Dangal - masterfully combines excellent writing with great performances

• It is rare to see a sports movie that sheds a light on what it takes to be a great sports person. Most sports movies ask you to suspend disbelief as the screen writer types in a cheat code to let the underdog win. The training sequences are written beautifully. You see how the underdog transforms into a champion. All it takes to convince one is just the dialogue, "See you at 5 am tomorrow".
• Surprisingly for a super star driven movie, there are times when Aamir Khan remains in the periphery. The movie is about his character's dream, but the driving forces are his daugthers. The terrific ensemble cast carries the film. When you are not subconcisouly evaluating dialogues for plot (I did not want to scan at the bottom of the scene every time), and only rely on performance of actors to get the emotional cues, it becomes even more engrossing. Even if the actor appears for just one scene, like the child bride.
• What you see in the children is what you see in the adult actors. There are several scenes where Babita has to watch the drama from the sidelines. Both the actors playing Babita manage to hit the same note when expressing her tentativeness.
• The child actors excel in comic timing as well. Comedy is one of Dangal's strong points. It is not like they are completely reliant on dialogues. When Geeta wins an older age group championship, you see a banner that reflects that by simply striking out "sub" in sub-junior.
• Not to mention the fact that the roles are physically demanding. It is hard to imagine what it took for professional actors (Fatima Sana Sheik played Kamal Hassan's daughter in Chachi 420) to come across as convincing in the wrestling scenes.
• Ritika Singh (of Irudhi Sutru), a professional martial artist was impressive with her one handed push ups, but was severely limited as an actor. And she managed to get a special mention at the National Awards. Going by that standard, it is not a strech to imagine the women here winning all the acting awards.
• Direction is top notch. While the father is desperate for a son, he seems very distant in relation to his daughters, and you never the father and a daughter together in the same frame. The first time you see them together, (you see him splitting a sweet when his cousin has another son and giving it to the daughters) he is embracing his sleeping daughter, only after he has embraced the idea that a daughter can also fulfill his dream.
• The same goes for action choreography. Wrestling scenes in the first half are set in montages, and comedy is neatly blended into these scenes. In the second half, wrestling scenes are woven effectively into intense dramatic scenes where the father takes on the daughter. They stand out in wrestling matches, where the voice over commentary comes together with the staging to create quite an atmosphere. Rarely has action been used this effectively to build tension.
• Many sports films fall into the pitfall taking drama all the way into a sporting finale, but Dangal plays its cards with some restraint. The father is marooned in a far away room, and how he comes to know of the result is even more dramatic. And is staged with some restraint too. (The audience on the other hand decided that they have to stand and observe).
• The way the role of the coach affects the drama is perhaps Dangal's weakest link. The character had some promise initially but slowly slides into a mean caricature. This has not worked in several film in recent memory (Listen to the theme music of one such character in Kabali, and you will see how dated even the background feels).
• May be you need to invest a lot more in the other jealous character for these conflicts to come out well. For every Aadulakam (the director introduced the subject to a film festival audience by posing "What would an Alpha male do when an upstart shows up in his territory?") or even Aurangazeb, there are several films where a poorly written character's meanness takes the film down (Irudhi Sutru has two such characters). In Dangal, it is a contrived means to an worthwhile end.
• Sports has in-built drama, and cinema can easily build on this. Opening and climax cricket sequences in Chennai-28 are good examples. Sports that don't have a wide following are hard to follow, and as result harder to create a drama out of. Some films try to inject the dramatic tension in the plot into the sport (Irudhi Sutru), or have no meaningful drama outside of the sporting action (Vallinam). It is hard to do just one well. Dangal manages to create and sustain two separate dramatic threads and switches between in the climax in a riveting fashion.
• Production values set a really high bar. The set, costume and more importantly minor characters make you feel the rustic nature of the setting. I am not sure if there ever was a time when big Bollywood money was put to better use.

Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada - Wackiness of mostly the right kind

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.

Footnotes

1. Tricky Question 
2. Godfather reference in Vaaranam Aayiram.
3. That swirl.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Of course, you know Sudhish Kamath, right?
7. 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.

Kabali - Misfire

Take this scene in Madras, where Ranjith sets up the big reveal. Ranjith uses the literal under the table footise between the lovers as a visual metaphor for the under the table nexus between the two seemingly warring politicians. Notice how the scene has a great rhythm with a clear beginning (pretension between the parties), middle (warmth) and an end (deal). Madras worked mainly because like any good movie, it "did not tell, but showed". That was sufficient to appreciate Madras, even when a viewer has missed the political undercurrent (or the two shots of Buddha in that sequence).

