Ponniyin Selvan II: Thoroughly engrossing although not epic!

Who are kings, if not mere mortal men of flesh and blood, but those who aspire to be immortalized by their deeds. A story of kings can also be a story of men, which is what Mani Ratnam chooses to show in his two-part magnum opus. He humanizes the kings, putting emotion ahead of their ambition, and tries to create more poignant moments than epic ones on screen. He almost treats Ponniyin Selvan like a grandly orchestrated play where the actors and their lines are more important than any other aspect, be it the landscape, the fortresses, the weapons, or the wars. Maybe that’s not what we expected when we went in to see PS-I, which may have been cause for bit of heartache, but we knew the maker’s intentions quite well when we went in to watch PS-II.

For a movie set on a scale bigger than most Indian movies, PS-II narrates events occurring over a relatively short period of time. You could say that the entire movie is based around one grand conspiracy with little or no space for subplots in between. Mani Ratnam trusts the quality of the source material and the main thread of events to keep the viewer engaged through the entire duration. And, it is no small vindication of Kalki’s epic that even with bare-minimum detailing of the complex evolution of the story, the events keep you invested almost through the entire run time. Mani Ratnam chooses to plainly narrate many of the key details/events without going into how they might have occurred. For example, how Nandini maintains communication channels with the Pandya spies and how she manages to escape all the attention of palace guards to get to their hideout is anybody’s guess. This is amongst the most important events in the scheme of things, but is shown on screen like it is a casual evening saunter for Nandini. Again, what makes these scenes work is that Mani Ratnam manages to firmly establish very early in the movie (and through PS-I) the emotion that drives these characters. Therefore, even though we may find ourselves questioning the ‘how’ of certain things that happen on screen, we never question the ‘why’. The ‘why’ is very strong and very clear, which is what gives life to the movie.

PS-II is all about Nandini, Aditha Karikalan, Arunmozhi Varman, and Vandiyathevan, with Kundavai having a couple of key contributions. And with the approach that Mani Ratnam has chosen, the burden on the shoulders of the actors portraying these characters was immense. Especially, Nandini and Karikalan; it is the crescendo of the simmering tension of years between the two characters that is the high point and the driving force of the movie. It’s amazing to think that the two characters whose equation controls the whole movie come face-to-face just once and that too for a precious few minutes. But, that moment is seized so powerfully by the actors that you are not left with an iota of doubt about ‘why’ these characters are doing what they are doing. Here again, Mani Ratnam treats it almost like a stage play – minimalistic camera angles, minimal editing, just two actors who know the sheer weight of the moment and execute it to perfection. In fact it’s so perfectly done, it feels like the climax and everything after that seems like a footnote to the story of Nandini and Aditha Karikalan. That’s both a tribute and a smirk at how Mani Ratnam has made the Ponniyin Selvan saga – while he has managed to capture the emotional essence of the main characters, he has not added (perhaps intentionally) a kinetic energy to the narrative, which would have made the PS duology a masterpiece in its own right. One aspect that non-Tamil audiences may not quite connect with would be the fuss about the Chola empire. At no stage in the movie does the screenplay make an attempt to show what the Chola empire and its kings mean to its people, and why its survival is so important. Except for the personal connection with the characters, it’s unlikely that the audience feel any allegiance or goodwill toward the empire.

The frames are rich, the locations have been picked carefully, but yet, at no point during the two films did you feel that you are watching an epic. It’s difficult to put a finger on what would make a movie an epic; but whatever it is, went missing in PS. Maybe it is a combination of many factors, including the music, but it never really came together for PS, which also may be because the team never intended it to be that way. In fact, Mani Ratnam makes very economical use of Rahman’s music, choosing rather to hop directly to the next main event rather than linger in moments with music and songs. And, that decision has worked well for the movie with things always moving ahead at a rapid pace. The only moment when you actually want it to slow down and linger with the music is when Aga Naga plays in the background of the most Mani Ratnamesque scene in the entire movie, you just don’t want that scene to end. It says a lot about the sheer skill of Mani Ratnam in such situations when you realize that in a movie of nearly 3 hours with kings, queens, wars, conspiracies, mind games, politics, and treachery, the one scene you want to watch over and over again is where two lovers (well, not yet at that point perhaps) meet each other on a nondescript islet in the middle of a river. Mani Ratnam needs no context, no character building, and no set up (this is the first time the characters face each other in PS-II); he executes a mellifluous moment of beauty. In fact, this is the only time you see Mani Ratnam add his signature or flavor to Ponniyin Selvan. This is his home ground, and we hope he makes love stories with such beautiful moments rather than go after large epics, which may be his ambition, but are certainly not his strongest suit.

