Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu(VV) is one of those movies that depends on style to carry it through as there is no substance in it for a full length movie. It has a cops and killers storyline that wouldnt feel out of place in one half of Law and Order(the original one, not the spin offs) and I expected the distinctive clang and the delicious self loathing of Lennie Briscoe in Long Island scenes. The movie doesnt deal with legal angle of the crimes committed, though, as in law and order.
It is the second in the Gautam's cop movies, the first one being Kaaka Kaaka(KK). It was clear to me from KK that he is good at making a very polished movie with huge gaping holes in its storyline. If not for songs, that movie would have been eminently forgettable. In the originality challenged wasteland that is tamil cinema, KK is considered to be a good movie. I thought another movie, Ab Tak Chappan in Hindi, handled encounter killings in a far better manner than KK.
The presence of the overhyped Kamal Hassan makes the movie ripe for a disaster. For long, Kamal Hassan has been sinking under the ever increasing sobriquets foisted on him by his fawning fans and media that seriously need an appreciation of artistes from other movie industries. Here, he plays deputy commissioner of police, Raghavan, doing what cops are supposed to be doing. His acting is stale and he looks very old(especially for a DCP character).
I thought Jyothika would completely spoil the movie with her annoying high energy acting. But, she was a pleasant surprise as was Prakash Raj. Both of them can ham it up with the best of the breed and thankfully, this movie has them in much more subdued roles. Especially jyothika. She has handled her character beautifully. Normal tamil movie heroines in her character would have burrowed themselves into the ground by staring at it(If you keep your head bowed down and stare at the ground long enough in the interests of indian culture, the ground can open up and swallow you. Ask Sita). Jyothika maintains the right blend of energy and maturity for her character. I am glad she acted well at least before leaving movies for good. I havent seen Kamalini Mukherjee's acting before. In this movie, she is just eye candy with nothing much to do other than provide a justification for Kamal Hassan to take those extra long pauses when talking to Jyothika(which is what fans of Kamal Hassan's fans will point to, as proof of his acting abilities).
The start of the movie was inauspicious when Raghavan beat up baddies of a local tough(of course, they come to take their licks one at a time. Kamal Hassan is much more reasonable in that department compared to the other One in tamil movie industry). As the movie progressed, it did improve in its treatment and I thought maybe this might turn into a reasonable venture. However, all the good treatment is lost in mind numbingly dumb handling that shows up periodically. It is almost as if Gautam shoots himself in his foot just when it looks like the movie might make it into level headed territory. So, a 15 minute sequence of well defined story flow would be interrupted by a 2 minute detour that would have fit in well with any crappy masala tamil movie. But a crappy masala tamil movie is clear about its identity and doesnt care about showing details of hero's thinking as he tries to solve a crime. VV gets confused about its identity between cerebral crime thriller and crappy masala and ends up being neither. I apportion the blame to Gautam in large part even though Kamal Hassan should be somewhat culpable. The director should fashion the movie and here, Gautam has caved into the expectations of Kamal Hassan the star, like any other tamil movie director.
Some of the basic details that the movie omitted include:
1. Why the self-promotion throughout the movie ? I can understand fans, male and female, of Kamal Hassan want to drool over him and his so-called "acting" and the movie's producer saw big bucks in that. But, to set aside elemental considerations of police investigative work Raghavan is engaged in, to satisfy the hero worship of the actor is inexcusable.
2. Ditto for the comment when Jyothika's character tells Raghavan about considering him as a reliable confidant.
3. Who goes into a supposed killers' hideout without calling for backup, especially given the gravity of the case and knowledge of their whereabouts ? And after he loses his NYPD liaison to the villain's bullets, there is nothing so much as a murmur from our hero even though he is directly responsible for the liaison's death.
4. What is the deal with the villains ? They come into the story like a chennai water lorry merging onto Mount Road. It happens suddenly and everyone is on tenterhooks after they make their appearance. The additional lives they take do not fit into the story at all other than keep making the point that these guys have some serious sexual issues to deal with. The director takes the oft-traversed path of tamil movie makers, ' Ainthil valaiyaathathu aimbaathil valaiyumaa(If it doesnt bend at 5 (years of age) will it bend at 50(years of age))?'.