Kabali on the other hand, violates this basic rule of cinema and as a result fails to take off as a movie. Almost everybody in Kabali has peddled drugs, and that's revealed with every character literally telling that to your face in Kuala Lampur slang. The film manages to convincingly answer tell you interesting things about Kabali and his wife, but when it comes to actually showing them it flounders. The temple scene is a case in point. The lengthy interview scene with students is long, and has an unfortunate and then ... and then rhythm to it. When Rajini spends close to a minute telling a fable (of nihilist Tamil nandus) Kabali goes from generic to downright stale. Even worse, the direction at times is poor that you don't even get the intent. That happens when 43 gang attacks Kabali's safe house before he ventures in search of his wife. There is no beginning, or no clear ending. There is nothing to suggest within the scene as to what happened to Kabali. The one second hint of a romantic angle between Dinesh and Dhansika is down right puzzling. It is one thing to have a synopsis of a love story, but to literally shoot it as a synopsis is vera level. What happened, Ranjith?

Ranjith probably wanted to do away with the usual super star build up scenes, or wanted a faster pace for the movie. Unfortunately, this results in poor staging and execution, with jarring jumps between pages of a script, like a Hari movie on steroids. Santhosh Narayanan efforts on the background score provide promising interlude to scenes that don't have much going for them visually. A scene where Kabali rams a jeep into an unsuspecting villain is supposed to mark the ageing man's surprising cold blooded pursuit of revenge. It plays without a rhythm and the moment does not register. To top it off, when the villain suggests that somebody might have pimped his wife off,  Rajini responds with Maghizhchi! The decision to have Radhika Apte's portions play as a series of interluding montages leaves Ranjith with too many fragments to piece together in the first half. The law of averages catches up with Ritwika after Madras and Oru Naal Koothu. She pitches her stoner character way too high which adds to the chaos.

There are only a handful of well executed scenes. The prelude to Ulagam Oruvanukka (referencing lyrics which go like "Paravai Parakka Marakkathe"), and the actual song (with Gana Bala look alikes) were good. Ranjith has the temerity to point out that being a benefactor to the juvenile youth does not excuse Kabali from being showcased as a bad example. He even lets Radhika Apte lord over Rajini (a serial tamer of Tamil cinema shrews) as the over-bearing wife. The best scene in the movie is where Dinesh gets attacked. It is shot from the bottom up, contrasting several top down shots in Madras. The violence and gore is disturbing, and showcases juvenile crime better than scenes in the first half at Free Life school, and stands out like a good thumb on an otherwise sore hand. The editing in the scene is a significant departure from how the rest of Kabali is edited in general. Notice the amount of time the editor waits for Tony Lee to swing his sword waiting for the tension to build. Contrast this with the scene where Kabali cuts the Maghizhchi cake in a flash, where the scene has moved on before you can fully register what has happened. That scene is representative of the jarring quality of editing in the first half. Can some one please explain the one second throw away scene at the swimming pool with Rajini and Dhansika? Second half manages to setup a mood of unease - the feeling that would exist between meaty edge of the seat scenes in a thriller, as a cloud of vulnerability hangs over Kabali. But the problem is that the meaty edge of the seat scenes are missing in Kabali.

One of the two scenes that excited me was catching a glimpe of RJ Tilak and Super Singer Soundarya in unexpected cameos. And speaking  of cameos it is more or less an extended cameo for most the cast. Dhansika manages to look surprised all the time. Dinesh is wasted as a sidekick. So is his on-screen brother from Atta Kaththi. And so are Kalaiarasan, Mime Gopi, Rama (Madras Amma), Madras Johny, Nasser, Gana Bala and Aishwarya Rajesh (I don't remember seeing the last two, but I will just put them here, to be on the safer side). I don't know if it is supposed to be a Venkat Prabhu homage that has gone too far. The only moment that is crafted with some effort (points from at least trying) pays off with Apte showing why she is the most sought actor in the independent movie scene. Rajinikanth, on the other hand is back with a bang. Playing his age he is able to showcase an extra ordinary presence that we have not seen in his recent films. He is mostly good (slips when has to do some rapid tongue twisters in the flash back), and that's one of the few things that Kabali gets right. After seeing the poorly made Lingaa that almost made a joke out of Rajinikanth, I should say some credit should go to the director for directing Rajinikanth in a good performance.