One grouse that many may have against PS-II is about how the wars and confrontations have been shot. It’s almost like Mani Ratnam treated them like functional bits in the narrative because they just had to be shown on screen. He just wanted to get them over with and has put very little imagination or resources into it. That shows on screen. Perhaps in the pre-Bahubali era of Indian cinema, this might have passed muster, like a Jodha Akbar did. But, the benchmark has now been set and Mani Ratnam should have been up for the challenge when executing an epic that deserved to be treated like one. This is not to say that all such scenes fall flat, the moment before the interval does pack a punch. However, this scene again shows how Mani Ratnam is more comfortable in the subtle rather than the over the top!

PS-II is beautifully and powerfully orchestrated at the emotional level, with the motives of the central characters being conveyed very effectively. Mani Ratnam shows that even comfort castings, like Prabhu as a military leader, can work if the emotional anchor of the movie is in the right place. The same Prabhu looked so out of place as a strong right-hand man in Marakkar, which tried to be epic without bothering in the least about the ‘why’ of any of the characters. However, directors of both these movies could have been more careful with the use and control over the extra actors.

Watching PS-II is like watching an engrossingly written play being performed by skilled actors. The scale and the backdrop don’t really matter because the movie lives and breathes through the emotions of its lead characters. The only thing you have to do as an audience is to not walk in with an epic in mind.

Drishyam 2 - Has there ever been a better sequel?

Seven years back, in the final minute of a full-length feature film Jeethu Joseph delivered a knockout punch that can still be felt in some parts of the world as language after language seeks to remake this story. Such was the perfection of Drishyam that no one envisaged this story going forward. It was there, complete, perfect, the perfect cover up of an amateurish crime. Taking the story forward would be like attempting to build an annexe to the Taj Mahal, or adding a blush to the cheeks of Mona Lisa - both fraught with more risk than potential reward. While these might look like comparisons that are too lofty, the fact that a small unassuming movie (Mohanlal was the only big thing about Drishyam back then) from Kerala now has a remake in China and one in the pipeline in Hollywood - we are used to doing things the other way round - says enough about how much it means to Indian cinema.

We thought Drishyam was finished business, but Drishyam 2 is about Georgekutty and a few others who believe that there is business yet to be finished. Both the protector and the persecutor do not let their guard down and that’s how things come to a second precipice. As one of the character’s says, ‘This is a war, started by him (Georgekutty), and I like to win my wars’. Wars are not won easily. They are won by the ones willing to ‘dig deep’ trenches and hold fort, waiting for the right time to act. This story is also about two sides waiting patiently in their trenches looking for the slightest threat or opportunity. It is this excruciating battle of wits and patience that Jeethu Joseph has written with painstaking perfection, making Drishyam 2, in every way possible, a worthy sequel to the phenomenon that was Drishyam.

A dead body lying deep under the circle inspector’s seat at a local police station. A police investigation that was reprimanded by the court. The parents of the dead who had left India for good. And no witnesses! Only the infamous Sukumara Kurup could have thought of a more perfect crime. What more is there to be done? This makes us think of that famous line by Mammotty from ‘The Truth’ about how ‘truth’ finds a way to come out no matter how deep you may bury it. That’s where the movie begins, showing us a glimpse of how the truth may ultimately be revealed. But, Drishyam 2 is not just about that. It’s way more than a simple uncovering of the truth. Jeethu delves into the present day lives of Georgekutty and family, showing us the scars of a crime they had to commit and the trauma they endure to this day. That’s where Jeethu shows his class as a writer! He keeps the very tempting reveal in the background and takes us into the psyche of the family so well that for a brief while we forget that bigger trouble might be awaiting them later. Though it might not look obvious, every character in the family has been given an individual battle to fight. Be it Georgekutty, his wife or the daughters, everyone carries a weight in their minds and has to fight off demons in their own way. For a while, we even believe what Jeethu Joseph so tactfully said in his interviews - that this is a movie tracing the psychological journey of the family after the crime. Perhaps, that was his biggest masterstroke, because he jolts us out of the lull with a startling revelation that might have created reverberations in theaters as an ‘intermission block’.

Jeethu Joseph has strained every sinew of his imagination to come up with this ingenious plot. As we go deeper into the second half, and more and more layers are revealed to us, our eyes open wider. It’s one thing to write outlandish plots with fancy elements, but it’s a totally different game to weave an intricate plot about one man against an entire police force, and yet not once go into the realm of the impossible. Yes, the story does travel in a way that many of us may consider improbable, but not once can you call it ‘impossible’. That tremendous balancing act by Jeethu is what makes Drishyam 2 a truly mind blowing experience. There are many points in the movie where we begin to ask questions about how certain things might have happened. But, Jeethu covers all that with answers in one way or the other. And these answers don’t come on screen like an ‘explanation reel’, which is a technique used in many thrillers where the viewer is shown what exactly had happened. The answers are given to us by characters that are planted so seamlessly into the screenplay in the first half. Even the most movie-crazed minds might not be able to pick the purpose that some characters have in the screenplay until Jeethu chooses to reveal it himself. At this point, I’m willing to put this piece of writing alongside the likes of Agatha Christie for sheer brilliance. Saying anything more would be a spoiler.

