Subramaniapuram



Subramaniapuram is no ordinary movie. A quick glance at the promotional posters and stills will tell you that. Watching the movie will confirm this more. There are no good-looking characters, mind-boggling stunts, item-songs, ‘punch-dialogues’ or any other regulation Tamil film imperatives. The pace is quite slow even by the standards of art-house Bengali or French movies. It’s grim in its outlook and the story is Shakespearean tragedy.

Yet the film that was released very quietly with less than 150 prints is currently running to packed houses. Number of prints and screens has subsequently been increased and it is expected to garner the collection usually assured for some of the ‘happening’ actors.

The film has defied every excuse the mundane ‘commercial’ directors slap on the audiences for including hackneyed elements in their work. One thing, after a long gap and since the invention of stead cam, the camera does not circle fiercely around the 'hero' or make him stride in slow motion with an ear-deafening music.

Another, the film is set in the early eighties, the era incongruous to history filmmakers. Making period films is a rare phenomenon in the Indian film industry in general and Tamil industry in particular. Those who venture go 800 or more years backwards and represent that period quite poorly. Subramaniapuram recreates Madurai of 1980 with meticulous passion. Except certain nuances, the story does not depend on its context to be based in eighties but it clearly depicts the director’s notion of creating a visual freshness that does not depend on editing or camera gimmicks, both are handled quite conventionally purely relying on the period and the performance of the actors to make the impact. Since Autograph or Kakka Kakka, no other director has dared to be so true to be himself like Sasikumar has been in Subramaniapuram.

The story is only incidental and stripped off its period and raw attitude, would remind you of a few yesteryear flicks. However, as the whole of Tamil populace has felt heart-warmingly, what is being offered is not a fresh story, but an attitude that is breathtakingly audacious filmmaking. In the midst of mind-numbingly formulaic Kuruvis and brazenly self-indulgent Dasavatharams, people like Sasikumar infuse a new lease of hope in those who want to see genuinely good movies.

That includes the entire Tamil Nadu that is now flocking the theatres for Subramaniapuram.