The other scene that excited me was the (intentional?) reference to Aaranya Kaandam, where Nasser answers the question ("What is is dharmam?"). That a Rajini movie references a great movie that made innumerable references to Rajini movies simply blew my mind for a second. On the flip side, Kabali also reminded me of Baasha (borrowing from Godfather), when Tony Lee's enterprise is toppled in a single montage (Sarakku might mean a different thing in KL slang, but I think a yawn is still a yawn). The root cause for most conflicts is petty mindedness and this trope has mostly left me unimpressed (Irudhi Sutru and Kaaviya Thalaivan come to mind). The idea of Rajini playing a character as a homage to Ambedkar and his politics sounds interesting on paper. But Ranjith focuses too much on the personality cult of Ambedkar, and in the process reinvents one of the most important leaders of the independence era as a Dalit fashion icon. And instead of being a movie that puts an end to questions about Rajinikanth's super-stardom, Kabali draws unnecessary attention to the questionable practices that sustain super-stardom.

Theri - a return to the old school

Vijay and Atlee's Theri, like no other recent Tamil movie has highly polarized opinions on whether it is worth watching. Despite what some reviews had to say, I was pleasantly surprised by how it worked well as a masala potboiler, surprisingly an old school one at that. But Theri it is not without its problems. Theri begins with back to back introductions of two time lines (of Joseph Kuruvilla and Deputy Commissioner Vijaykumar), which front loads it with double fluff. I did not think much of Nainika's role. The usual cognitive dissonance associated with processing Amy Jackson in a Tamil film such as thinking of her as a local woman, seeing her lips move when she speaks, listening to the dialogue and putting this all together in your mind is quite daunting. In Theri, be prepared to additionally read the subtitles for her Malayalam dialogues. I liked it better when Theri flashed back into Vijay Kumar's story. First, it was a welcome relief to see Vijay without that hairdo. Second, instead of Nainika/Amy Jackson, we get much better actors in Radhika/Samantha playing much better roles.

In comparison to Thuppaki/Kaththi, Theri on the surface seems like an inferior product. There is little demonstration of craft in direction. Take the initial fight scene when the begging racket is busted. There is no relationship between the actors and the vehicles driven in the background, the blocking among actors is primitive, the location is generic and the whole scene screams film studio/city. In comparison, Thuppaki's bus bomb blast and the ensuing action seems like a classic. You are at least convinced that the action is happening in Bombay and is disrupting another busy day. Thuppaki and Theri have the same producer, but much different production values. Or take the scene where they conclude that the missing woman has not walked past a point. Myskkin would have at least shown you around by making a constable walk from Point A to Point B. Here all deductions and conclusions happen over dialogue.

But that is because, Theri harks back to an older school of Tamil masala film making; a school that predates modern Tamil masala movies that are content to play it cool and would be too embarrassed to emotionally manipulate an audience. In that regard it is a fine film, and its quite unfair to make a comparison to Thuppaki/Kaththi. Plus, it is refreshing, because they don't make them here anymore. You get a preview of what's in store during the first half, with the kids at the hospital or the final moments of the rape victim. When was the last time a mainstream Tamil movie even try to make an audience shed a tear or two? Atlee deserves credit for operating with restraint (whereas Bala would launch an army of Dementors at you) on a genre, where it is easy go overboard. Mindless brutality is a must in old school masala, in order to push the audience over an edge, for that would only justify the masala hero's cathartic revenge, which would not otherwise work in the face of rational thought. Atlee manages to achieve a balance by cutting to the aftermath of brutality, in most cases, without actually showing them happen. On the flip side, the characters don't actively drive the action forward during the first half, which is one of the things modern masala movies fuss about (The other thing they fuss about is doing that in style). The screenplay takes the characters to the aftermath of brutal violence or even the violent retribution for brutal violence, after some water has flown under the bridge.

