for? A review? I have promised my mom that I will enforce a blanket ban on profanity and unparliamentary or abusive language.

CHOICE IS A BEAUTIFUL THING. THE CHOICE IS YOURS:


 OR
 I'M DONE

Sunday, June 26, 2011

180: An ode to randomness

Take a bowl, fill it with wheat flour, add some water and make a paste out of it. Then add a handful of sugar to it. Then take some chilli powder and spice it up. Now add a teaspoon of salt and top it up with finely cut bitter gourd. Now transfer this to your mixer and grind it well. Finally add some tomato sauce, mix well and taste it. How would it taste? Bad and RANDOM? That’s precisely the kind of taste 180 leaves in your mouth after you’re done tasting one half of it.

The first half is an assimilation of half-baked, beautifully captured scenes carrying well-defined characters speaking horribly childish dialogues. The movie’s got some beautiful music by debutant Sharreth, agreed: but does the director have to slip into romantic melody mode every now and then to keep reminding us of the composer’s prowess? Yes, the crew has been gifted with a brilliant cameraman but does the director have to resort to ultra slow mo gimmicks every seventh second to remind us about the overabundance of latest gizmos and gadgets in his camp, especially after the overkill in the IPL? The scene where Nithya Menen goes about clicking pics of the newspaper kids is the height of gimmickry! Priya Anand is hot and a hot heroine is a rare commodity these days. Why didn’t they capitalize on it, especially with so many songs in the movie? Instead we see her crying throughout the movie, the lesser said about her acting the better: what a disgrace!
What was Nithya Menen doing in the movie? Siddarth himself was a big disappointment: the usual flamboyance and the opulence of on-screen energy was definitely missing. His acting too, was surprisingly below par. The movie had a decent storyline going for it but it’s the atrocious screenplay that ruined it.

I loved certain small things about the movie though (spoilers alert): the girl proposing for a change. I am tired of watching men propose. Secondly, Sid’s symbolic re-birth in Varanasi. But one major thing about the movie kept bugging me: fear of death is constant and independent of geographical location. The American Yamadharmaraja (funny fellow, unintended humour) stops haunting Sid as soon as he shifts base to India. Initially, Sid is shown as a person completely flabbergasted, thanks to the medical reports that predict a premature death. There is no emotional angle to it at first; his wife doesn’t come into the frame. It’s just an image of a man unhappy with the supposedly unfair end awaiting him that we get to see: which implies that his premonitions regarding death shouldn’t cease to occur even if he moves to another location because it’s an inner devil that’s haunting him. The inner devil functions independently, with third-party emotions, people and place of existence having no-bearing on it whatsoever. But Sid becomes a different beast once he shifts to India: the happy-go-lucky, live for the moment person with no emotional hindrances, with absolutely no memories about the love of his life.

The purpose of Nithya Menen’s character was bamboozling and if the director intended to make us feel sad for the character at the end of it all, sorry boss: big failure. And I wonder if the box-office result is going to be any different!

Friday, June 17, 2011

BALA DISAPPOINTS! ( an open letter to my idol)

Dear Bala,

Why Bala, why? Why did you make this film? What were you thinking? What were your motives? Every time I witnessed those words “a film by Bala” on screen before today at the end of every movie of yours, I used to be immersed in a sea of sadness and contemplation. But today as I walked out of Rakki cinemas, like I did two years before (spellbound after watching the first show of your Naan Kadavul on the first day), all I could sense was an air of disappointment surrounding me! When all those Mani Ratnam and Gautam Menon fans used to intimidate me and try to convert me to their religion, I used to stand there with all the pride in the world, defending my idol, my hero. But today, here I am, battered and bruised, hapless and helpless. Simply because, the one thing that has been a consistent ingredient in your arsenal was found missing: the storyline!

