Peraanmai

Cast: Jayam Ravi, Urvasi, Ponvannan, Saranya, Vadivel Music: Vidyasaagar, Director: S P Jananathan

What do you need in order to make a great film, well, let's just say a good film? A novel, interesting story, good performances, and good intentions from the director? Even a 'message to the society' for a good measure? Peraanmai has many of these, above all a well-intentioned director genuinely wanting to make good cinema. We all feel that it should have been sufficient and the output would be terrific.

Alas, that has been proven dreadfully insufficient with this film which utterly fails to work in almost all departments. As you wearily watch the film slip away, for once you long for directors like Hari or Murugadoss or Dharani. They would have pepped up this story enormously, given it the edge it so desperately lacks. Movies such as this rub in the face of the people who question the skills and capabilities of the directors who are dedicated to churning out mainstream mass entertainers. These films make you acknowledge that those are indeed talented directors. They churn out formula fares, but they churn them out well. Such formula-based mass-entertainers rely on tight-scripts, engaging plot narration, cohesive performances and racy editing. Where does Peraanmai stand in this scheme?

In terms of genre, it hovers somewhere between the eighties communist propaganda films to 60s MGR's idealistic series. Director Jananathan doesn't believe in subtleties when it comes to exhibiting his ideologies. On the contrary, he literally rubs it in your face so hard that often it churns out unintended laughter. Take a scene where the protagonist and the five girls set up a tent and spend the night in the middle of the forest. They light up camp fire and he settles with a book in front of the tent to guard them. What was his camping read? Das Kapital. Even for an ardent leftist, I can recommend a lot of interesting books to carry for your forest expedition.

Those eighties communist films had a social purpose. Be it by Balachander or Sridhar Rajan they were sincere in their anger and also the socio-economic conditions of society then justified such anger. Jananthan's protagonist is merely a two-dimentional cardboard character feebly reflecting the director's personal leanings that are neither justified by the plot compulsions nor by the social conditions. Therefore the film neither works as an angry young man's tale nor as a mass-entertainer. And let's get this very clear: There's still social need for angry man's tales but today, they require far more intellectual depth than they did in the eighties. Merely flaunting a book won't just do, except that you'll be bored to death in the forest.

Pasanga

Director: Pandiraj
Music: James Vasanthan
Cast: Kishore, Sri Ram, Pandian, Tharani

Why don’t movies like Pasanga get grand opening or pre-release hype that movies like Aadhavan or Kandasamy get? Why do we rush to the theatre or the DVD shop the moment these 'blockbusters' are released even though we are inherently doubtful about how good these would be? On the other hand, even though we see movies like Pasanga stacked at DVD shelves for quite a while, we hesitate to pick it up until one of our friends strongly recommends it?

We will never know the answers to these questions. We wouldn't need to either because movies like Pasanga will never get such pre-release hype. This is not just Tamil Nadu but is an international phenomenon. Movies like Gran Tornio will never get the openings commanded by Harry Potter or Spider Man. We will often rush to reserve the first day tickets for Harry Potter and end up renting out DVDs of Gran Torino. These are inevitable. What should be heart-warming is that movies like Gran Torino get made and reviewed favourably.

Watching Pasanga – other than the filmic experience it provides – was a similar heart-warming experience because the Tamil Industry – despite rotten manure like Kandasamy raking in crores – allows such movies to be made. The Tamil audience should be thankful to Balu Mahendra not just for the kinds of films he made but for spawning an institution from which directors after directors who are out to transform Tamil Cinema are emerging. Bala, Vetrimaaran, Ameer, Ram, Sasikumar, etc. And these directors are carrying the torch further and seems to be really in a hurry to topple trends. Encouraged perhaps by Sasikumar, Pandiraj, Cheran’s disciple has dared to venture into something unheard of in the Tamil industry: A children’s film.

