Pudupettai

Siddarth bought me a copy of Puduppetai audio and also ordered me that I write about the music here. Though I haven't heard the music sufficiently to do a review, I decided to obey him.

For non-Tamils, Puduppetai is a new movie written and directed by Selvaraghavan. Previously, I had written a review about one of his movies, 7G Rainbow Colony. I had torn the movie into pieces and I'm surprised that Siddarth, an ardent fan of Selvaraghavan, still talks to me. This time, for a change though, I was asked to review the soundtrack of the film.

The music of Puduppetai is by Yuvan Shankar Raja the younger son of Ilaiyaraja. Since his first film, Selvaraghavan has stuck to Yuvan and the songs from his previous films have been hugely popular.

The audio of Puduppettai is being promoted as 'the first original soundtrack in Tamil' and 'World music at your door step'. I have objection to the word 'original'. But I agree that it's world music. Music from various parts of the world!

The prelude of the piece 'Oru Nalil' (One day) has an eerie resemblence to Hotel California, 'Going through Emotions' is a tweaked lift from Anand Shankar, a Bengali composer of yesteryears. The instrumental 'Varia' (literally 'Aati Kya' in Hindi) is distinctly Remo.

I wonder why would Yuvan want to use Bangkok Symphony Orchestra and bring in Bengali and Konkan flavours for a movie rooted in Chennai slums. Tamil music, especially Chennai slums have their own orginal rhythms and they are not all that bad. It is perhaps to woo the so called 'sophisticated' people who might otherwise shy away from the movie and the album because it is about the slum dwellers. There is a song 'Padicha Naye' (educated dogs) ridicules the elite and the class. Even Siddarth was offended by its lyrics. I wasn't. I can already see this song becoming an anthem in those localities and the slum dwellers using it to snide the educated dogs. That is Selvaraghavan's objective and it will be satisfactorily met. And what's more, he has the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra and the tag 'World Music' to woo these educated dogs.

Good movies and bad movies Part I



Last week, during a weekend boozing session with my friends, we hit upon an interesting topic. What's a good movie? And why do we need a good movie?

I was fascinated by the second one. This is because the answer for the first question is actually relative. But my friends insisted that I answer the question. At least from my perspective. Thus went mine:

A good movie, just like any other good art, must be original and should reflect the life style and social and contemporary problems of your society. I'm saying this because I believe that wherever this happened, such societies flourished. Russia and France are great examples. Even in the pre-Independence India, the freedom movement grew from strength to strength because every activity in the art was driven towards that goal. The sixties America is considered active, progressive and effected various changes on the country and elsewhere because their art truly reflected their mindset.

Post Independence, certain great movies made people ask uncomfortable, yet, inevitable questions. Do Bheega Zamin woke up the conscience of the urban upper-middle class about the plight of rural India. Pyaasa made people squirm in their seat not out of disgust but of guilt. Kappalottiya Tamizhan (The Tamil Who Ran a Ship) kindled the nostalgia in people.

As recent as A R Rahman's Vande Mataram revived some amount of patriotism (albeit a pulp one) among millions of youth and elevated the spirit of 50th year of Independence. Karutthamma, Bharatiraja's movie about female infanticide made Tamilnadu government take various policy-level initiatives.

Apart from effective immediate changes, movies that reflect today bring life closer to the society and watching yourself on screen brings in certain accountability. Also, showing something that you are not, like dancing around trees in Switzerland, whips up a pseudo-fantasy in you that lets you deny what is happening around you. As citizens, we are an irresponsible lot. We don't follow traffic rules, stand in queues, or abide law. I would sqaurely blame the failure of our art for this.

We need good movies because we need a good society. Because the former shapes up the later.

Now the next question comes up. Where does this leave movies such as Spiderman? Jurrasic Park? Or in Indian example, Main Hoon Na? Kal Ho Na Ho? Or Tamil example, Samy? Basha?

To phrase the question: Where does my argument leave room for entertainment? Isn't movies meant to simply entertain us?

I'll address this question in the next post.

Thavamai Thavamirundu

Cast: Cheran, Padmapriya, Raj Kiran, Sharanya Music: Sabesh Murali Written and Directed by Cheran



It would be unfair if I don't review this movie after creating so much hype and also brazenly proclaiming that I'm a Cheran fan. Being a true fan, I caught the movie the first day first show.

