ONE IN A THOUSAND
Selvaraghavan’s controversial new film is far from perfect, but he does succeed in leaving his fingerprints all over the most generic of genres.
JAN 31, 2010 – A FILMMAKER ACQUAINTANCE GREW LONG, POINTY TEETH and bit my head off when I uttered but three words in relation to Selvaraghavan’s Aayirathil Oruvan: “I enjoyed it.” Fuddled by the force of his fury, I clarified that I didn’t thrill to the film the way we do with the great films (or, at any rate, the films that we think are great), and that the first half was embarrassingly generic, but a good chunk of the latter portions bore the stamp of a magnificently eccentric vision. And that I respect. Isn’t it refreshing to witness, among other things, a drastic reimagining of the Cholas and the Pandiyas – no longer the benign, benevolent, gold-encrusted royals from Tamil-screen historicals and mythologicals of the fifties and sixties, but blood-soaked barbarians? At least till the climax, neither dynasty is painted in a particularly sympathetic light in order that we (as mainstream-movie audiences) can “root” for one over the other, having sniffed out the good guys from the bad. They’re both simply and unapologetically the creatures they are, forged by creation and conditioning.
The qualifications in my assessment of the film somewhat mollified the filmmaker acquaintance – but he’s not the only one so quick (and so vituperative) about denouncing Aayirathil Oruvan. The bad word of mouth (combined with the bad press) makes me wonder if we, at times, decide to fully love or fully hate a film without stopping to consider that all films position themselves someplace along the mile-long continuum in the middle. All films have problems – what’s important is whether these problems overwhelm our experience (in which case, we consign the film to the “bad” bin) or whether they sneak past unnoticed (ergo, a “good” film). Is Aayirathil Oruvan a sometimes frustrating, oftentimes problematic experience? Absolutely. But is it worth a watch (or two, or three), especially if you’re seriously into cinema and if your interests lie, along with entertainment, in examining to what extent the largely inflexible boundaries of the mainstream can be remapped? Again, absolutely.
Loosely put, if the three Indiana Jones installments were filtered through a cracked prism of Tamil history, Aayirathil Oruvan would be the lysergic rainbow that bloomed forth. The creepy-crawly snake-infested attack from Raiders of the Lost Ark is reinforced with the savage, cave-dwelling cult from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and routed through the graph of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where an archeologist-father goes missing, causing the archeologist-child to embark on an expedition retracing his steps. With this in mind, we expect a generic action-adventure ride with a splash of the supernatural, and that is the tone dictated by the early events. We think that the team (comprising Karthi, Andrea, Reema Sen and an unwashed truckload of mercenaries) will dodge the usual traps for three-quarters of the film, until they reach the destination, in the final quarter, where the hitherto mysterious knots will begin to unravel. We think this because that’s how movies of this stripe have conditioned us to think – rather, that’s how these films have conditioned us to not think, and to simply sit back and strap up for the ride.
And so the attention drifts to the ways in which this particular film does not live up to those expectations. We gripe that the CGI effects are substandard, and we wonder how films like this one and Dasavatharam can spend untold crores and yet fall short of the special effects-driven visual elegance of, say, Aladin (never mind that the latter had little else but visual elegance; at least it got that aspect right). We complain that the dangers along the way aren’t staged in a fashion that will stoke our appetites before satisfying our hungers. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, for instance, we’re introduced to a monstrous head-lopping obstacle and we’re clued in to the fact that “only the penitent man” shall pass. The audience is in as much agony as Harrison Ford, until the second he realises that the penitent man is one who bows, which is how his neck escapes those revolving blades of death. In Aayirathil Oruvan, there’s no such anticipatory anxiety. We’re informed that snakes will arrive, and the snakes dutifully arrive. We’re warned that quicksand pits lie ahead, and quicksand pits dutifully lie ahead. There’s no buildup – merely showdown after mildly diverting showdown.
The joke of the film, however, is that this entire stretch is nothing but buildup to a second-half-long showdown. Once these obstacles are navigated, the film mutates into a beast that could scarcely be imagined from the chromosomal constituents of the first half – which is bad news if you’re a creature of cold logic, but a thrilling turn of events if you’re willing to surrender to heavy-lidded imagery on the threshold of a fever-dream. (The trippy sensation is exaggerated by spectacularly nightmarish soot-and-flame cinematography and slo-mo editing rhythms with ceaseless fades-to-black.) The generic machinery of the first half grinds to a groaning stop, and a visceral fog descends over the proceedings. The last obstacle faced by the team results in their becoming possessed by spirits, and as if taking a cue from its characters, thenceforth, the film itself becomes possessed. This is where the real story begins, one that unceremoniously yanks you back from sit-back-and-relax blockbuster-mode and instructs you to focus with all your (supernatural) powers.
This section also introduces one of Selvaraghavan’s most astonishingly deranged characters (and this film’s best-written) – the Chola king portrayed by Parthiban. He is introduced as a Dionysian despot, defined only by his appetites – for food, for sex, for cruelty. (He has no qualms about butchering pitifully starved subjects who lunge at the sight of fresh meat.) But after a while, he receives vital information that has been awaited for generations – he’s the latest in a long line of Chola kings who huddled for survival in these dank, distant caves – and he transforms in a manner that suggests that his apparent inhumanity was simply the result of frustration, of leading a life with no light at the tunnel’s end. Once he sees that light, though, he’s humanised – his eyes well up as he shares these good tidings with his subjects, and he lightens up enough to engage in an informally choreographed dance item with Karthi. This is an unforgettable character, and Parthiban plays him unforgettably – as a decadent, self-serving Roman monarch who nonetheless holds such a sway over his people that they seize the right to slap his cheek when, in a weak moment, he attempts to slit his throat.
There’s so much that’s compelling in the second half that I readily forgave Selvaraghavan his sins in the preceding portions – the squeezed-in songs, the shabby effects, the shoddily cast heroines (neither of whom is remotely interested in convincing us about their fluency in the spoken language). But other audiences haven’t proved as forgiving, though, and I wonder why. Were they stupefied by the need to connect the dots between, for instance, a character pricking her finger and dripping blood into a reservoir and the payoff scene, much later, where scores of parched soldiers die from this poisoned water? Are these synapse-frying, dream-logic ellipses the reason audiences haven’t been appreciative of a filmmaker who has – instead of spoon-feeding them with overly expository dialogue – chosen to tell his story largely through imagery (frescoes and film), through folk theatre and song (Thaai thindra manne details the deprivations of the Cholas), through documentary footage (about someone’s mysterious past), and through uncharacteristically (for Tamil cinema, at least) economical storytelling?
When a character learns about her father’s disappearance, all we’re shown is her profile in relation to a photograph (of the family in happier times), and a subsequent image has her curled up in a self-comforting foetal position. Neither music nor dialogue is allowed to amplify her emotion. When another character sights a much-sought treasure, she sheds tears of relief and joy, and we cut to a flashback image that intensifies the significance of this treasure – but that’s it. Where another filmmaker would have exploited these opportunities for putting us through the wringer, Selvaraghavan remains coldly clinical. Is this lack of an “emotional connect” the aspect that’s keeping audiences away? But is emotional connect – sympathy, empathy, however you choose to label it – absolutely necessary every single time we step into a cinema hall? Isn’t thoughtful craftsmanship its own reward? Isn’t the real thrill of Aayirathil Oruvan in the way it makes us loop back to earlier events and absorb the gradual coherence and correspondence – in the way Parthiban’s spitting on a statue is complemented by Reema Sen’s spitting in Parthiban’s direction, in the way a search party with torches at the beginning gives way, by the end, to a search party with torchlights?
