Between Reviews: On the Trail of Mani

ON THE TRAIL OF MANI

The fuss over Amitabh Bachchan notwithstanding, the reason “Paa” is so enjoyable is that it triggers fond memories of early-era Mani Ratnam.

DEC 13, 2009 – EVER SINCE R BALKI BEGAN TO CROW about his stunt casting – father becoming son, son becoming father – I’ve harboured apprehensions about Paa, and the self-congratulatory trailers didn’t exactly help. From Amitabh Bachchan’s creepy-crawly laugh (after he announces the film’s title, or calls out to his paa, or perhaps both) to the supposedly life-affirming, heart-warming, throat-lump-inducing “monkey dance,” everything pointed towards syrupy disaster. Plus, there was the icky issue of celebrity recognition factor. When a relatively unknown (at the time) Daniel Day-Lewis portrayed a patient stricken with cerebral palsy, in My Left Foot, we were left shattered – but when a big star (or actor) slips into the skin of someone afflicted by a condition, especially one with showy external manifestations, we tend to latch on to not the trials of the character but the techniques of the actor. We say, “Oh, Robert De Niro does such a good job of being catatonic in Awakenings,” or, “Look how astoundingly consistent Kamal Hassan is with his lopsided gait in Anbe Sivam.”

The major miracle of Paa is that this concern is rendered blithely redundant. It appeared, at first, just another cutesy gimmick that the promos proclaimed “introducing Amitabh Bachchan” – but sometimes, it seems, there is truth in advertising. This isn’t the great declamator whose baritone echoes through our cranial crannies even when we’re not watching his films, and neither is this the sickeningly overfamiliar patriarch with the white goatee. The actor comes up with a beautifully modulated physical performance, with his long limbs in oversized clothes suggesting just the right touch of adolescent gangliness – but that’s simply half the story. The real stars of Paa are the makeup magicians, who, through prosthetics, transform a superstar we’ve known and loved for over three decades into a complete newcomer. The film would not have worked if we’d seen Amitabh Bachchan. It works because we see Auro, the character, with a face that resembles a mummified light bulb, highlighted by tributaries of veins, strange teeth and a stranger voice.

About five minutes into the film, my fears melted into nothingness, and some two-and-a-half hours later, I stepped out with the satisfaction of having seen a smart movie made by a smart man – and one who clearly adores the early Mani Ratnam. If Balki’s life were a comic book, he’d be a tribal lad smiling as he held out a bloody palm with a missing thumb. He’s the Eklavya who learnt from a distance, and I’m beginning to think it’s no coincidence that he keeps employing cinematographer PC Sreeram and music director Ilayaraja. While his Dronacharya has moved on to loftier themes (and to other cinematographers and music directors), Balki has bottled the essence of pre-Roja Mani Ratnam, and his films are redolent of the spirit of the director who redefined what it was – on screen – to be young, to feel young. Those of us whose wasteful teens were spent worshipping Mani Ratnam’s films cannot fail to sense that puckishness in Cheeni Kum and Paa.

Balki transports his characters to New Delhi for a repeat of the middle-of-the-road shot (with the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the distance) that kickstarts the song Mandram vandha thendralukku in Mouna Raagam. His heroine is a typical Mani Ratnam heroine, in earthy saris created from cotton and with a will forged from steel. (She may not be married, like the usual Ratnam heroine, but she’s a mother nonetheless.) Like Raghuvaran in Anjali, she treats her out-of-the-ordinary child (who’s afflicted with progeria) as if he were like anyone else. As for Balki’s hero, an angel-white politician, he’s a replica of the no-nonsense cop played by Prabhu in Agni Natchatiram – a youngster who, instead of whining about the establishment, steps into the muck in order to clean it out. And this hero isn’t above taking a few tricks from an older hero – a Nayakan (literally, Hero) – when he strives to make the rich and the well-fed feel the plight of the poor. In a remarkably similar turn of events, he orchestrates a strategy wherein hordes of have-nots invade the homes of the haves.

Even the so-called “mistakes” Balki makes appear instigated by his mentor. There was a long-winded story arc, seemingly needless, in Anjali through which we were supposed to infer that Raghuvaran was immersed in an extra-marital affair – but, eventually, we saw that this (admittedly cinematic) diversion went a long way towards defining his too-good-to-be-true character. In Paa, too, the cinematic liberties taken in detailing the too-good-to-be-true politician-hero give us insights into his character, besides providing him an entry point into his child’s life. And among the most endearing aspects of Balki’s film is the dialogue – the smart-as-a-whip (sometimes, over-smart, especially out of the mouths of babes) back-and-forth that makes it seem that almost everyone is conversing in punch lines. Translate these words and these sentiments into Tamil and you’ll land up with the kind of patter that, at one time, was patented by Mani Ratnam. If this charming wit prevents Paa from being taken too seriously, cloaking the happenings with a somewhat facile air, it also saves the story from lapsing into a dreaded disease-movie-of-the-week.

And that was the bittersweet balance Mani Ratnam achieved with Gitanjali. Like the progeria in Paa, the heart condition of the lovers there was merely a MacGuffin – a ticking-clock device around which we’re meant to think the film hinges, but ultimately of little inherent worth. Paa isn’t about progeria the way Taare Zameen Par was about dyslexia – and if Balki’s film lacks the lyricism of the first half of Aamir Khan’s feature, it also steers clear of the bathos that blighted the second half. The most admirable aspect of Paa is that it locates a light, casual tone and sticks with it from start to finish. That this tone reminded me of the early Mani Ratnam was simply gravy. Even the packaging – slick, largely unsentimental, trendy, young, and focused on “hard-selling” every punchy pop-moment to an impatient audience (as opposed to letting them absorb it, experience it) – looked similar, owing perhaps to both men harking back to advertising and marketing backgrounds. Thanks to Balki, the rest of India knows now what we Tamils were celebrating in the latter half of the eighties, and all the way up to Roja.

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Posted in: Between Reviews, Cinema: Hindi, Cinema: Tamil