After playing it cool in Thuppaki and Kaththi, it is a return to old school for Vijay who manages to do the heavy lifting that is required to make the emotional scenes work. As a Vijay fan, I am somewhat blind to the rough edges in his performance, and they do exist here mainly due to the genre, but overall it is a good return to form (your mileage may vary) after a tepid Puli. 'Motta' Rajendran gets the movies best line - the one right after the interval where he explains why they moved to Kerala to setup a bakery there. Collaborating for the second time after 'Raja Rani', he might well be Atlee's favorite actor. He gets a make over every time Vijay gets one, and in the epilogue his new look is just as impressive as the hero's. Every body is a "baby" here. May be that's a wink at Arya. Radhika brings a wholeness to the proceeding, and completes a very small family. I am not sure why - may be Tamil films have stopped providing an explanation or the Tamil society has moved on, or it is Radhika's presence, you probably not notice the missing father. I did notice the missing father, but that's only because the biggest epiphany after watching 'Naanum Rowdy Thaan', was how I never noticed Radhika character's missing husband until long after watching the movie, even though the other main character acutely feels the loss of her parents. After writing strong female characters for 'Raja Rani', Atlee has a reputation to keep, and he meets it by making the old school masala heroine a little less of a damsel in distress. Post a string of arm candy roles in Kaththi, Anjaan and Paththu Endrathukkule, Samantha finally plays a character that is conceived with a modicum of respect. During closes up, Samantha leaves you wondering if she is in wincing in pain after some body hastily patched a broken jaw, that is once again threatening to fall off her face. During long shots, you wonder how someone with those chubby cheeks could have such a slender waist. In the two profile shots that create contrasting moods, Samantha seems to reclaim some acting form from NEPV. Vijay is also in his element during those sequences.

The second half is where real masala moments are actually built up. Take the scene where Vijaykumar meets Mithra's family. Atlee manages to build up to the moment with a bit about Vijaykumar having never fired a gun on duty, and letting a bullet break through the frame, just when the scene is heading towards a happy ending. This is old school masala done well. Watching the trailer you can make a guess about Mithra's fate, but the way this scene plays, keeps you guessing. The acting is good, the conversation is interesting, and even though you have an ominous feeling that this could be Mithra's last moment, unlike the earlier scene at the cafe, the rhythm of the conversation keeps you from guessing the exact moment at which a bullet rips through her. Even a heavy weight like Radhika is swatted like a fly. It is rare, that a movie's best scene is one in which the villain wins, but the scene when Vanamamalai points a gun to the little girl's temple is the only time I cared for Nivedita, despite the knowledge that the girl is going to live. Mahendran is sure to pick up an acting award or two. This entire sequence is an effective use of shock, and ends with a perfect old school masala moment between the leads. Shortly after you get another shock when a school bus veers off into an unintended amphibious journey.

The idea of a cop ghost/ghost cop going on a revenge trip is interesting, executed decently, and on its own might make an interesting movie. But Atlee is content to push fast forward button, as the film almost transforms into a mix of modern masala - trying to rush proceedings to a no frills ending and a Shankar style an eye for an eye social justice potboiler, where everybody gets his revenge. The media tracking voice of the people, or a recently bereaved young son pays back the small loan, they both scream Shankar. There is also a bit of bigotry that is in poor taste, when a minor Brahmin character is slapped or so I think. All you could see was someone providing a callous answer in Brahmin slang, and a jarring cut to blood on the character's face. May be it is upon the Censor Board's insistence or it is keeping with the first half's choice of cutting to the aftermath without showing the action, I don't why there is a jarring cut. The scene has no utility, and I see no point in keeping it except to tell the whole world about your little bigotry. In Anniyan, Shankar manages to kill/maim almost every male character not established as Brahmin, except for Manobala and Nasser's characters. In fact, both the characters Anniyan exempts from the wrath of Garuda Puranam, happen to be Brahmins. Moral of the story: if you are going to express your bigotry in a movie, embed it into the movie's DNA, or at least be subtle. Be like Shankar.

Uttama Villain

At one point in Uttama Villain, K. Balanchander quips that he would not make a movie about a man suffering from a terminal brain cancer. "It would be such a cliche!". It is a  meta-commentary on Uttama Villain - which is about the last hurrah of a matinee idol, which needs an interesting mind like Kamal Hassan's to make this cliche work.

Kamal Hassan plays Manoranjan, a super star who acts in commercial potboilers, the kind of films that drive his adulating wife and his skeptic son crazy for entirely different reasons. The film opens to other adulating fans, and a song with an intentionally bad choreography where Kamal Hassan hams it way too up, almost matching the lack of dignity with which his friend Rajinikanth asked Shriya to give him "one time sunshine". When Manoranjan realises that he does not have much time left, he leaves his stardom and the baggage that came with that, to join forces with Margadarsi (played by K. Balachander to whom this film is dedicated), to make the kind of film he wanted to act as a budding actor. It is at this point the meta commentary is made, and is followed by a heartwarming performance, and the effect is amplified by Balachander's recent passing, as he grieves for his disciple's impending demise.

