After watching Yennai Arinthaal ... a friend dismissed the film as a mish mash of Kakka Kakka and Vaaranam Aayiram. Recently a journalist put a question to Gautam Menon, asking why his films fail to
venture beyond his usual character types and situation1. Then there are people who ask him why the walls are always painted white. Personally, I like Gautam Menon's films, but I hate his characters'
collective disdain of personal pronouns. Gautam is probably well aware of the skepticism about his work. When Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada opens with the usual Gautam characters types - an aimless posh area guy with a well documented aversion towards engineering, a well educated career oriented beautiful girl whose GPA matches her hotness score on a Trump scale. And the usual Gautam situation - guy falls for girl and magically finds purpose in life. You should be in a for treat. And just to piss you off, he extensively references situations from Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya. Thankfully for some us he is at least cagey about revealing the name of his hero, who resides in a house with walls painted in all shades of RGB. But seriously speaking, Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada works well as a genre film. And you don't see that coming till the film takes an unexpected turn to hit you with the awesomeness of the name of its hitherto unnamed hero.
Gautam's writing comes to the fore in establishing real flesh and blood characters - how they get along, what their aspirations are and how they react in a desperate situation. The chemistry between the hero and the girl injects life into even uneventful every day interactions. You can see it when Simbu relishes at the time spent doing nothing with the company of the girl. I was surprised at the extent to which VTV is referenced, but the references are just spot on. (Here the girl is the one who is into films). And speaking of references, the Godfather moment did not stand out when it happened on screen. I think they had greater success in cutting the trailer as a homage to Godfather. I liked the Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram better, where Suriya on first meeting Meghna recalls the "hit by a thunderbolt scene2". You see the appropriateness of this reference when Meghna tragically meets with a similar end.
Gautam front loads the film with songs, which helps to keep things interesting despite the "and then ..." structure of the narrative. The only moment I was bored was seeing the couple riding towards the camera for 5-6 seconds at the beginning of "Raasali". The real disappointment though has to be "Thalli Pogathey". I don't have issues with the placement of the song, but the picturisation is downright tacky. The only part I liked is when Manjima executes a swirl3 (please don't ask why) and they decided to insert it twice. Manjima Mohan's casting is a departure from Gautam's preference for powder faced actresses. There are rough edges in her acting, but she has an exquisite presence on screen - especially the flowing hair! A younger actor might have been more suitable for the hero's role, but Simbu is good. He exists at various times as the before and after pictures in newspaper ads for weight loss companies. You sometimes see the latter, but mostly it is the former. That does help when Simbu has to pack a punch in action scenes. A substantial role like this usually brings out some limitation in an actor's technique, even for experienced hands. With Simbu you don't see any of that in AYM.
In second half, the writing adopts "but then... therefore" structure and keeps you interested, but some problems in writing and direction emerge. Let me first address the problems in writing, because there seems to be a minor trend in Gautam's recent films to over write4: a tendency to promise something and then distract the audience into expectation of something that never transpires. In AYM, the hero declares that he will go after the bad guys and determine "Why are these things happening?". Even though you find the answer to his question eventually, that's not what the rest of the movie is about, so the emphasis is somewhat misleading. And that is also an after thought, because the narrative invents a new character and conveniently assigns the blame to him. I was really hoping that Gautam will use the inevitability of the gun running out of bullets, as an excuse to spare the villain. Instead he concocts a somewhat convoluted explanation for why the hero could not shoot down Kamath. I did not care a lot about logic, but it was somewhat amusing to see when an engineer's ability to sense mortal danger at the nick of time comes in handy as a couple of helmets take a hit on debut.