Or is the issue that of a hypocritical brand of conservativeness? Tamil “family audiences” who’ve evinced no discomfort when sex is shaped on screen in an oblique fashion – when the likes of Jayamalini thrust crotch and cleavage at the movie camera, or when scores of leading ladies in the slightest of saris had their most intimate contours sculpted by pouring rain – appear to be up in arms at Selvaraghavan’s “perversions,” because he makes no attempt to disguise the prurient in penitent garb. The baser instincts of his mind – as indeed the baser instincts of our minds – are up there on screen for all to see, and perhaps we chafe at our innermost secrets being shouted out to the world at large. When Selvaraghavan wants to show a half-naked man sandwiched between two shivering women, or when he wants to depict his hero as someone who carries a condom in his pocket in the hope of an easy lay, or when he wants to show that this hero isn’t beyond adolescent impulses like peering down a woman’s blouse as she bends to administer an injection, he shows us these very things, these very images.
And thus, he continues to direct well-deserved dropkicks towards the nether regions of that nebulous entity we love to hail as “Thamizh kalacharam,” Tamil culture. Not only does the director reduce the Cholas and the Pandiyas – those princely progenitors of much that we recognise as Tamil culture today – to all-too-human savages, he does something similar with their modern-day counterparts. He positions Karthi and his cohorts as repositories of the Dravidian way of life – which translates, as always (and as the film’s title indicates), to worshipping MGR in all his Technicolor glory – and then he tells us that they aspire to nothing more than the company of white-skinned, English-speaking goddesses who drink and swear like sailors, and who think nothing of manipulating their sexuality to achieve their ends. (Parthiban even wangles a scene where he waves his royal sceptre at an appalled Andrea.) That Selvaraghavan has delivered these self-castigating indictments in a film so steeped in a reverential old-Tamil ethos – one where rain is referred to as “maari” instead of the more contemporary “mazhai,” and truth takes the form of “mei” instead of “unmai” – is all the more stunning. Aayirathil Oruvan is far from perfect, but it’s also a perfect example of how a talented filmmaker can succeed in leaving his fingerprints all over even the most generic of genres.
Copyright ©2010 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Baradwaj Rangan 
prakash
January 30, 2010
some one who read this piece along with me over my shoulder, asked , so this B Rangan belongs to the group that liked the second half more than the first. aamaava?’
i said , may be.
amaavaa?
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Venkatesh
January 30, 2010
I haven’t seen the film but now i am looking forward to the DVD.
Fantastic write up BR.
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Zero
January 30, 2010
A compelling and spirited defence, Baradwaj, though I didn’t care much at all for this film. The first half did nothing to me and my reaction was along the same lines as yours (as you posted in the comments section of an earlier post). And I did think things got a bit more meaningful and interesting in the second half, but I didn’t find its whimsicality endearing to say the least. I don’t know if I’m what you refer to as “a cold creature of logic” in this piece, but the narrative just didn’t draw me in. Again, I’m not sure if it’s just the first and second halves that were disparate pieces. I thought the second half in itself moved to newer set-pieces turning indifferent to the previous. So the navakaNdam (the human sacrifice ritual) sequence is followed by the gladiator arena sequence where the hero realises he’s “the one.” (As a viewer, one would have just started wondering whatever happened to him… and just then the hero comes right back in as if to remind us that he’s the one — for the film — after all!) I don’t mean to nitpick, just trying to get a sense of the whole, which I couldn’t when I watched it.
I also wonder if you’re crediting the film primarily for pushing “the largely inflexible boundaries of the mainstream.” And I can’t help but ask you, “yes, but to what end?” Yes, the film doesn’t fall into the trap of romanticising what we love to hail as “thamizh kalAchchAram” and doesn’t glorify the Cholas or the Pandiyas, but does it (whatever that happens) actually “make sense?” Of course I use “making sense” in very loose terms. Even a fantasy film has to strike certain registers for a viewer to embrace it. I thought Selva put together an arbitrary series of genre elements with little inquiry as to why or how a certain fantasy/adventure element figures in the film wherever it does. For instance, the descendants of the exiled Chozha people had to be totally cut off from civilisation and be living like a hellish tribal group, which is a classic colonial trope about the civilized (the West) “discover” the glory and the wealth of lost kingdoms of the East. Of course one could always come up with mundane explanations (they lost all their wealth etc.) for why this is so, but the point is how utterly incongruous all this is in the film’s context considering how the Chola descendants themselves are living. (They’re not there to protect the treasure, which they are said to have seized from the Pandiyas, but to protect themselves and all they want is to get out of the place!) Is it really too much to ask for?
By the way, in your earlier comment, you had mentioned that the second half made you “relook at a few things that didn’t work for [you] in the first half as well.” I’m not sure if I got a sense of what you mean by that from this piece. Can you please elaborate?
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Karthi
January 30, 2010
have been waiting for this review for a while..and you are bang-on..couldn’t find a review in net which are either trash-it or catch-it like..SR ll be happy about this review for all his efforts..
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Raj Balakrishnan
January 30, 2010
Baradwaj,
Loved your article and enjoyed the movie too. I thought the movie, despite the poor reviews, was a super hit in Tamil Nadu. There is a view that Selva Raghavan was actually referring to the Eelam war – i.e the cholas for the LTTE and the private army representing the Sri Lankan army.
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Adithya
January 30, 2010
Oh this sounds like Vaaranam Aayiram all over again, doesn’t it? When I tell people I liked the movie, they give me a look that translates to,”Are you alright?” I had to write about it as soon as I watched it.
A friend pointed out to me about Thai Thindra Manne and that’s when the whole nature of detail in that song hit me. The music released 6 months ago but I wonder if anyone paid attention to this song. I am sure he didn’t expect anyone to.
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brangan
January 30, 2010
prakash: Aamaam 🙂
Zero: I don’t know that I was actually defending the film so much as defending “my” experience of it. As the first half ended, I was not at all happy, but I did get a “sense of the whole” after I watched the second half ( and especially after reflection, which clarified some things in the first half, especially the bridge to the interval). As I said here: “Isn’t the real thrill of Aayirathil Oruvan in the way it makes us loop back to earlier events and absorb the gradual coherence and correspondence – in the way Parthiban’s spitting on a statue is complemented by Reema Sen’s spitting in Parthiban’s direction, in the way a search party with torches at the beginning gives way, by the end, to a search party with torchlights?”