Pasanga attempts brave storytelling and uses parodied humour as the form of entertainment, a typical Bala instrument. The story revolves around a bunch of kids and their joy, struggle, ordeal and triumphs. There are of course characters who are adults and their life obviously is affected by what is happening to the children in the movie. The characters are real, grounded and well realised. But many situations are melodramatic. This combination of pitting real characters against the melodrama, a technique invented by Barathiraja, is actively employed here to create some entertaining moments. A tad clichéd climax brings on the necessary conclusion to complete the experience. The charged music with constant reference to 'mass-entertainer' elements add to the required entertainment. The result is a powerful parody, high comedy and, well, in a nutshell the Bala cinema.

Another delightful aspect was that Pasanga knowingly or not, satirises all the so-called 'mass masala' entertainers. Especially in the first twenty minutes, the film seriously parodies the mass hero phenomenon that is at once hilarious and another level humiliating.

Pasanga works as a children's film at one level, filling in the long overdue gap in Indian cinema. Children’s films in India often end up being either tacky or preachy. Pasanga effectively overcomes that barrier. It is a clean, fun-filled, entertaining children's film on the lines of Children of Heaven or even the Apu Trilogy. Many ardent Satyajit Ray fans are going to be terribly angry at this comparison but damn them. They don't know the harsh realities of the Tamil film industry.

And finally, a very interesting feature in the film is the progress of the story through the four seasons. The story starts during April, summer, and also the start of the academic year and progresses through monsoon, autumn, and winter and till the end of the academic year. Mise-en-scene is a cinematic technique that refers to using non-actor elements such as lighting, environment, settings, and objects to aid storytelling. Mise-en-scene, pronounced as 'miss-en-sen' is the feature almost completely missing in our mainstream mass entertainers. In Pasanga, the seasons are used effectively to aid storytelling just like how the eighties Madurai was used in Subramaniapuram.

Pasanga is interesting, hilarious, and one of the important films of the year. Director Pandiraj, just like every member of Balu Mahendra institution, is the one to watch out for. They won't need a Diwali opening. Regardless of how much we are going to hesitate picking their movies up from DVD shelves, they are going to continue to make films like Pasanga and Subramaniapuram. And there are going to be friends nudging you in Facebook to watch those movies.

That’s good enough.

Aadhavan

Director: K S Ravikumar
Music: Harris Jeyaraj
Cast: Suriya, Nayanthara, Murali, Vadivelu, Sayaji Shinde

It would be apt to start on the thread left in the previous review: Comedy Tracks. What would we do without them? And what our so called Mass Masala Entertainers would do if there was legislation restricting these tracks?

There are films with comedy tracks running as separate strands unlinked to the main story. Often times the main protagonists won’t even know that there’s a comedian interrupting their story. This does not take much effort from the director or screenwriter’s point of view. They can simply write a main script without any other consideration and later insert the comedy relief wherever necessary. There were times when a separate writer is commissioned to pen the comedy tracks. Perhaps this is still being practiced.

The other, perhaps much harder, technique is to try to blend comedy within the main narration. In here, the protagonist knows the comedian or the protagonist themselves work with the designated comedian to evoke laughter in the movie halls. This is considered harder work because the main narration is usually the serious one and blending jokes within would be risky. It requires experienced directors to employ this.

K S Ravikumar certainly is one of the highly experienced and it is a known fact that comedy comes naturally to him. It is quite evident in Aadhavan that has probably one of the best utilised roles for Vadivelu. Thanks to his presence, you almost fail to notice that there is something serious going on in the main story. Even if you did notice, you sincerely hope it turns out comical to enable Vadivelu or other assigned comedians in the film to poke fun at it. Surely enough there are plenty of such opportunities.

Funnily, there are even some unintended moments of laughter in the narration. When the ambitious but botched up job of Suriya as a child is realised, when Saroja Devi in her squeaky voice delivers some melodramatic lines in feigned sincerity, or when the father cries out to his son from within a car suspended in the air by a crane. The serious attempts turn into funny moments.