Gautam's direction is surer in the first half. He is under appreciated for how well he directs comedy scenes. In YA... the unpredictability of a joke's timing really worked well. In AYM, Gautam interestingly cuts from and into people eating, just as the hero contemplates what he wants to do in life. That's literally the only thing he is doing in life! The choice of back-lighting some scenes is interesting, but I am not sure if it was deployed with control5. They seem to randomly show up during fight sequences, dance moves and family dinners. He also shoots a beautiful shot of a sunrise (Okay, no explanation needed). Even though Gautam has helped Ajith and Suriya deliver a better performance than usual, he somewhat struggles to control the performance of newcomers (Manjima to a smaller extent and Baba Sehgal to a larger extent). He does not use Simbu's versatility to avoid narrative overlays as he did with Kamal in Vettaiyadu Vilaydu. You feel that they are overused, especially when used alongside scenes with sufficient action and emotion (when the hero stops fleeing and decides to go after the villains) to convey a feeling. They feel redundant. Their tone seeps into dialogues at times, making down-to-earth characters look unnecessarily boisterous.
Action sequences could have been well directed. Firstly, Gautam decides to stay true to the hero's character and does not have him execute stylized stunts. So you see punches thrown at a full blow repeat in several scenes. Secondly, other creative choices don't jell well with the first choice. In the hotel room fight scene, Gautam does not have sufficient coverage, (especially when another guy join the party) and shoots scenes at close up with a single camera setup. Even though that scene intends to have an element of surprise, it never comes and you see a prolonged standoff. In the scene where the hero is stopped by Hiren (Daniel Balaji), Gautam manages to throw a surprise but compromises the beginning of the scene. I wonder if they were cramped for time, given that they were making the film in two languages. You can see it when they try to execute a match cut as the hero leaves the hospital, but it appears to miss its mark.
The choice of setting a film in a part of Maharashtra that's not Mumbai is rare for a Tamil film (Only Hey Ram/Katrathu Tamil in recent memory have done it before). Despite what the opening credits say, characters from Maharashtra spoke in Hindi/Marathi (I am not sure if that's an exception. Visaaranai's first half was largely in Telugu, making it sort of a bilingual). Tamil overlays usually sound tacky and is more distracting than the distraction from not understanding a language. And watching the film in Day 3 of Trump's America, when the hero claims he is a "Tamilan da", nobody in the largely Tamil audience cheered and you could hear a few sighs of disappointment. The film briefly yet conspicuously addresses the politics of the region, with a politician vying for the top job conceals the presence of a wife (and for dramatic purposes a daughter). Sounds vaguely familiar? Also look at the name of some the characters - Nathuram, Hiren and Kamath (Sudish Kamath6?). The only thing more conspicuous is Gautam's brief appearance in the opening credits, which led my friend to believe that he was going to be the pivotal Pune police officer.
The saving grace for AYM is that Gautam is able to combine the good parts of the movie to pull a "R thing" out of the hat in the last act. This effectively makes this a Mass/Masala movie and makes it work despite it flaws7. Several masala movies are churned out as an assembly line production with genre Types instead of Characters in typical situations and a nearly mythical Hero (with a capital "H" and of a Type) who sells mass moments on either side of an interval point. People point out to repeated flaws in lazily made masala movies, and claim that it is a weakness of the genre or Tamil movies in general. Like Agni Natchatram, AYM makes a good case for the genre. It's hero is more desperate than mythical in an endearing way. Mass movies largely work on their ability to sell a mass moment. Take Ghilli's interval block for an example. Several films try to emulate such moments and get them horribly wrong. Take the final scene in The Usual Suspects which has been imported into Tamil without the same effect. The scene works because Kint (a character) becomes Keyser Soze (a type), whereas in Villain the transformation is between two types.
Gautam's writing helps in flushing out the correct kind of characters that makes the film organic, not assembly line. The direction leading to the mass moment is inventive in a wacky way. Never has a text scroll has been more dramatic that the scenes appearing on the screen. And when you see the Character transform successfully to the Type headlined by A. R. Rahman's rap music from "Showkali", the film refuses to be tripped by its flaws and hurtles past the finish line in style. If like the skeptical journalist you are wondering what the heck is different from the usual Gautam fare, let me answer it for you. He places well thought out characters in well thought out situations, and delivers a mass hero movie with a small "h". And you don't even see that coming, until it does.
