I have so many questions. Firstly, why did a 2 hour portfolio video of Manjima Mohan face so many issues and take so long to shoot? If the other guy who keeps tagging along with her for no particular reason was the one creating all the problems, he could have been replaced with anyone else easily. Why did they spend so much time writing a story and a screenplay just to show how beautiful someone looks? It’s not like anyone is going to notice all these when people are too busy drooling at Manjima. The production value seemed a little over the top for a portfolio video, in my opinion.
For the first 15 minutes or so, we don’t even see the person whom we paid money to see in the big screen. The tease would have worked out if it was shorter and if there weren’t other distractions in the screen like a group of people dancing in the middle of the road for no reason or a guy jerking off to his bike. Were these shown to reduce our expectations so that we would be blown away when they finally show Manjima on screen? Didn’t they know that just by showing her on screen people would be blown away? When she finally does appear, none of these mattered. We keep staring at how someone could be so stunning in every frame and angle possible. It would have been better if there weren’t other faces in the screen all the time but they couldn’t distract us too much when Manjima is flamboyantly flaunting her fabulousness all over.
We do need to appreciate the creators for showing us how Manjima does normal every day activities so that we can feel content that she also is a normal human being like us. We see how she eats, sits in the couch, watches TV, walks up and down, says hi and bye, stares at people. These are the kinds of shots that makes us like her even more, though it was not practically possible. If someone felt like her voice was a huge turn off, do try closing your ears and watching the whole thing. The experience is multiplied tenfold. But it was at this time did the ever brilliant and perfectly relevant dialogue came to my mind – “Vasanamaada mukkiyam. Padatha paaru da.”
There were many unnecessary scenes with some other people whose faces we couldn’t register till the end. Some people in the house that Manjima was living in. Some guy creepily trying to talk with her all the time. We did see some important shots like Manjima stroking her hair, she walking from the dining table to the couch, she staring at the guy trying to break the ice. The only place we could ever relate to some person other than Manjima in the screen is when this other guy reaches out for a pillow to place on his lap when he stares at Manjima like we do. But then we again cut to the scenes where some guy riding a bike that Manjima is travelling in. He is there with her in all the places she goes. Then we are treated with the scenes of Manjima in the beautiful Kanyakumari sunrise, we see her competing with the exotic roads and sceneries on who is the prettiest. But then again we cut to the creepy guy doing some nonsense. He crashes his bike somewhere. The locations change to some place where everyone speaks some language other than tamil. And back to her crying, seeking empathy, feeling guilty etc. We keep shifting focus like this for the rest of the movie but we do get enough frames of Manjima for the money we paid.
The first half of the movie was undoubtedly better than the second half mainly because Manjima had more screen space and she was happy all the time. If they had removed whole of second half and shown the first half again, we would have been more than happy. But we can settle for this as well. There was someone playing some music kind of thing in the background while she was establishing her beauty in the screen. Not that it made any difference, but it did feel a bit unnecessary, just like everything else in video. We could understand the one song where Manjima is singing with the creepy dude where he also blabbers something, but the other stuff could have easily be done without.
On the whole, it was a wonderful experience to be fascinated by such surreal beauty for a little over 2 hours in the big screen with a group of fellow appreciators of this kind of beauty. I’m still not entirely sure why they titled it as Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada but I do hope they make more such important and morally right stuff and release in the big screen so that we get our money’s worth at times. I would recommend everyone to watch this one in theater with all your fellow beauty connoisseurs. If you could avoid all the distractions, this will definitely be a compelling experience.