Neither the director or the producer of the film would be really bothered about how the audience respond to these scenes as long as some form of entertainment is realised in the halls. The audience though won’t be complaining about Suriya or K S Ravikumar. They are, however, going to praise Vadivelu on his ability to evoke laughter by merely standing in the frame. Why do we bother that we don’t care much about the characters and the consequences? In an ironic sense, the rules of Mass Masala Entertainer dictates that the audience shouldn’t be ‘disturbed’ much emotionally and only ‘entertained’. This requirement is achieved in ample quantities in Aadhavan. So why bother?

And finally, with a huge sigh of relief, may god bless the person who invented comedy tracks!

Kandasamy

Director: Susi Ganesan
Music: Devi Sri Prasad
Cast: Vikram, Shriya, Prabhu, Vadivel, Ashish Vidyarthi

Whatever happened to characterisation? Whatever happened to the love of cinema and plain simple storytelling? More than anything else, whatever happened to the eyesight of the Tamil audience? Just when we thought that the disorienting, music video editing trend is not, well, a trend but just a fad, here comes another film that has more than three hours of material edited with fast, interlaced frames, and within those frames, colours change, images blur, get washed out as a method of storytelling. Kandasamy follows the latest Tamil film making practice of conveying very little through characterisation, acting, or mis-en-scene. When a character is shocked, the frame is washed off colour for a couple of seconds. A character duped would have the frame shaken. Almost every department of storytelling is limited not by the creative capabilities of the director but by the features available in the latest version of Final Cut Pro, the de facto editing software.

The result is a severe headache, temporary loss of vision, and the terrible loss of story thread, if such a thing was available. So we wondered how the land acquisition problem was sorted out so quickly by a mere CBI audit, how the biggest businessman was nailed down before the last reel in such a tearing hurry and whatever happened to the other businessman with a paralytic attack? Please remember that this reaction is the result of a DVD view where the movie was amply paused, multiple breaks taken, songs forwarded, a few snippets rewound and watched again for clarity. Heart shudders at the thought of the effect one would have by watching it on the big screen; without the remote control.

Also, various other details also found missing or lost in the myriad of Final Cut Pro project files. Details such as where does the protagonist live? Where is his family? What are the businesses of the two main antagonists and how do they know each other? The director probably felt that these were absolutely unnecessary to the main story. He was probably right. Perhaps these details were unnecessary. Perhaps the movie itself was unnecessary. And so was this review.

This review does not even intend to go into the analysis of the story, the banality of its social concern, the poverty pornography it sets out to cash in, the hangover of Shankar, the hangover that was associated with a splitting, debilitating headache, and the message it seems to espouse, which we missed because again, it apparently got lost in the hard drive among the millions of edited frames.

And finally, whoever invented the feature called comedy track, thank god for that person. What a relief they were in this film.

P.S:
Here’s a sincere request to Chief Minister Karunanidhi. ‘Sir, ever since you have taken charge, you have been actively involved in the affairs of the film industry, more so than of any other industry in the state. You have passed various bills in the interest of the perceived welfare of the public, such as taxing the films with non-Tamil names. Here's another bill you can pass, this time in the real interest: Ban the usage of editing software from Tamil films, and with immediate effect, and order all the filmmakers to return to linear, manual editing. Thank you in advance. Yours faithfully, The Reviewer.’

Naadodigal

A Balachandar type narrative introduction does not set the tone of the story. Just like the title, the introductory scenes too are misleading. One expects the three lead characters’ plight of faltering career ambitions to unfold into a story like 80s weltschmerz quasi-communist flicks such as Nizhalgal or Varumayin Niram Sigappu. Also, the lead actor Sasikumar’s dark tale Subramaniapuram fresh in mind, one expects a similar brooding or serious story. Surprisingly, Naadodigal is actually an action packed story about three close friends trying to help one of their friends unite with his girl. With some expected and unexpected twists later, the tale ends with a heavy, culturally flawed, yet convenient propaganda about love, friendship, and society.

What strikes instantly about Naanodigal is the dramatised and poorly inspected acting. Almost every performer, save Nallamma (Ananya), acts self-consciously much to the discomfort of the viewer. The problem lies mainly with the director’s possible lack of attention to details. The errors are much easier to notice in the initial scenes when the story doesn’t pick up pace.