It is interesting to see the economy with which the scenes are written. The movie premier and the launch party provide a platform for most of the peripheral characters (but by no means minor) to come together. K. S. Ravikumar might have made these scenes utterly chaotic, and to Ramesh Aravind's credit he keeps a tighter watch. One of the most fascinating things about the writing is not how the characters steer the story forward, but how they seem to shape Uttama Villain's narrative form, seemingly without the director's aid. But I don't know if the general lack of directorial vision at the expense of interesting story telling is a good thing, or a bad thing, and in that regard, it does not help Ramesh Aravind that his film has Kamal Hassan.

"Uttama Villain" the historical comedy film that Margadarsi and Manoranjan make (thus giving this move its "purely Tamizh" name) is significant, in how this film and Manoranjan's life borrow from each other. But even without regard to this significance, it works mostly well, delivering laughs by deftly recycling Tamil proverbs and idioms ("Pudhu katthi kuthuthu", "Mudivurai illa Kaaviyam naan"). The inner film is almost a "Imsai Arasan 23am Pulikesi", relying on a happy-go-lucky hero, a laughably lecherous villain and a heroine with a sexy midriff. Kamal, Nasser, Pooja Kumar (and Dr. Gnanasambhandan in a rocking role, if his fan is reading) ham it up to extremely verbose (at times funny and thought provoking) semi-classical Tamil lyrics. Anyone unfamiliar with Nasser's work will probably misunderstand his performance as an indication of lack of acting skills. The movie making in the inner "Uttama Villian" itself is extremely primitive (it's like a stage performance where each scene simply leads to the next), and if unlike me, you listened to songs before watching the movie, you are bound to be disappointed. But it fits within the picture of what the outer "Uttama Villain" wants to achieve, and manages to keep you distracted from the realities of Manoranjan's life.

Quite contrastingly, the outer "Uttama Villain" is full of neat performances. Early on, M.S. Bhaskar's character reacts on his belated finding of Manoranjan's illness with a sense of betrayal, considering it as an act of retaliation to his own earlier betrayal. This is a rare moment in the outer "Uttama Villain", when a character loudly vocalizes his feelings. It begins with a hint of self awareness, which seems to progressively collapse under the weight of his sorrow. The next scene where he visits Kamal, is well thought and well executed. Bhaskar betrays a slight sense of guilt, when he reads the lines in the letter that indict him. The staging helps the characters to perform to each other, without overwhelming the audience with their feelings. Many a time, the film tips toes around this territory, and mostly manages to maintain a mood that is sombre but not tear jerking. It also helps that we don't know Yamini (whose name is the best of the movie's word plays), and are not deeply invested in her. But interestingly, M. S. Bhaskar pales into insignificance after this scene. The explanation comes much later, when Manoranjan points to Manonmani (Parvathi Menon who holds herself against Kamal Hassan in another well executed scene, when she first meets Manoranjan), her picture in a sort of a family tree, of people that mean something to him. That's what the outer "Uttama Villain" is about, how Manoranjan makes peace with those that matter to him, and vice versa.

What makes "Uttama Villain" interesting is how it derives from the film within the film. If Uttaman tricks King Mutharasan, by claiming to possess immortality, Manoranjan derives some personal mileage from his impending death. He manages to soften ties with his mentor, gets to read Yamini's letter, endears himself to his daughter born out of a wedlock, and his son. It is the awareness of his mortality that allows these characters to overcome their hard feelings against Manoranjan.

For all its seeming lack of finesse, the most interesting piece of screen writing is "within" the inner "Uttama Villain". The "Iraniyan Kadhai" does not only provide the perfect platform that deals with immortality, it is also an early Indian example of that story telling technique the patrons of ancient Greek theater despised. If Kamal dropped hints in "Dasavatharam" about the impeding dues ex machina, he does it more discreetly here. After hours of pouring over Wikipedia, reading about playwrights shifting the burden of saving the day to the almighty, it is a delight to find an example closer to home, as Mutharasan tears down a stage property to emerge out as Narasimhan, but only to be outwitted! (The realisation did not occur to me while watching the film). An admirable quality about Kamal, how he makes his political statements while simultaneously being true to his craft, unlike his playwright rationalist-political ancestors who have fallen prey to jingoism. At other places, Uttaman rues the absence of a rationalist in his village, who would have explained how he survived the snake bite, dares to invoke that pun on Lord Vishnu's name and pokes at "Arya Bhattars", and largely manages to get away with it.