I still have to give you credit for leaving us petrified and tongue-tied in the last half an hour. I still have to give you credit for taking us back into your dark dens of depression. I still can’t write you off because you can make us gape at the screen in surprise and pleasure as you introduce your hero in the most bizarre way. But I can’t tolerate my favourite director making his protagonist ask his love, “un pant la zip irukka illaya? Zip irukka, appo Ethukku?” I can’t stand a pointless first half which lazes around with not an iota of relevance to the main story, though a normal director can get away citing entertainment value as the reason for providing meaningless comic relief. I can’t stand an array of mostly crass jokes besieging me, though a considerable part of the cinema hall was laughing it out. I must admit that there were a few funny exchanges and rib-ticklers here and there, but I’d definitely and most obviously expect more than inconsistent humour from a man of your stature.

Does this film need romantic interludes? Did the story warrant a guest appearance from a big star? Does “THE” Bala sir need to employ a gimmicky scene to bring out the acting prowess in an actor even though Vishal and Yuvan exploited the opportunity to the hilt? How barefaced can it get? Why did you have to wait for a sizeable 100 minutes before you started narrating your story? Why do you have to look at alternate avenues when you can keep us greedy and asking for more everytime you belt out a movie very much in your comfort zone? Why do you have to deliberately attempt a forced brand of humour when you can effectively intersperse comedy in your mainstream narration. When all the characters who were assumed to be comedians and sidekicks exhibited astounding dimensions and impacted the storyline in a subtle yet substantial way in your earlier ventures, why the indifference and unfair bias in your latest avatar? Why did you have to get the best out of Na.Muthukumar only to leave him high and dry without visual support?

Many people may still find your latest venture appealing, thanks to inspiring performances from Arya and Vishal(surprise, surprise: another actor is born out of the Bala camp.terrfic effort) whose fans may find this a treat. But you have let one of your biggest fans down. I have already started anticipating your next movie because I know you’re only going to come back stronger. I know the wait is going to be a long, as it has always been but I know you’d treat us to a refreshingly vivid spring once the drought is over.
Yours truly,

A Bala fanatic (forever)

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Azhagarsamiyin Guthirai: Whiff of fresh air