By the time you’re willing to overlook that, Naadodigal tells a really interesting story in a totally unexpected angle. That’s primarily the strength of the film, which covers up for the most other sore points, especially the acting. About Sasikumar, except his deep and phlegmatic gaze – which worked well in Subramaniapuram and still does – everything else he does seems like what we have seen in Doordharshan plays from the eighties. Some really clichéd elements too adorn the screen. Sample 1: how do you get a girl to fall in love with you? You threaten her that you’ll throw yourself into the sea. And when she refuses? Of course you jump. Sample 2: when you narrate your sad story of failing love, your friends are supposed to stand upon a hillock at different directions in deeply introspecting poses!

With all these, it is still difficult to be critical to Naadodigal beyond a point. There is something, something, perhaps the story, or the interesting twist, or even the lengthy climactic advice doled to the next generation lovers! Or perhaps one has a soft corner for Sasikumar that’s clouding the judgment. Or may be such things really happen in rural Tamil Nadu, so such counselling is needed, and hence this film itself is needed.

But then one final question to the director: The movie was very interesting and even hilarious at times Mr Samudirakani. But what is your point?

And what is with the title?

Two Great Films, One Simple Message

Dasavatharam and Vaaranam Ayiram, two of the biggest films of 2008 were the toast of the Vijay awards, an award function that is being designed, promoted and conducted like an Oscar of Tamil films. Kamal Hassan bagged every important acting award, understandably considering that he donned almost every possible character that is seen in the film. And other technical awards went to Vaaranam Ayiram, the film that was made by the director for his own personal consumption, which means not meant for general public but decided nevertheless to release it, considering the fact that he could make some money on the bargain.

Such scathing remarks on the two films require explanation: Especially when entire Tamil Nadu seems to have gone berserk over them.



First Vaaranam Ayiram: A few questions: What is the relevance of the title with respect to the story? The mother character’s recital of the Andal’s verse in the end remains a mere tokenism and even evoked an unintended laughter. Next: What is the profession of the father, the pivotal character around whom the story is supposed to revolve (but actually revolves around the son)? Why was he struggling to pay for his son’s education? What was his contribution to his son emotionally, intellectually, or even financially? What is the relevance of the lengthy rescue operation in the 'climax' with respect to the story? How does the lengthy detailing of the son’s second romance establish his affection towards his father? There are more questions but it is too tiring to list them out. Tiring for both the writer as well as the reader. If you want a good film about fatherhood, try Thavamai Thavamirundu.



One phrase used by the review in The Outlook magazine sums up Dasavatharam: ‘Prosthetic Torture.’ If anything additional is needed another review by this blogger should help. If neither does, try watching the DVD next time with a condition that you will not fast forward any part!

That these two films received such rave reviews from the media as well as industry is a matter of wondrous speculation. On second thoughts, it’s not because, rooted in sycophancy, the industry is long learned to worship false gods. It’s not just with the industry but a cultural phenomenon because as a society, we graze around superficially and hence lack credible knowledge. We worship Karunanidhi as the Tamil icon when not many critically know the depth of his Tamil knowledge. If you're curious, it's actually very poor.

Besides, there’s a general lack of self-esteem that prevents people from criticising established icons. For instance, what is your achievement in life that you set out to criticise Dasavatharam? This means that unless you act in hundred films, direct a few, and win some awards, you are not eligible to launch scathing attack on something which you believe genuinely inferior.

That reviewing is an independent activity removed of any past achievements of an artist has to be understood. That reviewing is neither an obsequious ode nor a supercilous criticism has to be established. That reviewing is not ‘Hollywood is the best and Indian films are the worst’ attitude should be conveyed through a genuine approach. Finally, reviewing is nothing but the honest record of an audience’s movie watching experience, of an audience who knows a thing or two about movies, of an audience who has grown sick of online reviews.

Hence this blog.