And another interesting thing about "Uttama Villain" is that film's recursive structure is deftly hidden, and only surfaces due to the necessities of the characters, as opposed to "Inception" where the structure served as a metaphor. The inner "Uttama Villain" comes about because Manoranjan needs to make one final movie. The "Iraniyan Kadhai" comes about because, within the inner "Uttama Villain", Mutharasan wants to attain immortality. Chants of Mrityunjaya (The Immortal?) are peppered throughout the soundtrack, (which itself is excellent and probably Gibran's best since his debut) and appears within each story. If the difference is passage of time separated the levels in "Inception", it is the sophistication of the medium that distinguishes the levels in "Uttama Villain". When "Iraniyan Kadhai" ends with a twist ending, it provides the inner "Uttama Villain" a happy ending as the tyrant falls, which in turn provides the outer "Uttama Villain" a meaningful ending as the peripheral characters come to terms with life.

The movie is not without its imperfections. If certain scenes in "Panchatantiram" made you wish that homophones did not exist, the Tiger episode makes one wish that the inner "Uttama Villain" was staged in a grammatically rigorous language, where people unambiguously referred to themselves in third person. There is also an inconspicuous quasi-incestual undercurrent, that threatens to burst out as an April Fool's prank, but does not work because of the lack of screen presence of the person being pranked. It would be interesting to see how many believe Parvathy Nair when she tells people that she acted in this movie, especially given that Parvathi Menon also acts in this movie (the curse of homophones). If the makers took the joke seriously, they would paid more attention to detail to Nair's character (which was the least Yennai Arinthaal did to her). After the promise of Yamini's letter, Manoranjan's comes as a weak reply that further manipulates Manonmani, who already seems to have a soft corner for her biological father. If other films used Andrea as a sort of one note actress, "Uttama Villain" helps Andrea put together the three or four reactions in her acting tool kit, which means that her sermon to Selvaraghavan from Mount Moral Highground in Coffee with DD, still remains her best performance till date.

Be it in "Hey Ram", "Virumandi", "Dasvatharam" or "Vishwaroopam", Kamal's persona in the all these movie comes across to a large extent as morally upright. The Hindu fundamentalist in "Hey Ram" manages to find a redemption, the violent bull in "Virumandi" is blessed with a heart of gold, and Wissam in "Vishwaroopam" (based on the first part) ponders about his morality only to invoke "Nayakan", which itself absolved its protagonist as he stood for the greater good. The most interesting thing about Kamal Hassan's Manoranjan is how his character is freed from such moral bindings. The fact that there is more to Uravshi's adulation towards Manoranjan, and how her stubbornness keeps him away from the love of his life is revealed late into the movie. This provides a sudden edge when they meet again. While Urvashi repents for her actions asking him if he still loves him, he almost quotes from his fan's answer to a question on the Proust Questionnaire, all in the presence of the other woman in his life, of whom his wife is blissfully unaware.  Ideally, you would come to expect him to come clean to his wife about this woman. That's answered when the other woman requests him to keep this from everyone to save her own dignity, and he replies in affirmative stating that he could lie in his afterlife. With the sort of artistic immunity, or I dare say artistic immortality that this work provides, that man need not be too worried about after life.

O Kadhal Kanmani

Remember Arjun and Meera from Aayitha Ezhuthu? What if their lives did not have to collide with the worlds of Inba and Micheal? If Inba as a character lacked his privileged background or Micheal as a character showed purpose unlike him, Arjun does not exist simply a contrast to these two characters. He is a stand in for a generation of the privileged aimless yuppie youngster. Prior to O Kadhal Kanmani, the portion of Arjun and Meera represent Maniratnam's briefest foray into romantic comedy. "He has beliefs and dreams of his own. So does she. And when they like each other, do their beliefs and dreams come in the way of them jointly subscribing to a romantic ideal?". That's romantic comedy in a nutshell. Over the years and across mediums there is no dearth of romantic comedies, and it is easy to see why the ambitious Tamil film maker is reluctant to go there. Of course, Maniratnam's ambitions in Aayitha Ezhuthu are much higher. He is not content with juxtaposing a romantic comedy against the real world, he also wants to shed light on the young generation. Or may be his hands were tied, because medieval Tamil script betrayed him by not choosing ":" as the Ayitha Ezhuthu.