There is one big problem with all these filmmakers who set out to make movies with a plot bearing any minor pertinence to social issues of any kind: they can be exceedingly loud in terms of presentation. So much so that, the plot takes a backseat after a point and the director’s urge to communicate his opinion leads to alliteration-laden lengthy monologues. This problem has ruined many regional films that could have been quite a few notches higher on the quality ladder had the treatment been spruced up with a little more innovation.
One such movie was “Katrathu Tamizh”. The debutant director had a very innovative and relevant theme that translated into a loquacious narrative complete with value education lectures towards the end. In an effort to pictorially present an alternate take on the economic reforms that shook India in 1992, the director gifted us a half hour lecture on globalization. Though the theme appealed to me, I personally felt that the director tried too hard to make a different flick: one that tried to be different for the heck of it!  I personally feel cinema being the visual media that it is, messages are best conveyed and appreciated through pictures. Dialogues play a very vital role but being a little stingy and conservative on that count can only enhance the charm. I’d prefer a graphic representation, visual depiction to a lengthy lecture any day.
That’s exactly why Azhagarsamiyin Guthirai is a gem. It’s a light hearted take on the various superstitions and the social evils that plague remote villages in Tamil Nadu. The problems due to these unscientific practices are part of the storyline i.e. they don’t appear as sidetracks thus making multi-Para monologues unnecessary. Yes, the movie features controversial issues like inter-caste marriages, satirical digs on meaningless rituals, fortune-telling and black magic, superstitions and the like. But at no point does the audience or the director feel the need to tag along a scene in which the protagonist transforms the village with his oratory skills. On the contrary, one of the central characters in the movie, an iconoclast in love with a female of another caste, is shown to be a person who openly sneers at tradition but doesn’t feel the need advocate his views to change the world around him simply because he doesn’t see a point and lacks the belief that things are going to change. He prefers to whisper wisecracks to his friends who echo his thoughts or mouth a one-liner to a police inspector who appears to be bewildered by the omnipresence of ignorance around him. These verbal tickles and the smile that they bring on your lips are definitely more effective than those verbosely sermons.
Satire is another interesting feature in ASK. Be it the director projecting his hilarious intent through the scenes mocking at fortune-tellers, the villagers performing shockingly funny rituals and investing in thoroughly unscientific beliefs in the name of god as the iconoclasts have fun watching them or the sarpanch and his sidekicks getting embarrassed in the process of hunting for funds, the sarcasm is of the highest order. The dialogues are crisp and explosive. Sample this: “dai ithu saami guthirai. ithu un guthirai than nu sollarthukku unkitta enna Saatchi iruku?”
“ithu saami guthira than nu solrathukku unga kitta enna Saatchi irukku?”
The best part about ASK is that it’s not preachy. Total abstinence from fanaticism is an astounding feature: nobody is deemed perfect; at no point does the director point fingers at a person and tell us that this is how you got to lead your life. He examines the beauty of various characters, marvels at the splendour of diversity and depicts the pleasurable chaos that reigns as a result. The movie seems to be glorifying pragmatism and rationalism at certain junctures, the group of suspecting, sceptical youth start becoming a little larger-than-life and heroic: but just when you start feeling that way, the director comes up with a comical scene in which a kiddo makes a fool of these ostensibly smart men, indicating that no one or nothing is foolproof.
Another interesting aspect that’s been highlighted is the plight of rationalists in the society. Just because they speak against the conventional motion, they’re dubbed as real life villains. (I know people who hate Kamal Haasan and Karunanidhi because they are atheists!) Rationalists rarely care about the indifference they are subjected to, but this movie makes a conscious effort to underline the fact that people with alternate ideologies can be humanitarians too. Though I have come across many militant atheists who speak passionately about atheism and are fanatic about it and make it a religion like cliché in the process, I also know of people who are open to arguments and know to respect an alternate faith at the same time as long as it’s not imposed on them. The climax is a beautiful exhibition, an honour crowned upon the people of the second kind.
But the most enjoyable character in the movie was definitely appukutty dude! I find him cute in his own way and he’s a pretty good actor too: I loved his introduction scene where he runs at the sight of his horse as Ilayaraja gives us goosebumps with his background score. The tinge of innocence and a conscious effort to not hurt others in spite of overt love for his horse has been gracefully portrayed. The emotions in the scenes involving appukutty have worked wonderfully.
Ilayaraja is a different beast in this movie: we see a contemporary version of the maestro. The lengthy orchestrations are replaced by brief strumming and strategically placed fill-ins though he does dig out scenes to exhibit his traditional genius. The songs are a little below par but they are a treat when you watch it on-screen with a little visual help. The cheeky interludes still evoke that occasional smile on your lips.
To sum it up, the film’s a breezy piece of visual poetry that’s sure to invigorate you!

Friday, June 10, 2011

Aaranya Kaandam review: Weird yet striking!