5. Aravekkaadu(half-baked) approach to motivation behind the killings. The absolutely ignorant treatment homosexuals receive in tamil movies gets a boost with Kamal Hassan's character's justification towards the end. I dont know whether to be glad that the movie at least refers to homosexuals(as opposed to indians steeped in our 'culture' dont acknowledge existence of flesh and blood homosexuals amongst us regardless of what our ancient literature and paintings say) or sad that the sorry-ass explanation continues the tamil movie treatment of sexual orientation. It might also be the case that Gautam(and Kamal Hassan) wanted to flaunt their awareness of complexities of sexual proclivities in humans and decided to throw in a reference to homosexuals. Who knows, Kamal Hassan can give us the tamil word for homosexuals in his next interview(yes, the one where he strains credulity by fitting in tamil words for some expressions even when he can use an available combination of english and tamil).
The movie has some good points. There is some exposure to the problem of spousal abuse and infidelity among indian couples settled in the US. After all, a society that prides itself on its powers of denial when it comes to treatment of women(and minorities and children) needs all the hard knocks it can get. The mature way in which the romance between Jyotika's and Kamal Hassan's characters is handled provides you with hope.
It made me think, for all his reputation as an action movie director, Gautam might do well to pick softer storylines with not so much gore and so much more relationships. The photography was pretty good especially the fall shots of Long Island. The music was OK with the required hero worship song. That song only showed that tamil directors can find technologically savvy ways to engage in sycophancy towards perceived superstars. The technical aspects were on par with any decent tamil movie. Photography was excellent especially in the Long Island sections.
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie. Show all posts
Thursday, April 12, 2007
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.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Ponniyin Selvan on screen
*******************Ponniyin Selvan Spoiler Warning*********************
I am traversing the well worn path of every reader of PS after they have read it. After all, the movie craze among tamilians might be one reason why the second question after reading PS is'What will be the cast of characters if PS was made into a tamil movie using the current crop of actors/actresses ?' (The first is the obvious 'Who killed Aadiththa Karikaalan ?')
Given the scope of the novel, I think it will be tough to take PS as a single movie. Instead, they should focus on 3 - 5 part movie like LOTR. Then again, most of PS is spent on descriptions and historical references and that way, it might end up being shorter than that with all the non-events packaged into bonus section of the DVD.
If there was to be a movie made of PS, my ideal would be new faces in all aspects of movie. That would provide the most vibrant on screen version of PS. Someone can conduct PS idol like American Idol asking people to audition for these once-in-a-lifetime roles. Also, famous directos/music directors/lyricists/actors/actresses would have their popularity baggage. (If PS was made into a movie, it has to stand for its story and not because Kamal croons like a dying peacock in the role of Sundara Chozhan on hearing news of Aadiththa Karikaalan's death)
Now, onto the casting :
Director - Cheran or Thankar Bachchan or Bharathiraaja
Music Director - ARR or YSR or Harris Jeyaraj
Camera - P.C.Sriram or Thiru(I think he was the cameraman for Hey Ram) or Ravi K Chandran
Art Direction - Thotta Tharani or Sabu Cyril(those are the only two names I know)
Main roles :
Vanthiyathevan - Surya or Saif (They wont measure up anyway to the character in the book)
Arulmozhi varman - Prashanth (Goody two shoes character - doesnt require much acting)
Aadiththa Karikaalan - Vikram or Aamir (Probably the most complex character in the book)
Madhuraanthakan - Suresh Gopi or Jayaram
Saenthan Amuthan - Vineet(Fits the role to a 'T')