Ok Kanmani seems to take off from where Aayitha Ezhuthu was rudely interrupted, starting with the flamboyant opening credits oozing with optimism, that makes you forget how Kadal sank into the deep sea. And considering Maniratnam's recent work (I would also say that the first half of Kadal was indeed riveting), Ok Kanmani seems like a drastic scaling down of ambitions. And even the attempts to capture the zest for life a new generation is constrained by the fact that one of the protagonist here (Dulquer Salman as Adithya) is not only a stand in for a crowd, but as character his standing is entirely reliant on him holding to a moral compass which tells him what is cool and what is not. Subscribing to a herd mentality takes a bit of sheen out of his character (Karthik of Alaipayuthey is cool, because he stands apart from the crowd). Either Maniratnam's idea of coolness is somewhat removed from reality, or Dulquer Salman does not slip into this aspect of his character. As a result the scenes involving the yuppie crowd does not jell together with the rest of the film, and the opening scene where Aadhi makes a pitch for a new game idea seems like the best example of this dissonance.

Maniratnam seems to strike a nice balance in the stretches where Thara and Aadhi get to know each other, or the scene how Ganapathy (Prakash Raj) and Bhavani (Leela Samson) recall the interesting details of their courtship. The pacing is leisurely, and after the somewhat patchy start, sets the film on a track by establishing a mood. You see Ganapathy doing domestic chores, Bhavani being a bit clueless, and gradually get to know how Bhavani's medical condition has a role to play in all this, while simultaneously highlighting how normal it feels to be around her. It is somewhat amusing to watch Aadhi and Thara keep playing pranks on each other, and how a foreplay of words land them in bed together. But after they decide to stay together in a live-in relationship, but not forever, the rest of the film reduces to the question of whether they are going to end up together or part ways, and starts becoming too faithful to the rom-com genre. As a result, there is always something going on, but the scenes don't add up. In terms of staging the latter scenes seem to match the earlier ones, but they sort of meander aimlessly. The scene where Aadhi and Thara try to manufacture consent from Ganapathy and Bhavani could be excused, for how hilarious it is. ("You won't marry him? Unakku enna sevvai dhosama?" Leela Samson walks away with the funniest line in the film).

If the attempt was to drift along, like how the couple in Pudhu Pudhu Arthangal do, almost reflecting the protagonists attitude to life, the fact that they are not completely unhinged makes it harder (they seems to be good at their jobs, and are more ambitious than your regular Tamil hero/heroine). The entire stretch were Aadhi goes missing for a while, is entirely redundant given how it actually plays out. It seems to exist to provide Thara, a bit of soul searching about how she would seen as needy, given how they decided to move about with their lives. During the conversation with her friend, Thara tries to calm her nerves saying that she ought to provide Aadhi some space. When this scene actually played out it seemed that the film was taking itself too seriously when taking about the nature of their relationship. But on second thoughts, it is probably the director telling you, "Of course, you don't want to be subjected to the trappings of a marriage. But still a live-in relationship comes with its own trappings". Now here is a room for a Alaipayuthey like introspection, of how getting more intimate with a person makes you more aware of their flaws you were previously oblivious to ("Kadhal parpathu paathi kannil, Kalyanam parpathu naalu kannil, Naama partpathu ondrarai kannil, adiye?"). I don't know why the film does not look at this question. Maniratnam probably does not want to repeat himself here, but labours to justify the rest of the running time by providing an opportunity for Aadhi and Thara to come get over the only reason that is stopping them from being together - getting married and seeming uncool. The justification comes in the form of a poorly staged climax, where the film tries its damnedest to suddenly raise the stakes and force Aadhi to speak his mind out.

What makes Ok Kanmani still work are the performances. Restraint is something that you don't often associate with Prakashraj, but here it is a solid performance as a man worn down by the demands of life. Even when the climax plays a manipulative hand, he does not betray much of an emotion. Leela Samson in what is probably her first film role, plays a good foil. Dulquer Salman is limited by the fact that Aadhi is forced to play it too cool. This probably stems from Maniratnam's flawed understanding of his character. In rom-com terms, the resolution is brought about when he begins to show that there is more to him than the coolness, and it is in these stretches Dulquer is convincing as Aadhi.

Unlike Dulquer, Nithya Menon slips effortlessly into Thara's shoes. It is likely that Maniratnam does not need to associate an air of coolness about Thara or her co-workers. The scandalous tone to which her architect friend slips into while questioning Thara about her escapade, could only be out of a Maniratnam movie. Staging helps a lot in keeping the performance very real. Most movies suck up the leads into a world of their own for no apparent reason that can be justified in a theatre production, but not in a cinema(unless you are taking about NEPV, where the fact that they get too caught about themselves adds value to the plot). It is refreshing to see Nithya Menon react, pausing a somewhat serious conversation with Dulquer to quickly exchange a fake smile with an acquaintance who walks past them, and resume that conversation from where she left off. Or when she stares into nothing in particular either in contemplation, or when she dreamily gazes towards Aadhi but not into his eyes, because she is reluctant to break the comfort of his embrace and turn her face to see him. Nithya Menon is required to show up and not act! And she does just that. It seems at times that Thara is pushing Aadhi to the edge, like how she manipulates another man in the early portions. Take the scene at the maternity clinic for example. It is somewhat disappointing that it comes out only as a tease, and wastes Kanika in the process.

