History of the World Part I makes fun of history(biblical, roman and french) in a delightfully crass manner. Seeing that movie has always made me think about lack of such movies in tamil.
Tamil historicals were always so full of themselves, insisting on the righteousness of the king and putting every two bit tamil king on a pedestal, most of the time because he happens to be of tamil heritage. To be fair to them, the audiences liked it which only made the directors even more insufferable. As much as I love Veerapandiya Kattabomman, to see Sivaji shout his way through most of the movie does get unbearable. It would be a great day when Kattabomman's story is told in a far more restrained manner. I dont think there have been comedy tracks in tamil movies about the portrayal of kings in them. The past few years have seen comedy tracks targeted at portrayals of different characters in older tamil movies(Vivek's brilliant mockery of Parasakthi scenes in Palaiyaththamman).It is to the credit of Shankar and Simbudevan that they take on that task in Imsai Arasan 23aam Pulikesi and come out unscathed, for the most part.
Story:
The story is a simple and funny take on the Sivaji's old movie, Uththama Puththiran(which I read recently, was 'inspired' from Man in the Iron Mask). It is about the exploits of a palayakaaran(r?), Pulikesi, played by Vadivelu. He rules a fictional region called chozhapuram in the year 1771 when British have made significant inroads into India through East India Company. He is an extremely incompetent administrator, given to capricious decisions and cavorting in the andhapuram(royal garden) most of the time. Unbeknownst to him, he has an identical twin who was separated at birth due to the machinations of their evil uncle the rajaguru, played solidly by Nasser who also is the power behind the throne. The rajaguru toys with pulikesi as he is also his guardian after the death of pulikesi's father, played by a barely recognisable Nagesh. The rajaguru sets the policy of the kingdom as one of assistance to the british, much to the discomfiture of the old queen, pulikesi's mother played by manorama, and sorrounding palayakkaarars. The twin(aptly named Ugrapuththan) grows up in the outskirts of the kingdom and becomes a fearless man of action and education, everything pulikesi is not. He uses the aall-maarattam technique practiced for eons in tamil cinema and becomes the king. How he deals with the resistance from British and the rajaguru forms the rest of the story.
Analysis:
The name of the characters themselves point to the eventual success of the movie. Even though it takes place in 1771, the story treats its characters without slotting them in a specific period. It proves to be a great tool for the satire that runs throughout the movie. So, Ugrapuththan gets his education from Nalanda even though historically the university is long gone. For people with exposure to historical literature in tamil, pulikesi is a name associated mainly with Sivakamiyin Sabatham(SS) and the association is not that flattering(Literary fans in Kannada might take strong exception to that, from what I have heard). Add to that, the rajaguru in this movie matches closely with Naganandi, the villainous character in SS, in dress and skills(He doesnt use snakes though like Naganandi). The only difference I can think of is the actual relation with the king. The name of the kingdom is chozhapuram that references the setting for the other famous kalki novel, Ponniyin Selvan(PS). The characters of the twins are very well delineated. We know the sympathy of the director lies with Ugrapuththan even though it is Pulikesi who provides the laughs. Pulikesi is incompetent, in love with intellectual sophistry(beautifully illustrated in comic sequences involving a riddle and the royal guard's slip up in praising him). Ugrapuththan, as the name itself suggests, is a man of intelligent action(as opposed to most tamil movie heroes). He is the epitome of the director's wish for an ancient tamil king(well educated, well versed in fighting skills, suitably enraged at foreign occupation, in love with tamil, on the side of common man). The director has assumed that there is a desperate demand for making reasonably well made movies on historical novels in tamil literature and his characters attest to that. The success of the movie also means that the director was well justified in his assumption. This might be the first movie that has dared to approach SS and PS in this manner. Compared to the claims by maniratnam and Kamal, an unknown director has made a well deserved attempt, even if it is tangential, at best, in approaching the two novels.