Aaranya kandam is a very tough movie to rate, review or define. The movie is weird and the treatment is “Tarantino”ish. The splash of yellow with the occasional sprinkle of red or black aptly characterizes the movie throughout and effectively amplifies the impact. Two things set Aaranya kandam apart: the movie scores a big zero as far as the entertainment quotient is concerned. The movie doesn’t have songs, leave alone item numbers: something I personally found refreshing but I’m not sure if everyone’s going to like it that way.
 Secondly, the director takes his own sweet time to sketch his characters and elucidate their demeanours and their ideals. The elaborate detailing adds to the final impact but if you are one of those guys who wants to go to the movie hall, sit back and have some fun, the movie is going to be a little rough on you: the experience is a challenge and calls for unbridled attention. Certain essential scenes can be dead boring but if the viewer doesn’t twitch and turn and stays focussed, he will find the director to magnanimous in terms of deliverance of cinematic ecstasy.
The movie flies high on the back of some terrific on-screen renditions from unexpected quarters, haunting BGM and sound effects, fireworks in the form of hilarious dialogues and a screenplay that’s reminiscent and fascinating as dark poetry. The intertwining of the dialogues and the screenplay, the process of the two getting together and making love on-screen as the story is unravelled is one significant feature that makes the film-lover in you jump in joy. The wise-cracks and the one-liners glitter with belligerence, sample these: “anney, yaar kooda ney pesiturnthinga? Anniyaa?” “illa, un *unni”
dai unga appa va naan kapatharaen da, yaen naa unga appava kadathinavanga thaan yaen pondatti ah yum kadathirkaanga”
“katna pondattiya vey ozhunga vachchikka thuppu illa, ithula nee enga appava kaapathaporiyaa?”
The BGM is another aspect that elevates the experience: the theme music that plays at various junctures when the emotions run high, the radio that keeps playing in the backdrop (ilayaraja’s best as usual: it’s becoming a trend to play his stuff in all movies) and the sound effects spice up proceedings wonderfully. The casting is kickass: Jackie Shroff as the menacing, repulsive bad ass, Vijay as the satirical thug, the smart kid who mouths memorable dialogues, his good-for-nothing dad, Sampath as the roughie with a heart, Ravikrishna as sappa, the girl who plays Jackie’s concubine and all the others who play small-yet-significant roles (gajendran and gajapathy, the fortune-teller etc.) have seemingly had a field day donning their respective vivid hats. I was particularly impressed with the lone female in the movie.
But the biggest winner at the end of it all is the storyline: what a beauty! The setting, the build-up, the evolution of characters and the climax: every single aspect is brought out poetically with detailing at its graceful best! The basic theme itself is refreshing, the director intelligently not refraining to proverbial endings. It’s a beautiful take on mankind: it takes guts to point out that everything is secondary to desires and that survival is mankind’s most basic instinct. There’s nothing right or wrong about any deed or activity and it all comes down to perception.  It’s a gangster flick that doesn’t feature fat goons exploding at 140 decibels, a story in which the baddies don’t thirunthify towards the end. More than everything else, it re-defines “different”. It’s a lesson for all those film-makers who claim to have made different cinema after burdening their works with cliches. Ambition reaches dizzy heights, thanks to Thyagarajan Kumararaja and S.P.charan! It’s time for you to honour them by watching it at the nearest theatre.   