Though as I’ve said, this is certainly a problematic and frustrating film. But on a weird dream-logic level, it “made sense” and that’s what I’ve tried to express here. ThavarEnum nadandhirundhAl dhayavu seidhu manniyungOL 🙂
Adithya: Reg. “Oh this sounds like Vaaranam Aayiram all over again…” Adhe, adhe. Though the hate vibes are far more pronounced this time around 🙂
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Harish S Ram
January 30, 2010
i could empathise wid you in a way but still cant say i enjoyed the movie … people can argue a movie of this genre’s purpose is to make us think … it did manipulate me … but wat about the craftmanship of the director? i wasn’t able to see the power of a director… selva had always fallen short to transfer wat he envisaged into screen but i always liked his output … but this time around the output is not as good as the previous venture (am not questioning his ideas here – i loved wat he wanted to say – but didnt like wat i saw) … you kept praising Parthipan all along … but what about the lead of this film Reema? she should have been the back bone of this film but she ends up being just an over exposed flesh. doesn’t film making require all aspects of cinema to treat us and not just the spirit of the director? this film raises all these ques … it raises ques at how Shankar is able to handle such big things wid élan while others like Selva couldn’t … it raises ques like how a director who loves montage shots to show the story wastes screen time to show just arial views shots widout any connections to the film capturing like for example a person urinating. shouldnt film making also include planning ur script in a way every shot is useful and tells a story on its own instead of irritating us with cheap parlor tricks .. Selva’s bizarre ideas if said through words had always sounded silly but on screen the way it used to be shot will make us smile (like how we smiled at as danush raises his hand in a frenzy as the sun raises behind – implying lot of things) but here we get a warrior who stands laughing at his fall as everyone surrounded by him gets shot to death – sound so well in black and white but on screen – how amateurishly shot. the same goes for the rock hitting game – or wat ever name any1 could come up for that. shouldnt these important moments of the film be handled with atmost care to make us fall for this film? we ppl who love cinema might like it for what it would look like if it was taken well but wat about the ordinary man? was this film made only for people like us? was this film only a rough draft? if its just about telling a story then cinema will only be a grandma’s bed time story.
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Harish S Ram
January 31, 2010
to sum it up – every time the film failed i was like oh please this should have been done well else this movie would look nice. you have told this aspect of the film is the real thrill of seeing AO. But is this really the thrill AO is giving doesn’t tell a far more darker truth that we were longing for Selva to not falter and whenever he makes a mistake like d loved ones we felt sorry but still were appreciative because he is our own after all. would this movie have been liked by you had it been made by an unkown person?
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Kiruba
January 31, 2010
The eccentricity of Selvaraghavan’s vision left me dumbstruck at the end of the first viewing although I was very undecided about the film as a whole – the imperfections seemed too overwhelming to excuse. But a second viewing, now the ‘uncut’ version, made me do what you did ‘readily’ – forgive all of Selva’s sins.
Selva has always been daring to stretch the boundaries of ‘public decency’ and here he seems to have worked with gay abandon, populating the entire film with lust and bloodshed, salvaged only by the bleak, misplaced hope of a promised kingdom. (On another note, don’t you think the impact of the breast and frontal/rear nudity was reduced by blackened skin?)
I think the bad talk about AO arises primarily because most of the audience is left dazed by the second half – the unfamiliar landscape and dialect, reliance on images than dialogues and the cuts made after release all make an already heady film inaccessible also perhaps.
Much of the mei-unmai kind of usage seems to have been added as an afterthought, leading to the disastrous lip sync in the second half. Sample this. You can see Parthiban’s lips utter “Poi solladhe, mei sol” but we hear his voice as “Purambu pukalaadhe, mei pukal”. This continues throughout the second half.
BTW, I still have a serious concern with the ending, with the line ‘Chozhan payanam thodarum’. What is your opinion about a second part for this film (I’m not asking if it will be made or not, should it be made?). With no kingdom existing for the prince to be throned and most (?all) of the citizenry having been killed/drowned, what could the second part deal with, except revenge? On the other hand, who knows how bleak Selva can dress up a standard revenge drama?
Just curious to know: Is this ‘filmmaker acquaintance’ same as the one who is known for his unsparing views about fellow directors and actors?
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sara
January 31, 2010
As much as SR’s films have been whimsical (and to a large extent enjoyable) to date, what drew me towards them was his “honesty” and originality. AO is lacking very much in those departments. I could spot so many movies’ influence (Apocalyptico, Gladiator, 300, etc. immediately come to mind) that he seemed trying to sell out
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PK
January 31, 2010
BR, It is comforting to hear there is another person that is actually defending their ‘experience’ of the movie just like I have been doing.
Despite all the movie’s faults, this might prove to be the pioneer of a new genre (periodical adventure/thriller) that Indian (esp. Tamil) movies have not seen much of.
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Ravanan
January 31, 2010
Hi Brangan, I am one of those Indian express reader who is very much upset with the review by Malini mannath (not even a moron watch this film!!!!). when i argued with my IE friend / photogrpher ( pattabi) , he conveyed you will be writing soon in a week. for last one week i am expecting that. And i loved your review very much.
One more point i want to add,
My single line is again this is more political movie like Last supper , The Time that remains , Whishper through the end ,which are not easy to understand without politics behind it.
if u know tamil and have time just peek in my review on this film in my blog.
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Ramesh
January 31, 2010
ok bharadwaj and all the commentors, say the following with me “ve du tha lai pu li gaL”
now go back and watch the film.
cholaram, pandiyaram!
ha!
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Udhav
January 31, 2010
Very neat review.
Did you get to speak to Selva?
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jagadish
January 31, 2010
Tamil audience has to change.. to accept these type of films
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Padawan
January 31, 2010
Yet to watch the movie, so will watch it and then come back to read this. Did you watch Tamil Padam – have been hearing pretty good things about it!
Did not care much for Goa though…something, not quite sure what it was, just did not work.
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brangan
January 31, 2010
Harish S Ram: Reg. “would this movie have been liked by you had it been made by an unkown person?” I ‘d think I’d still stand by my experience of having been indifferent to the first half until the latter portions kicked in.
What has liking a director got to do with it? I like RGV a lot, but couldn’t stand Aag. I thought Venkat Prabhu was the next big thing after Chennai-26, one of my favourite recent films, but I’ll readily admit that Goa did nothing for me. Even Saroja (copied or whatever) had at least something to look forward to in the scenes…
Kiruba: I had the same trajectory as you. “The eccentricity of Selvaraghavan’s vision left me dumbstruck.” I knew I’d seen something unusual but couldn’t quite put the experience in words. And then a second viewing clarified it all. BTW, your second viewing was the “uncut” version? How?
Oh, there are tons of ways to think of sequels if they want to. After all, when Jurassic Park ended, didn’t they find a way to have a secret, second island for the sequel? 🙂
And no, that’s not him. I don’t go around discussing films with big-shot directors, dude! Innum andha level-ukku varala 🙂
Udhav: No, but I did interview him here.
Padawan: Goa didn’t work for me at all. I think they tried to go for a zany Manmohan Desai-like “plotless plot,” but they weren’t able to pull it off at all. And the film just went on and on… Just two positives that I took away from the film, which I’ll write about in BR next week.