From the time Aadhi and Thara move in together, they catch glimpses of the older couple's life through a gap between a mostly closed double door. This is a recurring visual motif, and by the time Aadhi and Thara decide to marry, the audience gets a chance to view them through a similar gap in their door. But at other times, Maniratnam continues to let the cinematographer indulge, and at times the images are far too pretty and far too perfect. This is the best I have heard from Rahman since Ambikapathy, and Ok Kanmani needs those pretty pictures and songs, more than any other recent Maniratnam movie to make it work. It is lacking in finesse compared to Iruvar; lacking in ambition compared to Kadal or Ravanan; lacking as a study of relationships compared to Alaipayuthey. It probably works because of the goodwill that Maniratnam has garnered as a result of those films.

Pissaasu (Devil)

Maniratnam mentions in "Conversations with Mani Ratnam" that a film maker should ideally try to hide the structure or constructs that his film stands upon, and to him, that sets apart a great film from a merely good one. You could easily spot structure within Mysskin's scenes - set pieces that are deliberately setup and torn down. I don't know if this the structure of a film that Maniratnam talks about, but these set pieces set apart Mysskin (Baradwaj Rangan already reckons him an aueter) from his peers with a significant body of work like Selvaraghavan, Gautam Menon and Bala.

A case in point is the road accident scene, with which the film opens, showcasing an injured woman faintly smiling as if in a trance. This scene brings to fore the thematic connectedness in Mysskin's work (Anjathey and Onaanum Aatukuttiyum), playing out as an act of compassion that pivotally alters the course of a good Samaritan.

Mysskin is clearly aware that abrupt context switches don't work well in his scheme of things. He quickly dispenses with the mandatory song (the violin strains are mesmerising), and replaces flashbacks with less flashy, difficult to execute monologues that hit the high emotional notes (like the fable in Onaanum Aatukuttiyum), and Radha Ravi is in his element here. But interestingly, Mysskin stays faithful to the horror movie genre in the first half. A high rise apartment, a stalled lift, an exorcist and an autistic kid that could interact with the ghost, all the boxes are ticked. Obvious products of Mysskin's style, are the simple, but extremely beautiful visuals. The scene where 'Aavi' Amala vets the house, and momentarily stares into the exhaust, takes the cake. The film cuts into Amala peering at the exhaust, and she casually breaks her observation and gets on with her work. This was creepier than the actual scary scenes that follow.

Newcomer Naga fits the role of the protagonist perfectly. With a violin in hand, a mop of hair covering a side of his forehead, a beard, stooped shoulders that keep his head perpetually hung low, give him a eerie presence. In fact, he looks like the personification of a lost lamb (a perfect choice for Onaanum Aatukuttiyum?).

It is evident that Mysskin operates in interest of time. He perfectly times when to shift gears, and after Radha Ravi's monologue, the film changes track into a murder mystery (or an accident mystery, in this case). If the first half hammered the nail into the genre elements, the second half is more of soft nudges - Bhavani glides in and out, instead of flashing abruptly in your face. While in other films, Mysskin's set pieces existed in isolation, here he is able to tie them together in a neat rug pulling act. You can also see that the truth about the tomb, helps bring the film to a quick closure (Also the ice factory setup, my brother adds).

 The thing that struck me the most after watching Onaanum Aatukuttiyum, is how pointless the film would seem without the stylistic treatment. The only movies that I know of, that would seem pointless without the treatment are in fact, horror movies. According to my limited movie viewing experience, almost every other film Mysskin made was effectively a horror film, without the need to scare. With Pisaassu is Mysskin able to transcend the genre? The chilling tale the charlatan spins, talks of a young woman along with a foetus, buried into a well. The motive speaks of revenge for murder, and possibly rape. That's how horror movies ususally work. The ghost always wants a revenge. Changing the dynamics between the ghost and the desire to extract revenge, Mysskin caps his story with a brilliant ending. A clever way to transcend a genre is to subvert it.