Jeethu the writer was absolutely magnificent in Drishyam 2! Jeethu the director executed the script as required. It’s no secret that Jeethu banks on his actors to produce good performances rather than get it out of them. That difference is clearly visible. The scenes that have the experienced actors look like poetry motion and the ones with the extras look merely functional. We are nitpicking here for such a finely made movie, but one wishes that some of the ‘nattukar (the people of the town)’ were chosen better. Especially the three-four auto drivers who have conversations amongst themselves plainly look like they are saying rehearsed lines that they don’t really believe in. Covid compulsions might have forced those choices, and so we will let them pass, and in the end they look like minor glitches in an otherwise spellbinding product. The one thing you do notice about Jeethu as a director is that he trusts his audience to spot the key moments and remember them as the movie goes along. It’s common practice to let the camera linger a second longer than necessary, or to add an additional sinister angle with an equally sinister BGM to register important moments strongly in audience memory. Jeethu does not do that, instead puts faith in the audiences’ intelligence, which is also one of the reasons that each major twist surprises us that much more. It may be an overstatement, but the screenplay is so good that it makes much of the technical departments merely functional instruments to narrate the story. But, at places the editing stands out with its crispness, especially in the big reveal moments with each character’s awestruck reaction being shown effectively without wasting much time.

The genius of Mohanlal is often said to be his effortless acting. But, Drishyam 2 is proof that there is a very strong method to this effortlessness. You can’t be the same Georgekutty twice seven years apart without having a deep understanding of the character and it’s evolution. Unlike Drishyam, the sequel places more onus on Georgekutty and lesser space for his family into the second half. A man carrying a secret close to his heart and living every minute with a conscious effort of not saying a word that may spill the truth - that is not an easy thing to depict on screen. Knowing the screenplay inside out is the only way Mohanlal could have so perfectly known exactly how much to ‘give’ in each scene! Drishyam 2 shows us that Mohanlal is spontaneous with a method! The synergy between the lead pair is such a pleasure to watch on screen. It’s almost as if the family lived those 6 years carrying that trauma in their hearts and minds. Meena is subtly effective while Ansiba is challenged with some tough moments that she aces. Esther also shows her teen transformation with ease. But, the man who comes a very close second to Mohanlal is Siddique as Prabhakar. He might not play the most important character in the scheme of things, but everytime he is on screen he makes it count. The moral jeopardy of a man torn trying to find the middle ground between retribution, justice and forgiveness is beautifully expressed on his face. And as one of the characters wonders aloud in this movie, if all men were like Prabhakar, the world might be a much better place. Murali Gopi bites deep into the best character he has yet been offered by another writer. We only pray that he doesn’t get so busy as an actor that he can’t find time to write! Asha Sharath as Geetha Prabhakar unleashes herself in one interrogation scene that crackles with all the pent up anger and frustration.

All other things aside, Drishyam 2 is about the absolute commitment of the writer to come up with a screenplay that would not let down anyone who has seen Drishyam. One can only imagine the number of times he would have thought, written and re-written and reverse engineered this screenplay to make it as watertight as it is now! It would be too much to ask that every writer do this for every screenplay, but surely any writer attempting a sequel to a celebrated movie should treat Drishyam 2 as a benchmark. Drishyam 2 is about Jeethu Joseph not being tempted by the easy benefits of a sequel and not being overawed by the task at hand. As Georgekutty, he waited, bided his time, and when the opportunity came - he was ready!

Master Review: Lokesh is still a 'mass' apprentice!

There is a scene towards the end of Master where Vijay looks at the camera (not directly, at an angle) and no one else is on screen. He points out his hand and proclaims ‘there are crores out there who like me’! That is the point where it became painfully obvious that Lokesh Kanagaraj had completely sold out to the idea of a star-driven Tamil commercial movie. There were strong indications right from the beginning, but you were willing to give the benefit of the doubt to a young director making his first big movie with the weight of expectations from his previous success. But this moment, which pandered to nothing else but the stardom of the leading man, is not the product of a young naive filmmaker trying something new or different. This can be done only in complete anticipation of the claps and whistles that the fans might generously shower. Lokesh Kanagaraj sold out to ‘mass’! It’s not a crime, neither is it cinema of unacceptably low standards. But it definitely hurts to see a potential torchbearer of pure cinema turn into a candle-bearer to an actor’s stardom! 