The starting scene of the movie itself gives a taste of what is in store, as has been pointed out in other reviews. Not many tamil historicals start with a caption identifying a random lizard in the palace as 'aranmanai palli'(palace lizard). From there, the movie takes aim at most of the holy cows as portrayed in tamil cinema. There are the captions around andhapuram that show the director casually applying present day concepts to erstwhile royal institutions. The one notable exception that goes untouched is the extreme devotion to a particular brand of tamil, at any point of time, within tamil culture in contravention of historical evolution of that language. That is understandable given the movie is targeting literary fans for its success. You cant make your movie a commercial success(especially in a culture that doesnt look too kindly on mockery of its sacred symbols) if you make fun of the very thing you primarily share with your audience.
However, the director has a field day with other holy cows.
Cricket comes in for some good, even if minor, treatment. It targets only tendulkar(represented by a player who has a '10' on his bloodied shirt) and dravid(whose post match interview style is mocked). The prize check that is bandied about in cricket matches is mocked too.
It takes aim at the caste consciousness that is part and parcel of tamil culture. Pulikesi's method to prolong caste divisions(encouraged by Rajaguru) fits in perfectly with the way his character has been developed. Even the difference between the castes ties into pulikesi's portrayal as someone who is more at home with language and its use than resolving the issue at hand.
The painting sequence is another where the director takes a dig at historical representations of royal personages. What we have is only the figures and paintings about a specific king and that is only part of what actually happened.
The director also makes fun of the craze for foreign beverages, mainly pepsi and coke. Given the strict limits on attack ads in india, the movie calls them 'kapsi' and 'akka cola'. The method of manufacture, even if exaggerated, makes us think as to what chemicals go into the drink.
The most hilarious ones are sequences that call out government employees for their incompetence, laziness and lack of work ethic. That they are being upbraided by a lazy and incompetent king is just icing on the cake. The movie even has reference to the laughable ordinance that provides tax breaks for tamil movies with tamil movie names, infamous TADA , child labour and low quality of manufactured products.
Tamil movies in historical genre dont use themselves as reference. They take themselves very seriously, a hangover from being the vehicles of social change in their earlier incarnation. The aranmanai josiyar's response to the dilemma of who, among the identical twins, inherits the throne is priceless for its careless humour that is rare in that genre.
As far as the negative points go, the end of the movie was prolonged through the needless ten commandments pronouncement. As expected, they had things that the present day indians would like to see their government execute. The romantic interludes could have been dropped as they didnt have any bearing on the movie as such. Some of the solutions(especially like the one on soft drinks) were not well thought out. The sequence involving the poets' description of pulikesi, I didnt find any reason for its presence. It seemed to go against the character definition of pulikesi even though the explanations were funny. The sets in the movie looked flimsy. One would have expected much better sets from a movie produced by shankar. Maybe, he reserves it only for his movies and scrimps on money for other directors under his banner.To me, the first 30 minutes of Devadhai set the standards for representation of architecture of ancient tamil kingdom which no tamil movie(to my knowledge) has come close. Devadhai as a movie was horrendous but the first 30 minutes were etched beautifully.
Performers:
Vadivelu plays the role of twin brothers and pulls it off handsomely for the most part. He is at home as Pulikesi given it leverages his talents at physical comedy. There were times I squirmed at the lack of gravitas in Ugrapuththan as a serious king but on the whole, he does a commendable job. Nasser does very well as Rajaguru even though he would have sleepwalked through this role anyday. Other characters do their job including Seeman(playing the commander disgruntled with pulikesi and rajaguru at their support for british), Nagesh(playing pulikesi and ugrapuththan's father), Manorama(playing pulikesi and ugrapuththan's mother),V.S.Raghavan(playing aranmanai josiyar to great effect), 'Vennira Adai' Murthy(as the palace official who brings up Ugrapuththan), Illavarasu(who plays the pliant minister to Pulikesi very well).
The movie is impressive, overall, given the paucity of such offerings in tamil cinema. It is also a pioneer in showing that tamil movies can be smart and funny if they try. There are tons of subjects for ridicule and mirth and it is a testament to the intellectual bankruptcy of tamil movie directors that even an initial effort in revisiting history takes a long time to materialize.