Yet to see Tamil Padam, but the first fifteen minutes of Goa were as good as a spoof, with the panchayat scene and the Solam vedhakkayile/Amman koil kizhakaale-type dance — the rows of ululating women near the pongal paanai, that famous staircase waterfall (where is it, btw?), the ‘hero’ waving his thundu in the air in circular motions … I only wish they’d brought Puliyoor Saroja out of retirement to choreograph her trademark PT steps. That would have been icing on the cake 🙂
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vijay
January 31, 2010
Overall I feel this piece comes across like some sort of a counter to other negative reviews out there, written with an agenda, rather than a relaxed take on why the movie did/didnt work.The tone of the revuiw seems to be “See, you missed all this in the second half and are being wrongly dismissive, while I am objective enough to catch all that envelope-pushing”
“I also wonder if you’re crediting the film primarily for pushing “the largely inflexible boundaries of the mainstream.” And I can’t help but ask you, “yes, but to what end?””
Exactly.
How long are we going to applaud severely flawed efforts just because the movie was well, not run-of-the-mill, and tried to “push the envelope”?. When are we going to set the bar high for a coherent screenplay, vision, craftsmanship and finesse in execution? Selva sorely lacks in all these areas. .
Atleast in AO he was lucky that he stumbled onto Karthi. Otherwise his male leads have all been weak thus far, testing our patience. Ravikrishna in 7G took the cake.
I think that the likes of Selvaraghavan, GVP, Yuvan have all jumped the queue, thanks to their lineage and family connections to Industry. They didnt bother to learn the craft, but right away have started “experimenting”. In fact experimentation is the most abused word I hear today.
Back in the 70s/80s atleast, the experimentation was best left to a few skilled technicians who possessed the craftsmanship and skills to pull it off.Others realized what they are capable of and stuck to masala fare
“A friend pointed out to me about Thai Thindra Manne and that’s when the whole nature of detail in that song hit me. The music released 6 months ago but I wonder if anyone paid attention to this song. I am sure he didn’t expect anyone to.”
The tune itself was quite ordinary and the lyrics- do you actually claim to have understood it? No wonder no one paid attention. The Nithyashree portions look like they have been ripped off. Have heard similar refrains before, just cannot remember it.Even in another song “the eesa eesa” chorus was a rip off from a popular devotional chant.
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mohan
January 31, 2010
Thank you for the review. You were spot on. I’m especially amazed at how you managed to cover so many details. Guess that’s why they gave you that national award huh? The film was good, but your analysis made me feel it was even better. I think the film will have a decent run but still report a loss. 32 crores is a lot of money to recover in TN. Hoping for a grander, more out-of-the-box vision from Selva for the sequel.
By the way, would the filmmaker acquaintance you mentioned also happen to be a reviewer for a popular english daily :D?
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vijay
January 31, 2010
BR I get the feeling that with some(not all) directors like Selva and Gautam Menon, with whom you have had a chance to interact(via an interview or other means) you seem to soften your criticism a bit and look at only the few positives that the movie has to offer and overlook the large parts of it that didnt work. Maybe interacting with them has given you a kind of better understanding on their psyche and what their movies are actually about. But to me it is sort of puzzling.
I mean you say Taare Azmeen par is problematic because of the shift in focus in the second half to Aamir. But here, the one half of AO is mediocre and the other half is not exactly flawless either. So why are we being extra appreciative here? Katradhu Thamizh had a lot of the same going for it and you were dismissive of it. It was no less eccentric than AO and it was’nt flawless either.
“All films have problems – what’s important is whether these problems overwhelm our experience (in which case, we consign the film to the “bad” bin) or whether they sneak past unnoticed (ergo, a “good” film).”
Simple, in your filmmaker friend’s case the problems overwhelmed him enough. Now the way you feel about your filmmaker friend is how others would have felt too when they liked TZP and Katradhu Thamizh and you didnt. They might have wondered why you chose to not look at the few positives in those films.
Also what I didnt like in your piece was the questioning of anyone’s taste who didnt like the film. All those points about being hypocritical and conservative and all that. So someone who didnt like this film had to be hypocritical and averse to envelope pushing? why couldnt they not like this film because it looked like the director needed a few lessons in screenwriting?
And the movie is actually running to packed houses, which means I dont get why Selva needs all this sympathy and defense against conservative audiences.Looks like they have lapped it up.
Also your point about audiences being hypocritical is also moot because both Thullavadho Ilamai and Kaadhal Konden had such scenes and both were hits, with the critics being equally appreciative.Kaadhal Konden had an in-your-face portrayal of child sexual abuse. Ditto with 7G. So why it that only when AO is being criticized(only by a small section of the press/fans) you take up cudgels for Selva? I didnt see you patting the audiences when his first 3 films became hits.
Your buddy Sudish Kamath didnt like it too.HIS comment was that Selva needed a course in screenwriting badly.Was he being hypocritical too?
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Mambazha Manidhan
January 31, 2010
More Tamil reviews puhleeze.(although this one is not a review, I know, I know). It would be an interesting prospect to see you dissect say a Sundar.C movie or read between the lines of ‘Vettaikaran’ or plain allocating a whole page for a tamil movie.
We want BR* for tamil movies.
* BR doesn’t stand for Between Reviews.
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brangan
January 31, 2010
vijay: Dude, you really make me work hard in the comments section 🙂
Whether this piece smacks of agenda or a superiority complex or whatever, I’ll leave for you to decide. My job is simply to write. It’s the reader’s job to interpret/deconstruct/analyse.
Reg. “How long are we going to applaud severely flawed efforts just because the movie was well, not run-of-the-mill” – I was not doing this. I didn’t just say it’s different, and so (only because of that one single reason) it’s good. While acknowledging that this is a very problematic film, I had genuine admiration for the post interval portions. It didn’t interest me to write about the problematic stuff because others have already written about them. It interested me to present the part that really worked for me (the latter portions) through the prism of MY viewing experience, which I hope I’ve been able to do.
And it’s not “look at only the few positives that the movie has to offer” – the second half is not just a few positives. It’s a huge stretch of film and it worked for me. Screenwriting is not a precise science and sometimes mood and tone are almost as important as the flow/sequence of events. You can’t orchestrate mood and tone from a bound script. You need a director’s VISION for that, and in my opinion (and possibly ONLY my opinion), Selva has that vision. Yes, he needs to control his extravagances, but I’d rather see something like this, a problematic film with moments of great brilliance, than something that follows all the rules of the screenwriting manual but is totally devoid of a vision. But then, that’s just me.
TZP is a naturalistic film, and I didn’t care for the change in tone. Here, it didn’t bother me that much. Different films strike different chords in you, and you can’t always compare and say, “why did you say that there and not here?” Maybe because with TZP, I found the first half better, the film dropped for me steadily and by the time it ended, I was left with a mild dissatisfaction. Maybe because the dissatisfaction (here) was with the first half, I was on a high as the film ended. Who knows? 🙂
“Simple, in your filmmaker friend’s case the problems overwhelmed him enough” – Absolutely. And if he wrote a piece, it would be the exact opposite of this. There are many ways to look at films, and far too people writing about their individual experiences. We need more writers on film.
And no, I was not questioning the “taste” of people who didn’t like the film. I’m just wondering why they are reacting this way. The talk on the street (and in the journo circles and among friends and acquaintances) is all about how vulgar the film is. And the film is not doing well, by the way.
