I saw the legend of suriyothai(LS) at last. This is not a movie review. These are observations of the two cultures(thai(ancient siam) and indian(ancient cholas)) that at some point in history were very much interconnected.
Suriyothai, for indians might resonate more like Rani of Jhansi. They are in different positions. In modern terms rani of jhansi would have been a very dynamic single mother who happened to have a kingdom at her disposal. Suriyothai has more protection in the form of a husband who dotes on her and a commander who was her lover during her childhood. She sacrifices her life in the battle with the burmese to save her husband's life.
I wonder at one similarity between LS and ponniyin selvan. Two princesses that are mirror images of each other scheming against each other. Kundhavai and nandhini in ponniyin selvan and Suriyothai and Srisudachan on the other. Similarity of nandhini and srisudachan is very striking. Both of them have husbands who are very powerful but are completely under their wives' influence. Both the husbands realize their folly just as they are about to become irrelevant through death. Both of them actively use their sexuality to get what they want. Both of them end up on the wrong side in the end.
There were times in the movie when the military commander was referred to as senathipathi which is also the tamil term for military commander. Then there were the names. Ayuththaya(ayodhya), athitaya(athithya),suriyothai(suriyothayam). There was the way of prostrating before the emperor or before someone of a higher status than you.
In tamil culture, people pay respect by falling on the ground with their foreheads, knees and toes touching the ground and their arms extended over their head and towards the person they are paying respect to(take a look at any tamilnadu government minister whenever little elephant JJ is in power. Those ministers could have submitted a research paper on soil consistency given the amount of time they spent on the ground). In the movie, people pay their respects by falling on the ground in almost similar fashion but with the hip rather than the knee touching the ground. Son instead of falling headlong on the ground, they have sideways tilt when they are lying on the ground. One addition seems to be the approach. They move on their knees towards the person they are paying respects.
Just goes to show how sometimes looking with rose tinted glasses at achievements of ancient cultures doesnt work well. They were cultures that actively subjugated their people and you were very much under the control of the royal family. How, what, when were all governed by what the royal famiuly could and couldnt find out.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Why, oh why ?
*************Spoiler warning****************************************
Saw the tamil movie Kanaa kandaen (Had a dream). Slickly packaged movie.
The storyline is about how the hero, who has a doctorate from anna university, comes up with a cheapo plan for desalination of water thereby supplying singara chennai with potable water. The traditional banks turn down his application pointing to hare brainedness of the idea. In steps the villain, who happens to be the heroine's classmate from college who offers to fund the model plant. As it turns out, he is one of those lenders who charges exorbitant rates and uses it to get favours of different sorts from the lendees(is this a word?). The finale of the movie is how tamil movie justice is rendered to the villain.
The hero seems to be mired in socialist era thinking of giving away this technology for free which begs the question, how stupid can our heroes be portrayed ? If he is going to give it for free, why would a bank even entertain a loan ? Where would he get the money to pay the loan back? Then again, he is the hero of a tamil movie. He probably is not bright enough to think that way. Taking creative license, the director puts the desalination plant on the beach, as if to say 'If the lack of economic funda doesnt kill the plant, a well-directed tsunami will'. The only reason for putting the plant on the beach was to ensure geographic proximity of sea water supply plus the ready availability of land from the hero's professor. On the flip side, there is the slight matter of screwing up with the environment and public property.
Heroines in tamil movies have always swayed between revolutionaries(usually directed by balachander or someone with a marxist bent(or name), making about .01%) or as sexpots(99.99% of the movies). Here, the director seems to be paying lip service to all those revolutionary characters and at the same time, uses words very effectively to reduce them to sexpots. The revolutionary portion gets over quickly when the heroine sneaks out(with lots of help from her long suffering and sacrificing tamil movie mom
) of her wedding ceremony with the hero to lead a new life in chennai. Hero and heroine have sex before their marriage and casually saunter to the registration office to get married. That was different about this movie. Some sequences would make an entire tamil movie. That puts an end to the revolutionary side of things. On the flip side, there is the usage of the word rape many times to signify the lust between the hero and heroine. How low can tamil movies get ? There is a way to show sensual love between them and using the word rape is definitely not the way to go. The heroine character is showed as chiding the hero for being gentle during the supposed rape. Maybe this is what tamilians keep talking about when they refer to their classical tamil culture(kushboo's comment on premarital sex).