That’s not to say all is lost for Lokesh Kanagaraj. The very beginning of the film shows that he has his fingers firmly on the pulse of the story as he introduces us to JD, the professor. The hero ‘intro’ is carefully set up, showing that the young director has evolved and learnt quickly the ropes of presenting a star on screen. But, the problem is that the screenplay does not know where to stop gaping at the star and get on with the business of telling the story. You get a stretched intro fight followed by an out of place intro jingle at the end of which the education minister (who has been made to wait until the hero arrives) gives a mini speech extolling the qualities that might have made this person (who he has not yet met) so popular with the students. When the screenplay does start motoring along the movie looks good. That exactly is the problem with Master! A fairly engaging plot punctuated with irritating speed breakers that serve no purpose, except stretch the movie to the three hour mark.

There are things in Master to be liked. The way Vijay’s character has been set up, giving him a vice (very rare in Tamil cinema, though not non-existent, Katthi for example) of his own to overcome, make him fallible, imperfect. These are welcome changes, but the filmmaker did not have the gumption to go the whole way with it. Even with those imperfections, he is a hero among the students, speaks strongly against the establishment and has all the qualities that make the quintessential Tamil hero. When the time comes for him to look himself in the mirror change for the better, he does so with the ease of flipping a switch. Years of alcoholism gone in a flash leaving behind no signs, no withdrawal symptoms. It’s not that it makes much of a difference because he was the hero even when he was an alcoholic, just that he switched off after 6 pm. Now, he is a hero round the clock. It’s this unwillingness to go the whole way with an idea that stops Master from being truly out of the ordinary. The hero has his demons, but manages to fight them off overnight - which makes the demons seem pretty weak!

But, Master is more the story of Bhavani than JD. Master is ambitious with it’s villain right from the beginning. There is an attempt to construct an almost mythical sort of villain figure, not much unlike Siddharth Abhimanyu of Thani Oruvan. But, while Siddharth banked more on sophistication in his crimes, Bhavani believes in savagery that none can match up to. There is a moment in the film when the hero wonders aloud about whether the villain’s genitals were not visible when he was given the name ‘Bhavani’. So much for class! And, we thought that’s as low as it can get when the villain proudly proclaims later that he was indeed in a position where his genitals were on display. You get an idea of the kind of villain Bhavani is. Ruthless, cold blooded and always willing to hit below the belt. The hold that Bhavani has over the juvenile correctional home, the workings of the nexus and the terror that Bhavani wields are well etched in the screenplay, which makes for a sumptuous set up for the hero-villain clash. But, the screenplay refuses to get to that point in any hurry. We meander through a meaningless montage of the bucket-wielding hero smashing people in the face, and sit through a Thuppakki-inspired sequence where the villain finishes off people in the hero’s friend list, a kabaddi match that seems to be there only to give us some ‘Ghilli’ nostalgia. We think that the director might have at this point run out of ideas to stretch the film further. But, he surprises us with a sequence where the hero manages to deliver a monologue that instantly reforms 3-4 convicts - we thought that thing had ended in the 2000s! Then he gives us a lorries vs arrows match which is not entirely bad because for a change it’s not the hero doing the shooting! Oh, we thought too fast. How can someone else steal the hero’s thunder for too long in a Tamil movie? Soon, we have the hero shooting arrows. The arrows which till that point were either breaking glass or puncturing tyres suddenly became potent missiles in the hands of the hero, sending lorries lunging over mounds of sand. By the time we hear the ‘kutti story’ beat come out of a container we have no patience left. But wait, the hero and villain have yet to come face to face (they do share a face to back sequence earlier).

Vijay Sethupathi does his thing like only he can. The Bhavani character though strongly written is not anything new to Tamil cinema. The ruthless villain who strikes fear even in the hearts of his co-criminals. The villain who plunges a knife into a chest in the middle of a jovial conversation. One can see shades of Joker here. But, it’s nothing new. It’s just the amazing spontaneity of the Makkal Selvan that keeps the character fresh in our minds. One is tempted to name him ‘Brick Knuckle Bhavani’ for the punches that he throws. But, even Brick Knuckle Bhavani goes into standby mode in the final fight as the hero delivers one last monologue to his students who wildly cheer him! There is one sequence in the fight that highlights the gulf between the two actors. Both are required to sing a song after knocking the opponent down. While VJS does his ‘Jaam Bazaar jakku’ routine with such ease, mixing arrogance, nonchalance and sarcasm, Vijay stages a ‘Vazhakka bajji’ antic which will be trolled in the years to come. 