I’m thinking your hackles are raised because you’re not a fan of Selva or Gautham. To bring in another person you’re not a fan of, let’s say I wrote tomorrow a piece on Harris Jayaraj saying that he makes music that’s plastic and yet fun and catchy and listenable (and occasionally really good). I could choose to hinge the article on the “plastic” part, or I could choose to write about the “fun and catchy part” or I could choose to write about the “really good” part — which would mean my article would be, respectively, dismissive, mildly appreciative or overtly laudatory.
Just because the article focuses on one element, doesn’t mean the others don’t exist. I make no bones about being comprehensive in these pieces. I write only about the parts that interest me (with a brief mention of other aspects, like, here, the fact that the film is frustrating and problematic). The rest is up to you, dear reader 🙂
mohan: No, not him either. He’s not anyone famous (yet)! 🙂
Mambazha Manidhan: “(although this one is not a review, I know, I know)” LOL! I guess you’ve been a long-time reader, huh? You know me too well!
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mohan
January 31, 2010
Thanks for the info. Btw, you are one of the few reviewers who have come out openly in praise of this film. But you are not isolated. The film is doing some good business at the chennai BO(though not enough to take a profit), and many people I know simply loved it. My own feeling was that, despite numerous flaws, it was a really engrossing film. Kudos to Selvaraghavan for that.
off-topic:Saw Goa. On the lines of his earler films, minus any semblance of a story and plus a whole load of mokka. The jokes were either recycled or overkilled or both. The Simbhu scene at the climax really worked for me, and practically the entire audience in my theatre who were cheering wildly. Did you like that scene? And how is Tamil Padam?
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KPV balaji
January 31, 2010
Very well written article. Btw you got to watch tamil padam. It does fizzle out in the second half, but the first half is a laugh riot..simply brilliant. Goa was too long and too boring.. Venkat Prabhu should try to think of something different other than the same old story of a bunch of nobodys..its getting repetitive..though i thought Sampath pulled off his charecter really well,…
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raj
January 31, 2010
So that’s yout K2K director?
Nevertheless a good piece. Haven’t seen ao but my appetite is whetted now, the movie’s already bidden goodbye to mumbai though.
On a tangent, have you heard raja 09. Actually, there was a wide variety of albums from Raja in 09. Naan kadavul, nandhalala, pazhassi, bhagyadevatha(traditional mallu melody oriented with a clever nod to sendhoorapoovaea), and a host of ‘modern’ albums in kannada and telugu, some of them hits.
It is worth you listening and combined with the padma award, doing a piece unless you are happy with the pritam-himesh assault you are subject to week after week.
And that one on msv please – no excuses
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vijay
January 31, 2010
BR,liked what you had to say, thanks for the patience 🙂 I agree, Selva is much more of a director than a screenwriter. If he gets someone to do the writing for him or atleast co-writes it, I think he can be a lot better. But that can be said for a lot of other directors as well I guess. I liked Kaadhal Konden(accused of being a Darr/Guna rehash)/Pudhupettai for the most part.Didnt like 7G and thought Yaaradi Mohini, written by Selva, was pretty mediocre too even if it was meant to be a light film.
Also didnt say that your piece smacked of superiority complex, but it seemed more like a reaction piece, more like a defense of the film bringing out what the others maybe overlooked. I guess you had already heard all the reviews before writing this one.
“I’m thinking your hackles are raised because you’re not a fan of Selva or Gautham…..I make no bones about being comprehensive in these pieces. I write only about the parts that interest me ”
Agree, but with these 2 directors your focus seems only on the positives ALL the time. Does that mean their films leaves you overall with a positive feeling everytime, despite the problems?
For instance, with Cheran’s films you always focus on why they fall short of what they could have been and the frustrations you had while watching the film. Is it just the feeling of having seen something special at the end of Selva’s films that you dont get with those other directors, who too have their good-to-great moments in their films even if their final product is flawed?
And one more thing BR, reg journo circles mentioning about vulgarity and such,I dont have a problem with what they perceive to be vulgar(for the most part) and thats not the reason why I dislike portions of his films.
I mean his male leads being uncouth characters mouthing cusswords and all that. But you know, even before Selva’s films, there was Shankar’s Boys which was dismissed by our journo circles as vulgar and the movie didnt do well at all. Selva is not exactly the pioneer in that dept. I thought Boys was boldly irreverent, maybe the Thamizh American Pie, and was sort of escapist fun, until it got a little serious at the end.
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vijay
February 1, 2010
And reg. HJ-that his music is “plastic” is not as much an issue as the fact that he is annoyingly repetetive. Most of his tunes are extensions of azhagiya theeye from Minnale. One of my friends was joking that if someone were to pluck the keys belonging to Natabhairavi scale from his keyboard HJ will be stuck. To me, he is truly the successor of SA Rajkumar, the new age version 🙂 Atleast Yuvan swings for the fences once in a while but Harris sticks to the same meter and melody in album after album. His latest Vaarayo vaarayo kadhal koLLa tune from Aadhavan for instance will comfortably sit on nenjukkul peidhidum. maamazhai’s lyrics. You know, pop music can be interesting as well. Rahman and Yuvan, at times, have shown it. Sadly Harris wants to go SA Rajkumar on pop most of the time.
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vijay
February 1, 2010
and just one more question. what is this “dream-logic” that you mention in defense of the film? Is it an euphemism for illogic? 🙂 Or are you hinting at magical realism here?
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anon
February 1, 2010
Bravo, Ranggan. I enjoyed it too and have been defending it too all and sundry who expected an Indiana Jones (or even a Mountain of a Cannibal God), but were let down by the 2nd half (which is the stronger half).
I felt that Selva ran out of money and had to hastily come up w/ the ending he did. If he had instead focused on getting to the point much earlier (let’s say 3 obstacles instead of 7) – he could have tied it up nicely at the end.
BTW, I heard that 1000-il is doing brisk business in Chennai. Its holding fort in Sathyam and other places, while Kutty and Naanayam etc have been relegated to a single screen.
Cheers,
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Ramesh
February 1, 2010
Re dreamlogic, I think its a mature trope of storytelling. theinterval has the three protagonists looking and acting like they are drunk/drugged and they pass out. It would have been a very valid thing to do to have them WAKE UP after the whole chola pandiya thing ended,in a hospital on a ship, and they are not sure if the whole cave sequences were a dream or no. But selvaraghavan seemed to be bent on hammerring home the reality of the ..uh..”chola” massacre.
This made the “dream reality” something to transfer to the audience, instead of something owned by the three protagonists. ie, the film is now the AUDIENCE’s dream reality…as opposed to just the three protagonists’
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mei
February 1, 2010
I felt let down on watching the movie, The truth is that Selva lost his balance at that level of imagination.
Truly appreciate that he can depict characters beyond just Black/ White shades , without being judgmental.
I just could not understand why the not one other Chola spoke anything…
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Deepak
February 1, 2010
The jokes in Goa were all a rehash from his earlier movies..Isnt he getting repetitive? He seems to be getting too influenced by hollywood movies as well. Premji with just his shirt on (Zach Galifianakis in the Hangover). Both even wear white shirts. Vaibhav having an allergic reaction (Will Smith in Hitch) and then finally they had to go all Ocean’s 11 on our asses. Pitiful.