Monday, April 25, 2011

KO- THE REAL STORY

Ko is this recently released Tamil flick that I stumbled up on while lazing around near the theatres this weekend. It is definitely not the run-of-the-mill story you usually encounter in Tamil cinema. Ko brims with novelty throughout and it strikes you right away as you run through the character sketching. It has a never-seen-before larger-than-life central character who happens to be a journalist, a hot chick playing a “loosu ponnu” character (@director sir: hats off sir! Originality reaches new heights, thanks to you), it has a damsel-in-distress, an aspiring student-politician, two corrupt politicians (Prakash Raj and Kota Srinivas Rao! Brilliant casting by the director. Instead of giving these central roles to accustomed faces, he has bequeathed the responsibility of donning these roles on actors who have never ever played similar roles in their lives) with zero civic sense surrounded by braided goondas and Tata Sumos, a witness who turns hostile owing to political pressure and so on.
The best thing about Ko is that, at no point is logic compromised. There are certain unbelievably believable scenes like the hero somersaulting in his bike as he captures thugs in action with his camera, the bike emerging brand new after being crushed to an excruciating death in the preceding scene, a character triggering a bomb as he flies off a podium in slow motion after being forcefully pushed by another, a chief minister single-handedly trying to handle an emergency as the police and the rest of the defence ministry gleefully concur to his orders etc... The songs by Harris Jayaraj are scintillating to say the least and at no point do they remind you of his previous scores. There is a mystic touch about his re-recording and two deaf people who came to see the movie also claim to have HEARD the background score! The editing is incredibly crisp and unlike other movies, the placement of the songs is extremely precise, compulsory in fact! Any director who doesn’t pack his crew off to a foreign locale for a romantic jig featuring the lead pair after a bomb blast scene must be a fool!
The unbelievable degree of cinematic uniqueness inspired me to find out details about the making of Ko, its maker and its characters. To my surprise, I discovered that KV Anand is a schizophrenic, a film maker who TRIES to behave like Shankar, Mani Ratnam, Murugadoss, Gautham etc at different junctures. He also has hallucinations about afterlife and is so obsessed and addicted to concepts pertaining to the same. He has this tendency of extruding and extending his thoughts to tinsel town as well. So all his characters are KV’s perceptions of what they would have been, had they been given a second chance to live on earth!
Jeeva’s character is “Muthalvan” Arjun’s afterlife. All his yesterlife Karma are settled in this life of his. Firstly, he didn’t want to become CM in his previous life though he wanted to live a life brimming with abundant political activity. So he safely plays second fiddle. Next, he didn’t like his parents meeting with an early end. Hence he prefers to “virtually” kill them than “really” bomb them to death by giving them not more than one scene. Thirdly, he didn’t enjoy riding his bike to a long distance village too much to meet his gal and so Manisha’s afterlife Karthika is made to work in his own office! Fourthly, he was seen in tears after the Sushmita Sen item number got over in his previous life. He so badly wanted her to be his second heroine in that life. So Sush is reborn as Piaa and gets to do the item number as well be the second heroine. So, it’s evident that there is a method in KV’S madness. Arjun’s spirit retains its core competencies and its soul is found to be very much intact though, strongly reaffirming the obsession of KV’s psyche with the concept of rebirth and afterlife. Jeeva is as passionate about photography as Arjun. He’s honest, young, vibrant and agile, thus confirming his origin.
Now coming to KV again, his pitiable mental condition is ubiquitous and glaring in certain scenes. Only, the naive viewer is so engrossed in watching the genius unravel onscreen that he fails to notice the unique psyche of the creator. While canning the first scene (the bank robbery), the director was seen to be behaving like Lingusamy. The director, known for his command over the language was found pronouncing the word action as “ak-san”, exactly the way Lingu is known to pronounce it! The sequence has been shot the way Lingu would have shot it: it’s fast, racy and its over before you know it.
Though KV exhibits shades of different personalities at different points in time, he is known to behave and act like Shankar most of the time. Every time he flew to a foreign location to shoot a song, he spoke, ate and even slept like Shankar it seems. The results are overwhelmingly visible in the picturization of songs: like songs in Shankar’s films, the songs are a slideshow of pictures that have been usurped from the downloaded winrar file “100 best HD wallpapers” from the webshots site and the videos of Jeeva and Karthika dancing have been superimposed over them. The glass sculptures, lush green meadows, the mountains and the rivers have been captured just as Shankar would have captured them. The director seems to have been in a state of mental trauma while canning the scenes involving participation of students in politics. He seems to have vacillated between Mani’s and Shankar’s characters.
Another facet of KV’s self is revealed in a scene where different students from different academic disciplines unite for a social cause. K sababathy, a veteran technician who has worked in every film that Murugadoss has directed, just sent me a mail stating that he saw Murugadoss in every movement, every twitch and turn of his, in KV when he was canning those sequences. K kanakasabapathy, another veteran technician from Gautham Menon’s camp recollects watching a “gauthamed” KV when he was shooting the college flashback scene and the song therein. K manikkasabapathy, KKK’s son, a sound engineer who has worked with Yuvan adds a new speculative dimension claims that he saw a glint in Harris’ eye when he was composing the college song in Ko which resembled the spark that he saw in Yuvan’s eye when he was composing “dosth bada dosth” for venkatprabu!
Finally, i’d like to add that the above article is meant to be very serious and has been published after extensive research. It’s as serious and sincere as KV Anand’s Ko! It contains nothing but the truth. I’d like to end this by adding some spicy and red hot breaking news that i received via sms just now: KV’s finalised the script for his next movie: its going to be a totally different experience for the tamil audience: it illustrates the rise of a poor low caste guy who speaks nasty tamil into a multi-millionaire after braving rich upper caste villains. Amazing, novelty is synonymous with KV sir! Kudos KV sir.

Friday, January 14, 2011

AADUKALAM:OF BATTLES, ON AND OFF THE FIELD

After fighting an enduring battle outside the theatre to get myself a ticket, I entered the cinema hall, battered and bruised, all set for Aadukalam nevertheless. The ambience was just right; I was watching a movie in a village after a long time as I hadn’t booked tickets in advance. The mood of the people around seemed to be in blissful confluence with the onscreen characters.