Tamil movies have long used the madonna whore syndrome in characterization of female characters(ignoring mom characters for now). Depending on the storyline, the female characters are divided into those 2 categories. In case of a movie that has only rural background, the heroine is usually clothed from head to toe. The vamp is usually someone with very small chance of landing the hero but a 100% chance of a item number. If it is a story that moves between rural and urban, 9.9 times out of 10, the rural girl is the repository of all the clothing and modesty tamil culture has to offer. The urban girl in this case is usually the projection of the director's fantasies as to what he thinks of women who have made the slightest attempt to be independent themselves. So for every revathy, suvalakshmi,sangeetha there are 5 or more anuradhas, silk smithas, mumtaz...That could also explain the item number concept in tamil movies.
While I can see the marketing reason behind the female characterizations, the item song(target the 18 - ?? male demographic), the producer should also take into account the final product is poorer because of it. It loses out on exploring and showing the female characters closer to real life in tamilnadu. For heavens' sakes, there are enough strong women in tamilnadu and tamil culture in general. The producer might also be losing out economically because of the lack of interest in such a movie from the female base. What started as brilliant marketing from MGR has now been degraded thoroughly.
MGR focussed on the thaaikkulam when that market was wide open. MK(Karunanidhi) and Anna had focussed on tamil literate populations which given the state tamilnadu was in, skewed heavily towards men from 18 onwards. MGR branded himself as the champion of the thaaikkulam and prominently referred to them in his movies. And tamilnadu womenfolk responded by sweeping him to power(Of course, history is never that simple but for the present analysis, I have omitted some details). His movies portrayed thaaikkulam as worthy of respect. He was smart to recognize the effect it would have on the above 18 male base. So, he had female characters that ended up being lectured on screen on tamil culture's traditions by a malayali actor, no less. The lecture came after the female character had danced around in a skimpy and suggestive dress. At the end of his career, he too resorted to the same gimmicks as can be found now. I cannot believe how bad tamil audiences could be. They made hits of movies that had a doddering MGR describing his heroines in songs that would be apt for an adult certificate. The directors and actors who came after him copied those successful methods. Once the times changed, more and more women moved away from the thaaikkulam base. However, tamil directors/producers/actors, being the bright guys they were, kept focussing on the smaller and smaller target group.
Coming back to this movie, the heroine(gopika) plays the madonna portion once we can see past the premarital sex thingy. The hero's professor, a lady, plays the educated urban lady who is much more open. In tamil movie dictionary, that opens her character for all kinds of sexual innuendos that do not get directed towards the heroine character.
The one good thing was the villainy by Prithviraj (malayalam actor). The whole character is 'Dont get angry, get even' kind of one who is forced to get angry at the end because tamil movie storylines demand the hero triumph even if he does everything wrong.
Maybe one of these days, we might see a tamil movie where the female and male characters are closer to real life and not cardboard expressions of the directors' long lost fantasies.
Saw the tamil movie Kanaa kandaen (Had a dream). Slickly packaged movie.
The storyline is about how the hero, who has a doctorate from anna university, comes up with a cheapo plan for desalination of water thereby supplying singara chennai with potable water. The traditional banks turn down his application pointing to hare brainedness of the idea. In steps the villain, who happens to be the heroine's classmate from college who offers to fund the model plant. As it turns out, he is one of those lenders who charges exorbitant rates and uses it to get favours of different sorts from the lendees(is this a word?). The finale of the movie is how tamil movie justice is rendered to the villain.
The hero seems to be mired in socialist era thinking of giving away this technology for free which begs the question, how stupid can our heroes be portrayed ? If he is going to give it for free, why would a bank even entertain a loan ? Where would he get the money to pay the loan back? Then again, he is the hero of a tamil movie. He probably is not bright enough to think that way. Taking creative license, the director puts the desalination plant on the beach, as if to say 'If the lack of economic funda doesnt kill the plant, a well-directed tsunami will'. The only reason for putting the plant on the beach was to ensure geographic proximity of sea water supply plus the ready availability of land from the hero's professor. On the flip side, there is the slight matter of screwing up with the environment and public property.
