I’m frustrated. I recently was made to endure two and a half hours of extreme physical and mental pain disguised in the name of velaiyilla pattathari (not the movie as a whole, but the reality that is being portrayed in it). I tried very hard to see it just as a movie but I couldn’t stop thinking of the dumbness of the protagonist and how stupid it is of him to blame everything and everyone around him for everything that is wrong with him.
Morning colors through a glass painting. Best buddies in the same city. An ever inspiring RJ on the air every day. A young westerner (who learns Bharatanatyam) is crazy about “malligai poo” (Jasmine flowers). Our innate tendency to search for native language speakers in any place we go. A girl smokes for the first time just before her marriage because she is tensed about the whole event (:O). Come on, how frequently do we get to see all this. Feeling good already? That’s Bangalore Days for you.
Very few movies make you re-think the way you approach life. Very few movies have directors who understand their movies’ characters in depth and craft them. Very few movies make you stay till the last frame of the end credits. Very few movies bring tears to your eyes in multiple scenes. Vaayai moodi pesavum was one of those few movies.
When I came out after watching “Thalaimuraigal”, hardly did I know that it was going to be his last movie. From a kid who was inspired by the making of The Bridge on the River Kwai, to a gold medalist in cinematography at FTII, Pune, all that could have pushed this man was sheer passion for cinema. Starting his film career with Ramu Kariat’s Nellu, this man went on to make a sort of revolution in cinematography (save “Aval Appadithan”), in South Indian cinema.
I haven’t been following anything about movies lately but everyone’s been going gaga over Goli Soda. From gripping to unique, enough has been said about the masala entertainer everywhere. I was only wondering how such movies can be made interesting – almost all scenes would end up being predictable. But, I was surprised when the movie kept me on the edge of my seat, despite being ridden with cliches all over.
This Venkat Prabhu diet (that’s how he calls it) starts off with the hero and his friend (you guessed it right – Premji) being chased by policemen. As usual, we don’t know why. What follows is a flashback which gives us reasons.
I waited for a long time to watch Kalyana Samayal Saadham. I’m not really sure what, but something about the movie really intrigued me. A part of it was because of the name Arun Vaidyanathan and the pleasant cast (after a long time we see everyone on screen to have taken bath and cleanly dressed). I expected it to be a satisfying and a well-made Class A film. After all, that was what the promos suggested. But then, I was in for a total surprise when I watched the movie. That was an unpredictable twist by the director.
Starting with the much clichéd ‘people passing by the man dying on the road’, the first few minutes of Onayum Attukuttiyum didn’t impress much. I wonder why everyone becomes a cold-hearted jerk when it comes to helping a wounded man on the road. Starting from the guy who takes a picture of the man to ‘post it on Facebook’ to the police officer who steals his watch instead of filing a complaint, we have to put up with the same crap for some time until the typical ‘Mysskin character’ (a beggar or a physically or mentally disabled man) comes out of nowhere to help out the lone protagonist trying to save the man. This is when the director makes an entrance. Mysskin can even show his name during these scenes in all his movies like Bhagyaraj or T.Rajendar used to do.
A few days back in an interview, Nalan said “Not even a single scene or a dialogue in the whole movie will be unrelated to the script. Every single thing that is happening and every character who appears on the screen will provide a strong support to the story”. This is what intrigued me the most to watch this movie. It is surprising to see that the movie has actually lived up to his word.
Have you ever been in a situation where you are forced to feel the sadness just because everyone else around you is sad? Sounds more like a Bala movie? Yeah, something like that. But in Paradesi, I actually felt sad for some people in that movie, if not all. Every single character in the movie is either evil or a cowardly slave. If someone is happy for sometime, they either die in the next scene or become a slave for the rest of their lives.I could rather say that this was probably the saddest of all his films.
Mokkapadam 