The movie starts off with a breezy voiceover by Vetrimaaran, a slide show encapsulating the history of rooster-fighting making up the background. As the title suggests, the movie is about battlefields and the fights that are orchestrated on and off the same. It’s also a tale of pride, ego, confidence, revenge and infidelity.

Rooster fighting forms the backbone of the movie; the movie see-saws through the lives of characters in the heart of Madurai who are solely dependent on the same for livelihood. The resulting possessiveness about the “art”, the honour and pride that comes with it proves to be Aadukalam’s Aadukalam. The characters, their emotions and their actions are chiseled in accordance with the happenings on the battle-field!

Everything that happens as a result of the battlefield endeavors and results make perfect sense; they take the movie towards the rightful destination modeled on realism. But it’s the side-tracks and the romantic interludes that fail to strike a chord. The romance in this movie can be compared to that in “7g”: in both cases, the heroine accepting the hero’s proposal seems impossible just because the female leads in both the movies find their respective pairs repulsive initially; also for the simple reason that their characters are diametrically opposite and so are their family backgrounds. The scenes outlining the lead actress’s disgust for the hero are so strong in both the movies that, though the directors of the respective movies try very hard to make us comprehend to the ensuing battle of love between the two at an emotional level, they fail. But I have to add that Vetri’s effort to fool us with his romantic fantasy has surely met with more success than Selva’s.
Acting is reason enough to give this movie a shot. I loved the old man who plays “Pettaikaran” more than Dhanush in this flick. Dhanush’s acting prowess, especially in the movies where he plays the “locallu” guy is well known. To emulate Dhanush and make a mark when Dhanush is playing his favourite character takes a lot of effort and surprisingly, the old man seems to have done it with graceful ease. Having said that, Dhanush himself has come up with a cracker of a performance. He reverberates with oodles of energy scene after scene and after Selva, Dhanush seems to be very comfortable working with Vetri! The partnership is a success again. Kishore is another asset to the team.

GV has come up with beautiful songs for the movie and they have beautifully blended with the mood; the placement of the songs warrant mention. The BGM though, didn’t appeal to me. It seemed very repetitive and monotonous. Editing is one big letdown in this movie: I wonder why our filmmakers are so intent on stretching a movie to 150 minutes and beyond. To make things worse, a lot of scenes have been scissored abruptly. Aadukalam is what it is solely because of its screenplay. The emotions have worked wonderfully well and the innovative engineering of a plethora of reactions around the red-hot core of rooster fighting made for intriguing viewing. The computer generated rooster fights have come out very well and the level of interest here is sure to keep the audience on seat edges. Lighting seems to be another neglected element in the movie, with the director making it difficult for us to differentiate between characters in a few scenes. Apparently, the director has employed this technique to reflect the emotions; but he needn’t have done it to this extent! It also takes the sheen of the otherwise flawless cinematography. One big surprise in Aadukalam was the disappearance of a seemingly important character after the end of the first half, who was apparently used only for the build up.

To sum it up, Aadukalam is refreshingly innovative and deserves applause for Vetrimaran’s eye for excruciating detail and desire for perfection. The movie is not without its set of flaws though. Go enjoy this flick and raise the bar on your expectation meter for Vetrimaran’s next venture! Hope he comes up with such innovative themes devoid of clichés in the future.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Lost and forgotten