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brangan
February 1, 2010
vijay: I don’t know if you’ve seen the film, but where the early portions use sharp cuts (and solid cuts), around interval, the cuts become fades-to-black. The sound design changes too, from sharp sounds to a more “echo-ey” from-the-depths-of-a-dream kind of sound. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that Selva took his cues from David Lynch’s style, in films like Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive. If an event sequence is A to B to C to D, but instead,we’re shown A and D, we connect it (somehow)in the subconscious, because there’s some “logic” to the progression. But we struggle to explain it, because it’s a “dream” image.It’s not reality (or at least, as in this case, it *appears* unreal). It works at a heightened level (of course, moreso with Lynch than here). “Dream logic” isn’t a technical term, but this is how I’d define it, and it’s very different from magical realism, which, as the term implies,has more to with magic in the realm of the non-magical.
Idhukku naan pesaama class nadathalaam, except that everyone will be asleep in two minutes flat 🙂
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PK
February 1, 2010
Finally I am happy to see a post that tries to see beyond the “obvious” faults of the movie. As mentioned (in another blog), the real adventure is for us viewers to find its “flawed greatness” all along the trip….
My own ramblings @ http://senthlpk.blogspot.com/2010/01/aayirathil-oruvan-method-to-its-madness.html
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bart
February 1, 2010
Loved your piece as usual. When I came out of the movie, I liked it but not knowing fully why. Thinking back, dissections and reviews have added more weight to the movie than when I came out. I can quote a fellow film buff’s reaction on explaining the various possibilities and intended ideas – “Can you imagine a movie needs so much explanation and even after all that a common man can’t understand the crap !!”. Having said that, it looks like the movie is doing well, might just recover its investment afterall 🙂 Waiting for a better written AO-2
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Pravin
February 1, 2010
Hi,
read your review for AO y’day and once again taken back by your positive review on this. The movie is a mix of many Hollywood goodies and the SR actually missed a great oppurtunity to have given a great presentation by sticking on to his perverted way of movie making.
It takes something for people to first understand history , do a little bit of reaearch before portraying the history OR a civilzation in a bad light. May be SR and yourself needs to visit Tanjore temple OR read “Ponniyin Selvan ” before deciding that a “lost chozlar” civilzation can be anything but a cannibalised zombies
AO is what we get when we have a confused producer and a drug addicted pudupettai director taking a movie on our history. It is more sad when educated critics like your self say “It is good” thinking that you are supporting a so called ” new wave ” or a ” off beat ” films.
God save the Tamil Industry from the likes of SR and from critics like you.
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Ramesh
February 1, 2010
good writeup pk, except i do nt think the film was so hagiographic of prabhakaran or the srilankan tamil cause,
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Ramesh
February 2, 2010
Wrote this up this morning.
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Zero
February 2, 2010
Baradwaj,
Thanks.
PK/Ramesh,
Well, in a way, the unmistakable Eelam subtext is part of what makes the film problematic, isn’t it? It’s a strong subtext no doubt. (The post-war scenes towards the end, the ‘puli’ label, 12th century, not to forget MGR!) But beyond a symbolic gesture (which is certainly commendable), it didn’t make much sense (at least to me). For starters, the allegory is itself quite messed up. The island where the Chozhas live in exile can’t be seen as the stand-in for Eelam at all, the Chozhas don’t even want to be there. A more meaningful way of seeing it would be to see Chozhas’ Thanjai as that. But if that were the case, where would the Pandiyas and the Indian army fit? (This is the point I was making in my previous comment: “They’re not there to protect the treasure, which they are said to have seized from the Pandiyas, but to protect themselves and all they want is to get out of the place!”)
Again I hope I don’t come off as insisting on a literalist interpretation of the narrative. These incongruities disrupt the film’s politics in significant ways.
P.S.: Sorry if some of my comments are all over the place. Some parts of this comment and the previous one are from my tweets, hence it might be a bit incoherent. 🙂
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vijay
February 2, 2010
BR I think I get an idea of what you are talking about with the Lynch reference. Have seen only a film and a half of his though.Lynch himself has the audience polarized most of the time, with quite a few on the net accusing him of being intentionally vague, pretentious and all that. As for Selva trying to borrow his style in a film like AO..hmm Yuvan Pudhupettaila “symphony” use panna kadhaiya irukku 🙂 But points given for trying something different, as we always do.
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Zero
February 2, 2010
And, Baradwaj saar, I wish you had done a proper review of this film (like you used to do earlier for some major Tamil films) especially because there are very few illuminating takes on this film around. And also it’d have been a more comprehensive piece on the film than this, I think.
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Hari
February 2, 2010
It’s always more gratifying to binge on these ‘play it late’ write-ups of yours than those ‘just-in-time’ rambunctious musings.
‘Kadal kondein’ is the only Selva movie I have watched so far(if only in part), wasn’t particularly impressed by Dhanush’s wannabe psychopath act-had heard mixed reviews about AO but this piece of yours makes it look lip-smackingly cerebral-am sure to watch it.
btw, I have a peculiar liking for symbolism, use of figurative lingo, phantasmagoria et al as well-at times, I tend to overlook many other points in the ‘what did not work for me here’ list if these features are present-one reason I am such a crazy admirer of the movies of Lynch, Bunuel and the others of their ilk..
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Hemanth
February 2, 2010
I watched the movie early and I absolutely hated it. I was waiting for this review to find some balance. After reading your take, it does seem to have worked as a downer, a bit. That is not to say, I’m forgiving SR.
Here’s a guys who’s pushed boundaries ever since he set foot in Kodambakkam. Never had any qualms about a single film of his, until now. In that aspect, I thought he peaked with Pudhupettai and we lapped every frame of it. Here was a director that dared to parade a rowdy, for what he really is. His script sneaked into the darkest corners of Madras’ underbelly. I was wowed.
AO was a different beast altogether. I could not convince myself that you could sacrifice internal logic (emotional, at the very least) at the cost of thinking outside the box. Couldn’t you break all the rules while still on the playing field? Unfortunately, what worked for you (and many of my friends) as pushing the limits of Tamil audiences’ norms of acceptance did not for me. Let me have another go at AO.
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brangan
February 2, 2010
Some irate feedback to the paper 🙂
Dear Rangan
You have simply wasted valuable news print in writing about an idiotic film.How can an enlghtened critic like you say even a single good word about this trash? It is a film by a mad person for .a mad audience.It was a torture to sit through the film. contrary to what you have said the media was right in thrashing the film.Hope u will be impartial in future and call a spade a spade like earst while Babu rao patel of Mother India.
jeevi
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brangan
February 2, 2010
Zero: The Eelam subtext completely passed me by. The army uniforms and such were fairly generic, and it never crossed my mind that there was a specific Sri Lankan agenda here. That’s perhaps why I wasn’t bothered by what you call “the allegory is itself quite messed up.” For me, it was just a mad creator’s reimagining of the Chola/Pandiya culture.
Hari: I’m not sure this is a “cerebral” film. I found it more visceral. If it works for you at all, I don’t think it’s because of how you piece it together (text, subtext, etc.) as much as how it messes with your mind.