Paarthibaendran - Paarthiban(Namesake) or Manoj K Jayan
Kandhamaran - Arunpandiyan(Cant visualize anyone else for this character)
Peria Pazhuvaettaraiyar - Saayaaji Shinde or Mammootty (Both look regal and look the
part)
Chinna Pazhuvaettaraiyar - Nasser or Ranjith(Both can act well and have the build for the
role)
Sundara Chozhan - Kamal(He can sit through the entire movie with very little to do)
Aazhwaarkadiyaan - Mohanlal(Role requires all round talent)
Poonguzhali - Nandita Das - She is interchangeable as Kundhavai - Cant think of any other
actresses for this role
Kundhavai - Tabu - She is interchangeable as Poonguzhali - Cant think of any other actresses
for this role
Nandhini - Simran or Bipasha(Havent seen bipasha's movies so cannot decide about her acting
but as seductress she fits the bill perfectly) - Requires loads of
talent
Sembian Maadevi - Ramya Krishnan
Vaanathi - Aishwarya Rai(Requires very less acting other than fluttering her eyelashes, looking
dreamy and staring at the ground)
Manimeghalai - Shalini(if ajith can consent) or Kajol(if ajay devgan can consent) - Requires some
acting
I am traversing the well worn path of every reader of PS after they have read it. After all, the movie craze among tamilians might be one reason why the second question after reading PS is'What will be the cast of characters if PS was made into a tamil movie using the current crop of actors/actresses ?' (The first is the obvious 'Who killed Aadiththa Karikaalan ?')
Given the scope of the novel, I think it will be tough to take PS as a single movie. Instead, they should focus on 3 - 5 part movie like LOTR. Then again, most of PS is spent on descriptions and historical references and that way, it might end up being shorter than that with all the non-events packaged into bonus section of the DVD.
If there was to be a movie made of PS, my ideal would be new faces in all aspects of movie. That would provide the most vibrant on screen version of PS. Someone can conduct PS idol like American Idol asking people to audition for these once-in-a-lifetime roles. Also, famous directos/music directors/lyricists/actors/actresses would have their popularity baggage. (If PS was made into a movie, it has to stand for its story and not because Kamal croons like a dying peacock in the role of Sundara Chozhan on hearing news of Aadiththa Karikaalan's death)
Now, onto the casting :
Director - Cheran or Thankar Bachchan or Bharathiraaja
Music Director - ARR or YSR or Harris Jeyaraj
Camera - P.C.Sriram or Thiru(I think he was the cameraman for Hey Ram) or Ravi K Chandran
Art Direction - Thotta Tharani or Sabu Cyril(those are the only two names I know)
Main roles :
Vanthiyathevan - Surya or Saif (They wont measure up anyway to the character in the book)
Arulmozhi varman - Prashanth (Goody two shoes character - doesnt require much acting)
Aadiththa Karikaalan - Vikram or Aamir (Probably the most complex character in the book)
Madhuraanthakan - Suresh Gopi or Jayaram
Saenthan Amuthan - Vineet(Fits the role to a 'T')
Paarthibaendran - Paarthiban(Namesake) or Manoj K Jayan
Kandhamaran - Arunpandiyan(Cant visualize anyone else for this character)
Peria Pazhuvaettaraiyar - Saayaaji Shinde or Mammootty (Both look regal and look the
part)
Chinna Pazhuvaettaraiyar - Nasser or Ranjith(Both can act well and have the build for the
role)
Sundara Chozhan - Kamal(He can sit through the entire movie with very little to do)
Aazhwaarkadiyaan - Mohanlal(Role requires all round talent)
Poonguzhali - Nandita Das - She is interchangeable as Kundhavai - Cant think of any other
actresses for this role
Kundhavai - Tabu - She is interchangeable as Poonguzhali - Cant think of any other actresses
for this role
Nandhini - Simran or Bipasha(Havent seen bipasha's movies so cannot decide about her acting
but as seductress she fits the bill perfectly) - Requires loads of
talent
Sembian Maadevi - Ramya Krishnan
Vaanathi - Aishwarya Rai(Requires very less acting other than fluttering her eyelashes, looking
dreamy and staring at the ground)
Manimeghalai - Shalini(if ajith can consent) or Kajol(if ajay devgan can consent) - Requires some
acting
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