Master has proved that Lokesh Kanagaraj is a fast learner. From shooting with a very limited cast to making a mob fight on a college campus, the director has graduated to the big league in terms of scale. He has also learnt the art of playing to the gallery with slow motions and pumping BGM supplied in ample measure by Anirudh. The director might learn the fine line of balancing these mass elements as he goes along, but he has definitely overdone it by a fair bit in Master. He has also written in a cute little trait into Master’s character where Vijay keeps coming up with inane back stories explaining why he became an alcoholic. He also gives the villain character a ‘2 minute’ punchline every time he’s getting ready for action. These touches work well and tell us that behind the taut screenplays that were written for Maanagaram and Kaithi, there is also a writer who enjoys the more softer genres of cinema. We only wish the writer was able to come up with a stronger reason to connect the first hour of the screenplay to the main act. Here, it dangles by a string that the editor might have been tempted to cut had it not demanded the unthinkable act of cutting out the star’s intro fight and song. What Lokesh Kanagaraj has done well though is push Vijay slightly out of his comfort zones in terms of performance. We do not know whether the quirk of constantly pulling up his pants was the director’s or the actor’s idea, but it does add credibility to the overall unkempt nature of the character in the first hour.

Master promised so much, mostly because of Kaithi. It’s difficult to say whether it’s unfair to judge a movie based on the director’s previous work. But, even viewing it without the weight of Kaithi is not a satisfying experience. Lokesh Kanagaraj is not caught in two minds as Pa Ranjith was when he got the chance to make movies with Rajnikanth. Lokesh decides to go full on ‘mass’ mode. But the problem is he does not have a screenplay that backs up his mass ambitions and ends up giving us a mish-mash of slow motion montages, songs and painfully obvious references to Vijay’s previous blockbusters (the TN assembly should soon pass a legislation banning the use of ‘I’m waiting’ references in interval blocks of Tamil movies) with the only relief being a delightfully spontaneous Vijay Sethupathi who adds his spice to the regular villain character. Master proves that when it comes to ‘mass’, Lokesh is still an apprentice!

SUPER DELUXE

 Super Deluxe! What's Super about this?

There’s what you do, and what you don’t – nothing’s right or wrong says Thyagarajan Kumararaja in his second movie. He treads the line between the real and the surreal in bringing together multiple strands of narratives into an ending, well multiple endings! The connections are quite tangential, like they were brought together so that it could be one feature film, not an anthology of short stories. The stories themselves look like they were written by different writers (as they are) with almost no idea of what the other writer was up to. In spite of that, one wonders how almost every writer (save the guy who wrote the character played by Mysskin) paints at least one guy in his story as a total dick. Really, men in this movie are portrayed as if they think only through their hard on, which they seem to have in their pants even when faced with the harshest of circumstances.

All problems of the central characters in this movie start off because of a sexual misadventure. The And it never stops. We have teenagers who don’t forget to gawk at a sensual song on TV even when they owe a thug a huge sum by evening, we have a middle aged lady at a CD shop who asks the said boys to not be shy about asking her for shady blue films, we have a sub inspector of police who doesn’t mind dropping his pants inside his station knowing fully well that his subordinates are aware of what he is up to. You start to wonder whether these characters feel nothing but lust through all their waking hours, not even fear! The character sketches are so one dimensional, they could have been huge dicks and no one would have noticed the difference. If women were portrayed the same way, it would have been called objectification, misogyny and whatnot, like the recent 90 ML was panned by everyone. It is hard to see how Super Deluxe is any better or different in terms of what it wants to say.

The answer to that lies in the skill of the director to capture his audiences through a mix of visuals, dialogues and sounds. It is the difference between saying a four letter cuss word in Tamil and English. You say it in Tamil and you are unsophisticated or unpolished, and you say it English you are the cool guy!  Super Deluxe is the cool guy of Tamil cinema who can get away saying ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’, while the guy who said ‘otha’ is frowned upon.

Thyagarajan Kumararaja chooses to set his film in some place in Chennai, we believe, where the building exteriors look straight from the 90s. One can’t recall one building in the film that did not have the paint falling off or the interiors looking dull and faded. And you have walls carrying posters of movies that were released over various points over the last 20 years. One doesn’t understand if those are pop culture references! What would a poster of Bulletproof Monk be doing on a wall in 2018, or what was adapted from that movie to Super Deluxe for the director to pay it a tribute. Pop culture references and tributes should not confuse the viewer about the actual year that the movie is set in. Apparently, not everyone can be a Steven Spielberg and make a Ready Player One. Anyone who watches Super Deluxe with open eyes is bound to feel confused about whether this is a period story. But then you see smart phones and LED TVs which allay your doubts. It is difficult to understand what the director conveyed to the art department about his requirements and how it was understood.

Vijay Sethupathi was brave to walk into a role that made him take such a huge risk for so little substance. That again is down to physicality and sexual orientation. The man has no starry egos or worries about his image. He doesn’t mind exposing his growing paunch or going half bald, nor does he mind being ridiculed by a child – he is the director’s actor. One just feels sad that even his character is a one-trick pony with precious little screen time. Samantha was challenged a bit and comes out well, but one wonders what drove Fahad Fazil towards this role! One feels that he took up this role more because of Aaranya Kaandam than the actual script of Super Deluxe. The same can be said about Ramya Krishnan. Bhagavathi Perumal is the epitome of everything that is wrong with this movie – writing that boxes characters into one dimensional puppets – the man who cannot think about anything but sex! And you have the teenagers – perhaps the only characters in the movie that have more than one emotion to portray. But, that too culminates in the most bizarre of ways – an example of escapist writing at it’s most extreme to mouth a few philosophical lines about how everything in the universe is almost the same. Even there, the director doesn’t spare the sexual angle.