Hemanth: Yeah, Pudhupettai is certainly his finest film, and a landmark Tamil film, IMO. I didn’t care much for Dhanush’s “acting” in Kaadhal Kondain (and I don’t much care for the film itself, beyond a few scenes), but here, his gaucheness was his very selling point. I doubt he’ll ever find a dramatic role to equal this again.
Reg. “Couldn’t you break all the rules while still on the playing field?” You could. But that would be “safe” no? And isn’t Selva’s go-for-broke madness (within a determinedly commercial format) the very thing that polarises the audience — love it vs. hate it? 🙂
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ramesh
February 2, 2010
Apropos both your irate/bemused readership I think the film to compare it to is the david lynch film mulholland drive (not that this one is as well thought out). After watching ti with me, one salt of the annamalaipuram earth burst out “madhu, enna ezzavu da ithu?!” …
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PK
February 4, 2010
Zero – I agree the film’s strength (its various subtexts) is also its weakness (in its inconsistencies) but again looking for logic within the allegorical representation of events in a movie is futile (a classic example is trying to interpret and co-relate the physical and meta-physical halves of Tropical Malady). The same thing happened with “No Smoking” too much symbolism destroyed the movie IMO.
AO – either intentionally or unintentionally has a lot going for it, at a social level you could even read this as a “Women empowerment” film (something similar to what Russ meyers did., albeit with less fun and a lot less sex) or even better you could use AO and have a essay written on India(s) internal Hegemony. Infact Selva’s own 7G was used as a backdrop in the study of “Desire, Youth, and Realism in Tamil Cinema”
Click to access Nakassis_Dean_Youth_Desire_Realism_in_Tamil_Cinema.pdf
Even the idea of Dream-logic makes sense given how the tone shifts and I would love to explore that angle of the film (though I feel it’s closer to films of Dušan Makavejev than David Lynch given its political stance).
My own ramblings merely cover one aspect of the movie and I strongly believe AO is such a personal film that anyone with enough interest, enthusiasm and patience can savor more from it.
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Ramsu
February 4, 2010
Loved your article! Interesting how most articles about the movie seem to be somewhat polarized. Maybe a lot of reviewers admired his vision and had problems with the execution, but chose to focus on one or the other in their write-ups.
My thoughts while watching the second half ran more in the direction of Lord of the Flies than Mulholland Drive. I feel that was a critical choice — it would’ve been easy to imagine something akin to what we’ve seen in every raja kaalathu padam. Nearly every other filmmaker would’ve taken that route.
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brangan
February 4, 2010
PK: Thank you for those insights. As someone who’s not at all intellectual while approaching films (my viewing is more emotional and empathetic, as opposed to a rigorously hard-edged view that encompasses the social and other aspects), it was fascinating to read what you had to say.
Ramsu: Reg. “Maybe a lot of reviewers admired his vision and had problems with the execution, but chose to focus on one or the other in their write-ups” — I think that’s it. I don’t know if you’ve seen the heist film Naanayam, but it’s also another first-time-in-Tamil-cinema kind of film. So it should be easy to appreciate the director for at least attempting something new (a bank heist in a noirish setting, femme fatale et al) in a commercial context. But the film is so lazily (and laughably) made that the recognition of “something different” alone doesn’t lead to a positive (or even neutral) appraisal.
But here, there is such a strong directorial stamp and vision that on the one hand, you recognise all the problems, but on the other, it’s impossible to let these problems come in the way of appreciating the genuine achievements in the film. I would love to see Selva take on Lord of the Flies, BTW 🙂
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Arun
February 5, 2010
I am among those who took exception to selvaraghavn’s “perversions”. My reasoning has nothing to do with conservatism, I felt that the way selvaraghavan treats women was no less shameless than what we see in a Vijay or Rajini Film. He likes to place women in sexually uncomfortable and embarrassing situations and toy with them. It’s not the carnal desire that I object to but, the blatant misogyny.
And, like you I found the second half exciting enough to see it a second time and was quite shocked to see all the interesting segments chopped off, while the first half remains untouched. I understand the economic forces driving the decision, but I felt letdown that Selva accepted defeated and tore down the very elements that made it personal and eccentric.
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ramesh
February 5, 2010
I believe selva’s misogyny is going to be subject for fascinating analysis
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brangan
February 6, 2010
Arun: I’m not sure I’d call it misogyny so much as an unwholesome way of looking at women — I don’t think there’s evidence of hatred here in Selva’s case (as, say, you could argue in case of Lars von Trier, with all the abuse and debasement he subjects his female characters to). Yes, he has that “porukki” way of looking at women, which is more along the lines of how someone in a Hollywood T&A sex comedy would think. But that’s more circumstantial and reflective of the way a lot of horny adolescent males think (even after they grow up).
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ramesh
February 6, 2010
BR,
no I think there is some classic misogyny..its not objectification alone,nescesarily, it might be somewhat societal, or it could be like early truffaut childlike awe at something that holds so much power over him and something he cannot control, I don’t know which, but its marginally bigger than porukkithanam, and marginally less than a need for violent subjugation fo the sex.
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Zero
February 6, 2010
PK,
I disagree, this is not about “looking for logic” at all. Whatever be the universe of a film, the viewer can’t be expected to embrace the scenes that unfold passively. Here I feel that Selva has haphazardly put together an array of sequences in a disjointed manner (e.g. how thoughtlessly the gladiator arena sequence comes in the film). This of course doesn’t mean a film with sparks of brilliance scattered throughout the film isn’t praiseworthy. But I thought this film was thoughtlessly put together.
Incidentally, I loved No Smoking and think it’s a far better film than this one. I think the writing there was layered of the subconscious and made a lot of sense as a whole.
Baradwaj,
Just to clarify, my complaint is not specifically about how well it handles the Eelam subtext, though I thought the film refers to it in more ways than one. It could have as well been a “fairly generic” scenario (as Selva himself said in some interviews, similar situations exist in many other parts of the world), but how do the first two hours of the film inform us (in any sense of the word) of what we see from there on? For a film that was so mindless about human deaths until then, it suddenly realises the human tragedy of it all. Earlier we see a massacre of some random tribe in the film and the film moves on as if nothing happened.
Anyway, there’s no reason why one shouldn’t see this as “a mad creator’s reimagining of the Chola/Pandiya culture.” But I thought it was so poorly imagined. 🙂
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vijay
February 6, 2010
“As someone who’s not at all intellectual while approaching films (my viewing is more emotional and empathetic”
and yet you fall for something like 2001: Space Odyssey 🙂
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Zero
February 6, 2010
On PK’s point that this film could be seen as a “Women empowerment” film, while I fully understand that he (!) implies that they are “inadvertently” so (though I’ve not seen even a single Russ Meyer film), I think the suggestion is entirely misplaced. I more or less side with Arun’s view here. Though I concede that it’s debatable whether there’s a sense of blatant misogyny in Selva’s films, primarily because I choose to see it relatively in the context of Tamil cinema where films like Manmadhan get made. As Ramesh says, the depiction of sexual tension clearly extends beyond the usual roadside “porukki” gaze.