Thavamai Thavamirundu, literally meaning 'A long wait' lived up to the title by all means. First, the movie took a long time for its release. Second, you have to wait long to walk out of the theatre. The movie runs nearly for 200 minutes.

Thavamai Thavamirundu, to my great relief is not about boy meeting girl. Neither is it one of those intellectual stuff those new-age Hindi film makers dish out on gay-issues, adultery or pseudo-secular bantering on Gujarat-riots. It's far simpler and very down-to-earth. This time, Cheran has decided to deal with the relationship between a father and his two sons set in a small-town. Cheran's familiarity with a town or a quasi-village lifestyle and their issues are quite evident and certainly adds strength to his narration. And his attention to details such as the frieghtened kids taking blessings from an elephant, or the newly married wife's sweet nothing's to her husband, etc., bring in small delights.

The big picture though, is not as delightful. Albeit, the movie starts quite promisingly, with the father's struggle to keep his kids happy and ignorant of the poverty and kids, as they grow up, realising their financial status and being in a hurry to grow out of their lifestyle is amazingly depicted energising you with the feeling that you're indeed sitting in a great movie.

Trouble starts when one of the kids elopes and here Cheran loses the objective. The movie drags on and on about the tragic lives of the characters. Almost every character in the movie seems to be suffering from some problem and the collective weight is thrusted on none other than the viewer.

The pace of the movie doesn't add up to comforting you either. Every scene progresses so slowly and the pace doesn't seem to add up to anything. At times the scene lingers on long after it met its purpose. And you wonder it is because something else is going to happen. But nothing happens and the scene slowly -very slowly- fades out. Some of the dialogues remind you of the family sagas of the sixties and some straight out of late 70s melodramas. And the hangover from Autograph too shows up its traces. The younger son's sudden raise -from abject poverty- to upper-middle class status a la Rajinikanth flicks is the biggest spoiler. I was itching to rewind one hour of the movie to see if I can change the course of the movie. I sincerely hope Cheran goes back to the editing table and loses the flab.

And to add to his woes, he has donned a role that has so much meat that requires someone of Shivaji or Mohanlal's calibre. Cheran fails miserably at histrionics making things more difficult for him.

What saves ultimately is the authenticity and native background. Cheran's greatest strength has been the nativity and his ability to deal with very genuine non-intellectual problems. Here, he truly scores. The movie starts somewhere around early 80s and the social references to the period exhibits Cheran's commitment to honest cinema.

All said and done, the movie is still far better than those so-called racy-entertainers or the pseudo-intellectual stuff dished out in the recent past. Autograph was the last Tamil movie I sat through without once squirming in my seat. Thavamai is the next. That's speaking a lot for Cheran. And Tamil movies. The sad part however, is, Thavamai Thavamirundu misses becoming a classic by a mile.

I orignally thought I'd write 'by a whisker'.

Dear Anonymous

I didn't know whether to address you as Mr. or Ms. So I'm addressing you generally. I have not been responding to any of your comments in the past because, I consider your views are your rights and I respected it. My response to each of your views/comments would have led to unnecessary arguments between two individuals, which would insult both our intelligence and that is not the objective of this blog. I am running this blog to a) practice my writing skills and a) express my views on certain aspects of life I consider close to my heart. I ought to say that I have been reasonably successful on both the objectives.

As much as I respect your rights to express your views, I expect you to respect others. I presume you to be reasonably educated enough to know about blogs and read them and post your comments in them. Such an educated person should know that your last comments in response to Harry Potter posting was a breach of personal space and choice. That behaviour of yours could at best be described as juvenile. I'm sure Siddharth, who threw the teaser at me was merely intending to kindle some curiosity in me, and I'm also sure that many readers of my blog also -like me- have not read Half Blood Prince yet. Depsite the reputation of your previous comments, I still expected a more matured behaviour from you.

I want to sincerely request you to either stop intruding the personal space of others or if you are so frustrated with me for some reason beyond my comprehension, stop visiting my blog. today, I seriously considered changing my blog id.

I hope you will not put me through that ordeal. Thank you in advance.

Sridhar