The dialogues do help a lot in making the most disagreeable of ideas seem smart, and that is what keeps the movie going. There is some interesting idea about how casteism is just as good or bad as nationalism, which might make people think. The background music (or should one say the background sound track which is many old movies and serials playing out) has been studiously done, with songs and dialogues being picked to add context and humour to the dialogues of the characters. Curiously, the Stars Wars signature music is used here, one wonders why. It does show the director’s lofty ambitions, but he ought to have picked better written material to justify it. Here, it seems more like a desecration than tribute. It is the editing that somehow makes a little sense of all the mess. Even that cannot resolve the muddled timelines of all the threads that are left conveniently unexplained in the end – apparently not everyone can be a Christopher Nolan and make a Dunkirk.

Thyagarajan Kumararaja is a smart film maker. He knows the art of presenting pseudointelligent trash under the garb of philosophy and life advice. People were nude 1000 years back, and they might be nude 100 years from now, so why think that clothing is imperative – says a character in the movie. The director must be asked, copyright laws did not exist 1000 years back, they might not exist 100 years from now, so why bother with antipiracy laws, let the pirated DVDs flow freely. Nothing’s right or wrong, it’s just what you do – isn’t that what you want to say director?

 

Pesudointelligent trash and sexually overcharged males – nothing else!

Kaalapani during the Marakkar weekend!

This weekend was supposed to be Malayalam cinema's event of 2020, a record breaking opening was ensured, 500 screens in Kerala, an 'industry hit' that was almost 

pre-ordained according to the fans, Malayalam cinema's answer to Bahubali, the movie that would put Malayalam cinema on the world map, Marakkar Arabikkadalinte

Simham. It might look silly to lament on a postponed release in these times when life has been put on standby mode, but this is not about Marakkar; his time will

come sooner or later. This is about Priyadarshan's Govardhan, the prisoner in Cellular Jail who never returned. On Saturday, watching Kaalapani on Asianet from within

the confines of my home, I reflected on how cinema and our perception of it had changed over these 24 years with some scattered recollections of how Kaalapani had

been received back then.

Too costly for Malayalam?

Kaalapani was the Marakkar of 96. That was a time when the budget of a movie was perhaps not as intensely scrutinized or talked about as it is now. But, even in those

times, the scale of Kaalapani generated a lot of curiosity amongst the general audience. There was talk that this was too big for Malayalam cinema, that Mohanlal the

producer had erred in his judgment. Back then, everyone waited for a good two weeks before pronouncing the verdict on a movie. When Kaalapani released, the 

feeling was one of impending doom, that no matter how good this movie turned out to be, it would never bring back the money that had been put into it.Maybe I was too

young back then, but I remember getting the feeling that many people waited for the news on Kaalapani expecting a Goliath-like debacle that could be talked about around

dinner tables for months to come. Did that news come? Yes and no! It was not a debacle by any means, and there are still furious debates around this in fan circles.

For a movie that reportedly raised the budget bar of Malayalam movies by nearly 250%, a profit was nearly unimaginable, a prophecy which many people wanted to see

fulfilled to have that 'I told you so' moment. Years after Kaalapani, Priyadarshan reminisced about a remark that had come from another senior director over lunch.

Discussing Kaalapani, the senior director had wondered about how many small movies could have been made with the money splurged on Kaalapani. On the lunch table that day

was a plate of biriyani, and Priyadarshan, according to his recollection, had to fight back a temptation to ask how many idlis could have been bought at the cost of 

the biryani. That was the kind of pessimism that shrouded Kaalapani when it was announced, made and released. BUt, 25 years later, there isn't that kind of pessimism 

around Marakkar. Malayalam cinema has stretched it's limits multiple times in the last decade thanks to Pazhassiraja, Urumi, Drishyam,Premam, Pulimurugan and Luficer.

Now there is a feeling that if the movie is good enough, any budget is justified.

Priyadarshan's politics?