Gautam's writing comes to the fore in establishing real flesh and blood characters - how they get along, what their aspirations are and how they react in a desperate situation. The chemistry between the hero and the girl injects life into even uneventful every day interactions. You can see it when Simbu relishes at the time spent doing nothing with the company of the girl. I was surprised at the extent to which VTV is referenced, but the references are just spot on. (Here the girl is the one who is into films). And speaking of references, the Godfather moment did not stand out when it happened on screen. I think they had greater success in cutting the trailer as a homage to Godfather. I liked the Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram better, where Suriya on first meeting Meghna recalls the "hit by a thunderbolt scene2". You see the appropriateness of this reference when Meghna tragically meets with a similar end.
Gautam front loads the film with songs, which helps to keep things interesting despite the "and then ..." structure of the narrative. The only moment I was bored was seeing the couple riding towards the camera for 5-6 seconds at the beginning of "Raasali". The real disappointment though has to be "Thalli Pogathey". I don't have issues with the placement of the song, but the picturisation is downright tacky. The only part I liked is when Manjima executes a swirl3 (please don't ask why) and they decided to insert it twice. Manjima Mohan's casting is a departure from Gautam's preference for powder faced actresses. There are rough edges in her acting, but she has an exquisite presence on screen - especially the flowing hair! A younger actor might have been more suitable for the hero's role, but Simbu is good. He exists at various times as the before and after pictures in newspaper ads for weight loss companies. You sometimes see the latter, but mostly it is the former. That does help when Simbu has to pack a punch in action scenes. A substantial role like this usually brings out some limitation in an actor's technique, even for experienced hands. With Simbu you don't see any of that in AYM.
In second half, the writing adopts "but then... therefore" structure and keeps you interested, but some problems in writing and direction emerge. Let me first address the problems in writing, because there seems to be a minor trend in Gautam's recent films to over write4: a tendency to promise something and then distract the audience into expectation of something that never transpires. In AYM, the hero declares that he will go after the bad guys and determine "Why are these things happening?". Even though you find the answer to his question eventually, that's not what the rest of the movie is about, so the emphasis is somewhat misleading. And that is also an after thought, because the narrative invents a new character and conveniently assigns the blame to him. I was really hoping that Gautam will use the inevitability of the gun running out of bullets, as an excuse to spare the villain. Instead he concocts a somewhat convoluted explanation for why the hero could not shoot down Kamath. I did not care a lot about logic, but it was somewhat amusing to see when an engineer's ability to sense mortal danger at the nick of time comes in handy as a couple of helmets take a hit on debut.
Gautam's direction is surer in the first half. He is under appreciated for how well he directs comedy scenes. In YA... the unpredictability of a joke's timing really worked well. In AYM, Gautam interestingly cuts from and into people eating, just as the hero contemplates what he wants to do in life. That's literally the only thing he is doing in life! The choice of back-lighting some scenes is interesting, but I am not sure if it was deployed with control5. They seem to randomly show up during fight sequences, dance moves and family dinners. He also shoots a beautiful shot of a sunrise (Okay, no explanation needed). Even though Gautam has helped Ajith and Suriya deliver a better performance than usual, he somewhat struggles to control the performance of newcomers (Manjima to a smaller extent and Baba Sehgal to a larger extent). He does not use Simbu's versatility to avoid narrative overlays as he did with Kamal in Vettaiyadu Vilaydu. You feel that they are overused, especially when used alongside scenes with sufficient action and emotion (when the hero stops fleeing and decides to go after the villains) to convey a feeling. They feel redundant. Their tone seeps into dialogues at times, making down-to-earth characters look unnecessarily boisterous.
Action sequences could have been well directed. Firstly, Gautam decides to stay true to the hero's character and does not have him execute stylized stunts. So you see punches thrown at a full blow repeat in several scenes. Secondly, other creative choices don't jell well with the first choice. In the hotel room fight scene, Gautam does not have sufficient coverage, (especially when another guy join the party) and shoots scenes at close up with a single camera setup. Even though that scene intends to have an element of surprise, it never comes and you see a prolonged standoff. In the scene where the hero is stopped by Hiren (Daniel Balaji), Gautam manages to throw a surprise but compromises the beginning of the scene. I wonder if they were cramped for time, given that they were making the film in two languages. You can see it when they try to execute a match cut as the hero leaves the hospital, but it appears to miss its mark.