2010 turned out to be a highly satisfying year for the Tamil film industry. As box office success stories were scripted one after another, producers went laughing all the way to the bank. A lot has been said and written about these movies. But a lot of commendable efforts went down the drain too. Genuine hard work miraculously escaped the discerning eyes of the critics; failure at the box-office added insult to injury. A look at the unfortunate underachievers of 2010:
1. Porkalam: Ten minutes into this movie, I realised that I was in for something different, though I wasn’t sure if the movie viewing experience was going to be a satisfying one. The bizarre cinematography, the confusing colour tones and the insanely illogical screenplay backed by the disturbingly imposing imagery received a judicious justification by the end of the first half! Every missing chunk, every seemingly non-reasonable action of the characters acquired new meaning as turbidity made way for supreme clarity and excruciating detail. What possibly worked against the movie was the clichéd second half. The minimal dialogues that made viewing such a pleasurable experience gave way to a badly narrated flashback. A disappointingly scripted climax, festooned with formulae followed. Nevertheless, the overall movie experience was good and the movie surely deserved more than what it got.
2. Aayirathil oruvan: Though this one was mediocre at the box-office, thanks to its celebrity director and an enviable star cast, the movie got a rough deal from the critics. I’m yet to recover from the shock that I experienced when I saw that a “top” movie website had given it half on a scale of five! The sheer scale of the movie and the ambition of the director deserve mention. The whole film industry shamelessly went gaga about Endhiran whereas they unanimously chose to ignore the eruption of a classic among their ranks. While the whole film industry is fuming over the inability of today’s directors to churn out a script depicting the problems faced by the Eezham, Selvaraghavan quietly did it quite effectively and indirectly in the closing scenes of the movie. The superbly composed and meticulously written “Thai thinra manne” is one of the most under-rated songs of the year. Another heart-warming thing about this epic is that, it placed the spirit of Tamil at the centre of everything. I felt shame when I realised that I couldn’t understand my own mother-tongue completely when it was spoken the way it’s got to be. On the flip-side, Selva paying scant heed to the diction of the lead actresses in the first half of the movie was disappointing. So many cogent and powerful voices speak volumes about the importance of Tamil dialogues in Tamil cinema but hardly does anyone implement it. And when a director as significant as Selva did it, all the big-mouths slipped into hibernation mode!
3. Naanayam: Films based on bank robberies are not new to the world of cinema but it’s certainly something that’s hardly put its head up in Tamil cinema. Though this movie was laden with a few avoidable sequences, it certainly had scenes brimming with novelty. The interesting casting and the impressive background score added sparkle to the proceedings.
4. Vamsam: The director of “Pasanga” returned with “Vamsam” and the result was an intriguingly scripted drama which had its share of witty humour. A tale that narrated the history of various communities and the importance of retaining the pride of the same, the oft-seen climax involving a one on one tussle between the hero and the baddie proved to be its undoing.
5. Mandhira punnaghai: This psychological drama stood out for its inventive character sketching and dialogues. The protagonist reminded me of the lead character in Ayn Rand’s “fountainhead” and the concept of imagining non-existent characters brought back memories of “The beautiful mind” and our own “Kudaikkul Mazhai”. Though the influences are obvious, the treatment remains novel. Had the director worked on the casting and an alternate climax, this one could have been one of the many success stories of this year
6. Goa: The movie on the outset was a highly boring one and many jokes fell flat. But the expansive scope for a homosexual character was one of the few highlights of the movie. Cheers to the director solely for being bold enough!
7. IKMS: Yet another movie with a novel theme. Worth a watch purely for the satire factor. Compromises aplenty and a carelessly woven screenplay, the deft final touches and editor’s scissors were found wanting.
There were a lot of other films I missed out on. Orr iravu, Thaen maerku paruva kaatru to name a few, which “others” reckon, are pretty good. Sad that good attempts occasionally fall out! I sincerely hope people recognise novel attempts this New Year and such underachievers effectively pull off the disappearing act!