1996 was a time when cinema was looked upon as just cinema, and we look back fondly at those times. Kaalapani released, and for many of my generation, that was the first

we heard the name Veer Savarkar. I am not sure if I was too young or too naive at the time to understand if the movie exposed any political leanings of its writer

and director. But, as the years have gone by, more and more people have dug into the politics of Kaalapani and come up with their own interpretations. These are times

when it's almost impossible for a prominent film personality to remain apolitical in the public view. Priyadarshan has not tried to remain apolitical and has been

quite open on social media about his preferences. Maybe it is this very open admission by Priyadarshan that has lead people to look much more closely at the 

politics of Kaalapani. Nearly 20 years after its initial release, I heard that Kaalapani was an exercise in glorifying Savarkar! Really? I had never thought about it

that way. But, when doubts are planted in your mind, you start looking at things differently, you start looking to read between lines. Watching Kaalapani again in 

changed times and much more politically polarised climate makes you look at certain portions with suspicion. Yes, Savarkar is being shown as a hero! But, maybe he

really was a hero in the Cellular Jail at that time. Yes, you see quite a direct jibe at the Congress which is branded as the party that was founded by wealthy and

the priveleged to protect their interests, and the Communist is branded as an outfit that promotes violence. All this in the space of two minutes. There was 

enforced coprophagia on a Brahmin by a tyrannical jail warden who happened to be Muslim! Put it all together

and couple it with the obvious political leaning on Priyadarshan's social media - well, Kaalapani does not look so innocent anymore! It's at times like these that one

hopes we could go back to the 90s where cinema was seen as a story shown on the screen for 3 hours, after which we got on with our lives. No one bothered about the 

director's political inclinations, no one got offended by a few lines here or there. In 2020, Priyadarshan's real-life political leanings have already caused a 

debate about how he will present Marakkar, a hero from a community that is at loggerheads with the political outfit that the director beleives in. It was all so

simple back then.

What's with the accent?

How historically accurate is it? Everytime a period movie comes out, we keep going back to this question. Back in 1996, Kaalapani was as accurate as a Malayalam

movie had ever got with the pre-independence era. For the average viewer, there was nothing that could be faulted. Maybe the highly read or the politically

inclined had a question or two to ask about how Savarkar was represented. But, there was one very minute detail picked up by som prominent intellectual of the time,

you could even call it picky. Remember David Barry, the sadistic jailor who inflicted the most unimaginable cruelties on the inmates of his jail, through Mirza Khan 

of course! The problem, or so it was said, was that Barry spoke with an Irish accent in the movie. How could a British jailor have an Irish accent, the critic/

intellectual had wondered aloud? For those of us that cannot tell the difference between the two accents, it didn't matter. But, could Priyadarshan too have been

ignorant of the fact that British and Irish accents are different, or did he just cast the actor available? Neither Priyadarshan nor anyone associated with

Kaalapani responded to this at that time, they obviously had other things on their mind. But, many years later someone else said casually in an interview that the

Irish accent was not a mistake, it was there because the real David Barry was of Irish descent. The accent/slang trouble has been with Priyadarshan since then I guess.

In 2003, the most hated thing about Kilichundan Mambazham was Mohanlal's artifical North Kerala slang, which is trolled even today, and which was the biggest bone of

contention between fan camps when Marakkar's first teaser released. 

Did Mohanlal really lick it?

Classrooms those days were always divided into two camps! If it was Rajni vs Kamal in TN, it was Mammootty vs Mohanlal in Kerala. And, when Kaalapani released the big

debate was whether Mohanlal really licked Amrish Puri's shoes. Those were conflicting times for young fans of both Mohanlal and Mammootty. Neither knew whether it was

a good thing that an actor had shown enough committment, or a sign that Bollywood villains were a step above Malayalam heroes! Silly as it may sound now, this was a 

genuine dilemma back then. To see your favorite hero bend down and lick a Hindi villain's boots did evoke mixed feelings. Those were also the days when movie news 

could be found only in Nana or one other weekly, unlike now when every shooting spot event is out on Youtube even before the movie has released. It was quite a few

years after Kaalapani's release that we began to hear stories of how Amrish Puri burst into tears after Mohanlal did the 'boot licking' shot for real. That did puff up

the pride of the young Mohanlal fan, knowing that the great Mogambo had been moved to tears by your idol! It was also a turning point in fanship for many I beleive.

Mohanlal did not need to be the Aadu Thoma or Mangalasseri Neelakanthan to make his fans feel proud, showing unimaginable commitment to every frame in a movie was 

equally clapworthy! Marakkar faces the same question. Will it play to the gallery, will it stop the narrative at Marakkar's highest point, his victorious battle, or

will it show how he eventually fell?

What's 'tatti'?

For those who have learnt Hindi in Kerala or in the south schools in general, the word 'tatti' was not part of the vocabulary. After all, schools do not teach 'slang'.

So, when Amrish Puri force fed 'tatti' to Tinnu Anand (all characters spoke their native tongue in Kaalapani, unlike now when directors conveniently say that all

characters will be speaking in Tamil irrespective of where they come from or where the story is happening), me and many, who only knew Hindi through textbooks, wondered

what was being forced down his throat through the funnel. Some kind of non-veg broth I imagined at first because the conflict was all about Tinnu Anand's hunger strike 

over being asked to eat non-veg food. It took quite some asking around to finally find a person who knew what 'tatti' meant! And, when I found out, I hoped I hadn't 

asked.