Anyway, what I think is important is Arun’s point on how Selva invariably places women in uncomfortable situations to give in to this sort of male gaze. There’s no other way out. That said, what is probably important about this sham (in Selva’s films) of essential male fantasy masquerading as realistic love stories is how the class conflict is juxtaposed with the male-female equation. Whatever be the manner in which the conflict between the low-class (lower middle-class) male and the high-class female consummates (which is to say, “whoever wins” at the end)in his films, the females of the former class don’t figure in his films at all! You just don’t see them. I wonder what this says about Selva’s portrayal of various internal cultural hegemonies (in India or in general).
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brangan
February 6, 2010
vijay: Enna ippidi sollitteenga? Of course 2001 is emotional and empathetic 😉
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ramesh
February 6, 2010
I don’t have a problem with selvaraghavan’ s framing of the gender conflict..or even the uncomfortable situations he puts his charecers under(mainly his women) , I suspect however that he doesn’t KNOW women too well. In ayirattil oryvan the charecter development of both his women protagonists as well as their interactions with the main man was fairly crude, as it it was finger painted. The only part that felt real was the ‘three some’ en kudey rendu pappa song..as if he only had patience to visualize this dynamic.
br you’re on nootice for liking 2001.
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ramesh
February 7, 2010
where I live is under three to four feet of snow and I’m cut off from the world with no tv or internet in the last three days. So I decided to watch the original aayirattil oruvan with mgr and a certain living lady pol.
the study in contrasts is interesting, specially in the difference between the 60s- 70s liberation theology of MGR.
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Mei
February 9, 2010
Hi,
Well Selva started of with a 7 crore budget of making a romantic flick .Then after parthiveeran’s sucess he decided to change it into a action/ thriller which finall cost around 30 crores ……
This is definettly not about 7 or 30 , its about his confused thought process yes selva knows how to convey an emotin/feeling/mood but he should start taking his creativity/Genius more seriously.Else his arrogance will deprive us of his Genius.
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PK
February 10, 2010
BR: Your way of viewing the film (“more emotional and empathetic”) is great, I rarely come across Tamil cinema reviews that are so eloquently put. Please continue doing what you do so beautifully.
Zero: My suggestion of “not looking for logic” was merely restricted to allegories used it films and not actual scenes. Though I also felt that the Gladiator seen was uncalled for its not entirely wasted in that it does serve a crucial purpose in making Muthu (Karthi) realize he is “the one” (shown lil more clearly in the longer version of the film).
And on your comment
“Whatever be the universe of a film, the viewer can’t be expected to embrace the scenes that unfold passively.”
I wonder what choice we have (except bewilderment) when we are forced to see Bunuel’s surrealist masterpiece
Un_Chien_Andalou.
Or even to a certain degree Parutheveeran’s or Naan Kadavul climax. What choice did we have other than passively watch the horror unfold on screen? No wonder its been noted that Powerful cinema is usually subversive in nature.
My own thoughts on how Selva presents the different gender(s) in AO is @
http://senthlpk.blogspot.com/2010/02/aayirathil-oruvan-as-women-empowerment.html
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PK
February 10, 2010
BTW I loved No Smoking. and though comparison with AO is futile i will accept its writing is much better than AO.
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brangan
February 22, 2010
Letter to the paper 🙂
u have praised the film for certain points.But u forgot to mention one deliberate blunder in the film. where is a desert in Vietnam? Even a middle class student can tell u there is no desert in that country. the director and the critic r ignorant of this simple fact. What a great film critic are u? Hats off to u
g.. v.
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KP
February 23, 2010
Desert landscape is very much there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mui_Ne
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vinod
March 22, 2010
Couldnt help but put it down here. My God what a movie. I did not mind the first half at all but second half blew me away. Good one.,
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Krishnan
May 23, 2010
I just saw AO. First half is a waste. They could have made the second half into a movie and instead called it Ponniyin Selvan reimagined. There are too many coincidences throughout the movie for AO not to be a take on PS.
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Amit Joki
March 3, 2016
There has always been a section of people who are anti-Selva. Those are the people who couldn’t stand in-your-face potrayal of realism, the way Selva does.
How I wish to bet that these are the same people who’ll probably claim this epic as cult classic if only it had been helmed by someone like say Shankar or Rajamouli with their trademark eye-popping budget.
Also there is an amazing resemblance in the plot of AO and Bahubali.
Both have a successor being saved by their guardian from their disintegrating kingdoms. Both have their protagonists reaching their assigned destiny whilst being not aware of it. Both kingdoms are looking for their reprieve and the protagonists are their only hope. Both have a compelling climax that seemingly sets up a possible sequel.
In Bahubali, his strenght is established initially and he keeps on lifting something or the other and does the seemingly impossible thing by climbing atop.
But here we have Muthu who’s as human as human can be and undergoes a gruelling experience while winning over the obstacles which are so well thought and filmed(except for as you said the snake thing which was just selva being a bit lazy), but it gets termed generic, while Bahubali gets termed epic.
While Bahubali was praised for its “innovative warfare”, AO wasn’t. There was this brilliant thinking and reimagining of Chakravyuha but all that goes unnoticed.
IMO AO had a better establishment of the strength of its characters.
The performance was on par with being excellent, let alone the lip sync issues. The CGI was okayish but that’s because of the budget Selva had.
As with Selva’s masterpieces, I searched for AO in Wikipedia to find that people now claim it to be a cult classic the same way they do for Pudhupettai. Totally expected this.
Ivangalku Selva padam release aanappa pudikaathu, koncho varshathukku aprom TV la paaka paaka pudikkum pola.
Kudos to Selva, an unabashed, badass director.
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Hrishi
December 24, 2016
It’s amazing that the comments section of the review has lasted till 2016. Now the film is officially a cult classic. I revisited it today..and enjoyed it tremendously… Though a drink in hand helps.
Is there any word on ao2? I hope it’s not given up.
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prafullachandra
October 10, 2017
the crew has actually taken great efforts in detailing. thai thindra manne – cholan ecstacy actually has a telugu keerthana as an interlude, probably indicative of the patronage these rulers gave to artists across languages.
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Rohit Aradhya
January 1, 2021
Now that the sequel is announced with Dhanush, wonder where Selva will take the movie towards? My initial thoughts were how a boy brought up as the prince of a kingdom would adjust himself to an urban life but with Dhanush claiming it to be a magnum opus and requiring extensive pre-production work, really curious…
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brangan
January 2, 2021
Yeah, I kinda feel bad for Karthi though… This came at a time he was taking really bold choices as an actor.
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sai16vicky
January 2, 2021
The Parthiban character in the first part was supposed to be played by Dhanush. For some reasons, Selva went with the former. I am really looking forward to part 2 (if/when it happens :)) because (IMO) no one directs Dhanush like Selva. I hope AO 2 turns out to be a treat for fans of both the director and the actor.
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Rohit Aradhya
January 3, 2021
Yes, what a great start from him. Also I hope Karthi becomes a part of AO 2 eventually considering the time this movie would take. Wonder if the economics not working out (having two stars)or is it a matter of Karthi now doing more family-friendly roles being the reason for his exclusion.
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