The choice of setting a film in a part of Maharashtra that's not Mumbai is rare for a Tamil film (Only Hey Ram/Katrathu Tamil in recent memory have done it before). Despite what the opening credits say, characters from Maharashtra spoke in Hindi/Marathi (I am not sure if that's an exception. Visaaranai's first half was largely in Telugu, making it sort of a bilingual). Tamil overlays usually sound tacky and is more distracting than the distraction from not understanding a language. And watching the film in Day 3 of Trump's America, when the hero claims he is a "Tamilan da", nobody in the largely Tamil audience cheered and you could hear a few sighs of disappointment. The film briefly yet conspicuously addresses the politics of the region, with a politician vying for the top job conceals the presence of a wife (and for dramatic purposes a daughter). Sounds vaguely familiar? Also look at the name of some the characters - Nathuram, Hiren and Kamath (Sudish Kamath6?). The only thing more conspicuous is Gautam's brief appearance in the opening credits, which led my friend to believe that he was going to be the pivotal Pune police officer.
The saving grace for AYM is that Gautam is able to combine the good parts of the movie to pull a "R thing" out of the hat in the last act. This effectively makes this a Mass/Masala movie and makes it work despite it flaws7. Several masala movies are churned out as an assembly line production with genre Types instead of Characters in typical situations and a nearly mythical Hero (with a capital "H" and of a Type) who sells mass moments on either side of an interval point. People point out to repeated flaws in lazily made masala movies, and claim that it is a weakness of the genre or Tamil movies in general. Like Agni Natchatram, AYM makes a good case for the genre. It's hero is more desperate than mythical in an endearing way. Mass movies largely work on their ability to sell a mass moment. Take Ghilli's interval block for an example. Several films try to emulate such moments and get them horribly wrong. Take the final scene in The Usual Suspects which has been imported into Tamil without the same effect. The scene works because Kint (a character) becomes Keyser Soze (a type), whereas in Villain the transformation is between two types.
Gautam's writing helps in flushing out the correct kind of characters that makes the film organic, not assembly line. The direction leading to the mass moment is inventive in a wacky way. Never has a text scroll has been more dramatic that the scenes appearing on the screen. And when you see the Character transform successfully to the Type headlined by A. R. Rahman's rap music from "Showkali", the film refuses to be tripped by its flaws and hurtles past the finish line in style. If like the skeptical journalist you are wondering what the heck is different from the usual Gautam fare, let me answer it for you. He places well thought out characters in well thought out situations, and delivers a mass hero movie with a small "h". And you don't even see that coming, until it does.
Footnotes
- Tricky Question
- Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram.
- That swirl.
- In Yennai Arinthaal... it is the "fine line between being good and bad", which makes you expect Victor's character will be fleshed out from the mere flashes you have already seen, and will lead to "fine line" in Satya. Victor's character never traverses that arc, and Satya essentially remains a Mister Goody Two Shoes.
- Look at the number of shots with back lighting even in this trailer. For an excellent use of back lighting we need to look no further than Marma Desam. The usage is not just stylistic. It is an existential need to show a character without revealing its identity. In a move that is either a coincidence or a touch of genius, this cinematic technique keeps the character Karuppu (The Dark One) literally in darkness. They also used different color tones consistently to contrast the time period, and then at a pivotal point mix them to signify how the past comes into head with the present.
- Of course, you know Sudhish Kamath, right?
- AYM does not combine two genres well, like Pisaasu or more relevantly Vishwaroopam does. Look at the mass scene in Vishwaroopam (appropriately described as Pakka mass). The transformation is between types. Even the terrorists in the masala movie portions of Vishwaroopam are types. While Vishwaroopam is effective as a masala movie, it real strengths lie in the portions which are framed within the narration of its masala movie: an emotional drama. When viewed as a political drama, it gives us moving scenes and characters. It allows the hero (a character) to feel the loss of a young terrorist (character) who is brain washed to suicide. Contrast this to the climax in the masala movie portion, where the Hero (type) simply shoots the Terrorist (type) to death. Masala movie as a genre does not allow you to empathise with a negative type. Vishwaroopam is more rewarding when viewed as a political drama, in the same way AYM is rewarding as a masala movie.
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