Monday, December 27, 2010

“SU(O)N” RISE


The year 2010 is drawing to a close and while the process of the curtains being pulled down is going on in full swing, the focus of my mind strolled towards a rather alarming yet unaddressed trend that’s erupting in Kodambakkam. Yes, this year will remain etched in the memories of our fellow beings as a year of corruption and hence I perceive that the media had a lot of other important things to talk about. I happened to come across an article recently, when I was busy getting myself ready for a morning show of “Red giant movies” Manmadan ambu”, which proclaimed that Karunanidhi had famously announced that his assets accounted to just “5.65 crores” and that he neither had any benamis nor had he sponsored any financial venture involving anyone else. Alright!
As I rode to the theatre, my thoughts wavered between the movie I was going to watch and the article that I had read that morning till a point of convergence was arrived upon. I started thinking about the producer of the movie I was going to watch that day, who also happens to be one of MK’s grandsons. The flow of thoughts refused to ebb. I started analyzing the success of other Tamil movies. Most of them had one thing in common: they had been sponsored by one of the three sons of the “sun” fraternity. The big three I’m referring to are: “Kalanidhi Maran”, son of the late Murasoli Maran, “Dayanidhi Azhagiri”, son of MK Azhagiri and “Udhayanidhi Stalin”, son of deputy CM of TN, MK Stalin.
The first one’s a media baron whereas the other two assumed charge of two of the biggest production and distribution houses in TN immediately after college. Well, that makes it a sensational story: the kind of financial upsurge that was experienced by only a select few: Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook fame, Sarath Kumar in the movie Suryavamsam and Rajinikanth in Annamalai and many of his other movies. Mark’s story is out in filmy form as The Social Network, but a film on how the children of Tamil Nadu’s first family mastered the art of becoming kings of the Tamil film production industry is yet to be made. Perhaps, the sons themselves would end up acting and producing the movie and I presume it’ll serve as a source of inspiration for thousands of poor youth; they’d be made to believe that a monumental rise is after all, not impossible. Logically, these “sons” should have started from scratch as MK says he never sponsored a third party business, even if it involves his family (which is incidentally contributing monolithically to the population explosion): MK is to be believed no doubt, cos MK is an honourable man. And so are the others, cos they’re all all honourable men.
The story is even more awe inspiring because the success rate of the “big” production houses is astounding. “Cloud nine” has a success rate of 80% with four of the five movies that it has distributed so far turning out to be super hits. “Red giant” has a success rate of 85.71% with six out of seven of his films turning out to be hits. “Sun pictures” has a success rate of 68.75% with eleven of their 16 endeavours proving profitable. We also have to take notice of the fact that “Sun Pictures” have produced two movies produced by actor Vijay, who seems to be having a horrendous run at the box office with a record five flops on the trot due to his horrible selection of scripts; he also seems to have run out of luck, which has often been instrumental in his occasional success. Hence Sun pictures’ success rate can be approximated to 78.5%.
All the aforementioned numbers seem orotund when we consider the fact that only 12% of the total movies that release in a year become hits. One family controls the whole Tamil cine industry, an analogy to the political scenario prevailing in Tamil Nadu! I also happened to notice another disturbing fact: an unassuming look at the list of movies that have been “made” hits by the all-powerful trio left me shell shocked. The fact that movies like Thenavattu, Masilamani, Aadhavan are able to churn out oodles of money due to “intelligent” promotion tactics, underlines the abysmal state of Tamil cinema. It’s plain and simple: the success or failure of a movie doesn’t depend on the actor or the director; it plainly depends on the house that’s producing the flick. “They” have monopolized the industry.
One important yet unlikely beneficiary of this monopoly seems to be another son! A son who’s not related to the “sun” fraternity; actor Sivakumar’s son Suriya (sun)! Suriya’s last five flicks have been produced or distributed by the terrific trio of the industry, which seems to have had a major influence on the outcome of the movies. His acting capabilities and adroitness at choosing scripts is unquestionable though one would be tempted to attribute the extent of success of his movies to the production houses.
A resolution stating that “big” advertisements in newspapers are supposed to be given out only on milestone days like the day of the release, audio release, 25th day, fiftieth day etc was passed in the producers’ council. It now looks like that bill has gone to the dumps. The trio is also having a ball by rigorous and continuous promotion on self-owned TV channels. Special shows featuring the stars, screening of the movie trailer every five minutes, repeated playing of the movie songs on their respective music channels have only ensured that 110 small budget films produced by “others” are still lying in the cans.
The trio has thus managed to seal the fates of small-time producers who dream of making it big. On the flipside, keeping the legality of the money that’s being used by these concerns to produce flicks aside, they have the capacity to constructively contribute to the growth of the industry by shelling out the big bucks to produce big budget movies so that the Indian dream of producing a movie of “Hollywood” quality can be realized someday. That again, is a debatable issue!
But we got to realize that the power is in our hands: regardless of the publicity, we get to choose whether to watch or to not watch a movie. Decide. Intelligently…