For a generation of audiences who's memories start from the 90s, Kaalapani was Malayalam cinema's first spectacle! Now, spectacles have become commonplace. Sometimes

movies that aren't spectacles are hyped up to be so (the offspring of Narasimham and Aaram Thamburan comes to mind). But, Marakkar promises to reset the scales of what

a 'spectacle' in Malayalam cinema is supposed to be, like Kaalapani did back in 96. And for that, we wait patiently!

Oppam

INDEPENDECE DAY RESURGENCE REVIEW: 20 years on.....A Sequel!

Last week we got a sequel to Finding Nemo after more than 12 years; that was a long wait. This week, we get a sequel after 20 years; that must officially be the longest gap between two sequels ever. The long standing appeal of Independence Day can be gauged from the kind of expectations this sequel generated. For a generation of audiences, Independence Day was one of the first movies that showed possible global destruction on the big screen, along with Armageddon. So, expectedly, it is the kind of sequel that would make a 90s kid all excited.

Independence Day Resurgence springs no surprises because we all know what it is going to be. The

promos made it all too clear saying that ‘we had 20 years to prepare, so did they’, which gives it away that the same eerily shaped bad guys are returning, much stronger, perhaps much wiser, than they were before. It is a question of how and when they arrive and how earth, which means USA, takes them on and finishes them. But, rather unexpectedly, the movie begins on the moon, where we are shown that an elaborate station with pilots and all has been set up; in fact, flying to the moon is easier than you can imagine. So, why did Rolan Emmerich decide to go to the moon to start off this movie? It is not his style. He usually takes very little time starting off the mass destruction process, like we have seen in 2012 or Day After Tomorrow. But, with Resurgence, he has decided to make things more slow and deliberate, an attempt at character development maybe, but that really isn’t his strength, unlike perhaps a Nolan, who can have elaborate set ups to the actual plot and still keep us interested. Emmerich is not able to make us buy into any of the leading characters’ mental baggage, especially the friction between Liam Hemsworth and Jesse Usher which he wants us to think is going to have some bearing on the movie, but which we really never care about. The set up towards the main event doesn’t quite work, maybe because it is way too obvious for all those who are familiar with Independence Day. The original movie hinged very heavily on the slow build up of tension as sightings of giant spaceships were reported all over the world,; the same kind of tension is absent here mostly because Emmerich decides to spend so much time on the moon and shows very little of what’s happening over earth. He eventually decides to wrap up the moon part, which could quite easily have been staged anywhere on earth.

It’s almost an hour when we finally get down to the business end of the movie. The connect the characters from the original Independence Day movie have with the audience is evident form the cheers they get. Jeff Goldblum is clearly a favorite, so is his dad and so is the crazy scientist who was almost killed by the alien. They are all there, of course except Will Smith. Once the invasion begins in earnest, it is the comfort zone of Emmerich and his colors begin to show. The aerial attacks, the bombing squad that goes into the spaceship, just like in the original, have all been made well, which is cakewalk for the director’s experience, he knows how to handle such stuff. But, the scenes where he tries to show cities being gobbled up by spaceship’s gravity look a bit dated. It might have looked great in 1996, but 2016 is a time when apocalypse movies release every fortnight and the VFX should be much better and imaginative to have any kind of effect on the audiences.

The original Independence Day was very interesting not just because of the big scale action we saw. It was also interesting because ultimately it was one smart move that hoodwinked the aliens who had far superior technology. So, we expect the same here. Admittedly, some of the stuff that happens is quite analogous to the original, but the final move is something new and will interest you.

It is the veteran performers who impress and make us care about Independece Day Resurgence. Jeff ^th speech. The makers have quite interestingly cast a lady as the current president of America (maybe for the first time ), which makes their political leanings quite clear. But, Emmerich can’t go all the way and show a lady president leading the resistance and giving inspiring war speeches, and so takes the easy way out and hands the baton over to the former president from 1996.

Goldblum is as good as the geeky guy as he was in 1996, while Bill Pullman returns as the ageing ex-president, but he still gets to make his July 4

Independence Day Resurgence has its moments. Emmerich does well with the stuff that he has always been comfortable with. But he uncharacteristically spends way too much time setting up things, which makes the audience a bit restless and it is only fair to say that the Hemsworth and Usher pairing does not have nearly as much screen presence as the Will Smith-Goldblum team, which makes things feel a bit damp. But, you might still enjoy it for the pretty graphic depiction of the aliens, the pretty good final move and the familiar feel good factor of reliving one of your childhood favorites. And, one wonders, why do the women pilots suddenly remove their shirts in the final scene?

Not Resurgent enough, but still watchable!

2.5/5