Heroines in tamil movies have always swayed between revolutionaries(usually directed by balachander or someone with a marxist bent(or name), making about .01%) or as sexpots(99.99% of the movies). Here, the director seems to be paying lip service to all those revolutionary characters and at the same time, uses words very effectively to reduce them to sexpots. The revolutionary portion gets over quickly when the heroine sneaks out(with lots of help from her long suffering and sacrificing tamil movie mom
) of her wedding ceremony with the hero to lead a new life in chennai. Hero and heroine have sex before their marriage and casually saunter to the registration office to get married. That was different about this movie. Some sequences would make an entire tamil movie. That puts an end to the revolutionary side of things. On the flip side, there is the usage of the word rape many times to signify the lust between the hero and heroine. How low can tamil movies get ? There is a way to show sensual love between them and using the word rape is definitely not the way to go. The heroine character is showed as chiding the hero for being gentle during the supposed rape. Maybe this is what tamilians keep talking about when they refer to their classical tamil culture(kushboo's comment on premarital sex).
Tamil movies have long used the madonna whore syndrome in characterization of female characters(ignoring mom characters for now). Depending on the storyline, the female characters are divided into those 2 categories. In case of a movie that has only rural background, the heroine is usually clothed from head to toe. The vamp is usually someone with very small chance of landing the hero but a 100% chance of a item number. If it is a story that moves between rural and urban, 9.9 times out of 10, the rural girl is the repository of all the clothing and modesty tamil culture has to offer. The urban girl in this case is usually the projection of the director's fantasies as to what he thinks of women who have made the slightest attempt to be independent themselves. So for every revathy, suvalakshmi,sangeetha there are 5 or more anuradhas, silk smithas, mumtaz...That could also explain the item number concept in tamil movies.
While I can see the marketing reason behind the female characterizations, the item song(target the 18 - ?? male demographic), the producer should also take into account the final product is poorer because of it. It loses out on exploring and showing the female characters closer to real life in tamilnadu. For heavens' sakes, there are enough strong women in tamilnadu and tamil culture in general. The producer might also be losing out economically because of the lack of interest in such a movie from the female base. What started as brilliant marketing from MGR has now been degraded thoroughly.
MGR focussed on the thaaikkulam when that market was wide open. MK(Karunanidhi) and Anna had focussed on tamil literate populations which given the state tamilnadu was in, skewed heavily towards men from 18 onwards. MGR branded himself as the champion of the thaaikkulam and prominently referred to them in his movies. And tamilnadu womenfolk responded by sweeping him to power(Of course, history is never that simple but for the present analysis, I have omitted some details). His movies portrayed thaaikkulam as worthy of respect. He was smart to recognize the effect it would have on the above 18 male base. So, he had female characters that ended up being lectured on screen on tamil culture's traditions by a malayali actor, no less. The lecture came after the female character had danced around in a skimpy and suggestive dress. At the end of his career, he too resorted to the same gimmicks as can be found now. I cannot believe how bad tamil audiences could be. They made hits of movies that had a doddering MGR describing his heroines in songs that would be apt for an adult certificate. The directors and actors who came after him copied those successful methods. Once the times changed, more and more women moved away from the thaaikkulam base. However, tamil directors/producers/actors, being the bright guys they were, kept focussing on the smaller and smaller target group.
Coming back to this movie, the heroine(gopika) plays the madonna portion once we can see past the premarital sex thingy. The hero's professor, a lady, plays the educated urban lady who is much more open. In tamil movie dictionary, that opens her character for all kinds of sexual innuendos that do not get directed towards the heroine character.
The one good thing was the villainy by Prithviraj (malayalam actor). The whole character is 'Dont get angry, get even' kind of one who is forced to get angry at the end because tamil movie storylines demand the hero triumph even if he does everything wrong.
Maybe one of these days, we might see a tamil movie where the female and male characters are closer to real life and not cardboard expressions of the directors' long lost fantasies.
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