JUN 22 – It is a truth universally acknowledged that a rant, like a long-building fart, needs to be released if balance is to be restored in the universe. And in that spirit, allow me to vent about a particular kind of reaction to my review of Raavan (or indeed, my reviewing methods in general).
The verb that’s thrown in my face so often it’s a small miracle it hasn’t adhered to my cheek and congealed into a birthmark is “overanalyse.” “I overanalyse films.” “I overreach for meaning.” “The director did not intend all this.” “I am imagining things.”
The polite response, of course, would be to quip, “Just because you fuckers don’t want to use your brains while watching a movie and want everything explicated through dialogue, I’m not going to stop engaging with the film on a visual/subtextual level.” But I suppose that would exclude me from quite a few cocktail conversations. So I have to grin and bear it, seeking refuge in the imaginative interiors of the mind where I bring down the nearby bottle of wine on my accuser’s drum-tight skull. (Even better if the bottle is weighted with uranium, with a smiling Ingrid Bergman applauding my efforts. Hey, as long as we’re dreaming…)
But even that I can abide. What I have grown tired of explaining is that I am not a character in a Charlie Kaufman screenplay capable of burrowing into filmmakers’ heads, so I DO NOT KNOW (yes, that’s my silent e-scream) that the director planted these nuggets deliberately.
Maybe they just happened. Maybe it just happened that the death of Beera’s sister and the abduction of Ragini were both orchestrated in water. Maybe it just happened that Dev held out the photographs in that order so that the depth of field in front of the camera captured Beera as being in the middle of Dev and Ragini on a literal level.
I don’t deny this at all.
But I do deny that that the film contains no plausible grounds for these extrapolations. One can make a case for these interpretations of mine because, whether Mani Ratnam intended these meanings or not, the film (through its visuals and through its text) supports these claims. And that’s the only thing that interests me. (Refer simplified explanation of deconstruction here. “In deconstruction, the critic claims there is no meaning to be found in the actual text, but only in the various, often mutually irreconcilable, ”virtual texts” constructed by readers in their search for meaning.”)
And so when I point out the water-situated parallels in the arcs of the two women characters, I am attempting to reconcile the two visuals in the two opposing halves of the film that, to my mind, exist in beautiful balance. But because it’s in my mind (and not necessarily in the director’s), it doesn’t mean I’m imagining all (or any) of this.
End of rant. All is well. That distant burst of music is the angels singing in the heavens again, preferably in shockingly (but also pleasingly) diaphanous robes.
PS: Yes, a lot of you have heard a lot of this before, but hey…
PPS: And here, a shameless plug for K2K, from DC.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Gradwolf
June 22, 2010
Heh, thank you for writing the review and also writing this. It’s appalling to see the kind of reviews and reactions this movie has been getting by just mechanically reviewing it and weighing it on logic and entertainment value alone.
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complicateur
June 22, 2010
Me: And in another case of the medium becoming the message you co-opt the opening lines of.. “Pride and Prejudice”.
Me: You are over analyzing Baradwaj’s posts.
Me: Intha multiple personaliy-thollai thaanga mudiyalayE!
I think we had similar takes on the film in general BTW. Another question for which I have no answer is, would you have done the same if the director wasn’t Mani Ratnam? I am tempted to reply – “Yaar intha Mani Ratnam?”.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 22, 2010
Excellent piece. Concurs with my viewpoints. If the evidence is there in the film and interpretation is valid, why bother figuring out if it was intentional or not (and invalidate these solid arguments if they weren’t intentional)? If we were to resort to such an authorial intention-based approach, no film will have any flaws. If that kind of approach is taken, there will be nothing called fluke masterpieces (which, I believe, truly exist). I think it eventually only promotes idol-worship, like dogged auteurism. Cinema is not a painting that an artist starts from scratch. It’s raw material itself is made of accidents and improvisations. I think the question of intention is one that could only be answered on a case by case basis.
Here’s a similar post from Jim Emerson. An excerpt:
It’s clear neither of these shots were included by mistake, after all. At some point, Herzog looked at the shots and made a conscious decision to put them in the movie. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in the movie. (Think of this as a corollary to the Scorsese epigram above: “Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” It is also a matter of what is in the movie and what is out.)
P.S: Who’s this Sathya and who’s his bro?
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Sureshkumar
June 22, 2010
BR – Is there anything to read in the visual contrast between the way Raghini (with her body wrapped in black and all shadowy grey in the background) shouts for Dev and in the way she shouts (with her body wrapped in white and all mist and greenery in the background) for Veera in the end?
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bran1gan
June 22, 2010
Gradwolf: Appalling is right. A slightly bigger rant in this weekend’s BR.
complicateur: “Me: You are over analyzing Baradwaj’s posts.” Um! Are you overanalysing my posts? Or are you over, done with, analysing my posts? Oh dear, now I’ve begun to overanalyse your comments!
Just Another Film Buff: Which are your picks for “fluke masterpieces?” I’m curious because if you agree with me that the film (and not the author) offers proof of intentions, wouldn’t the fact that the film is a masterpiece make it impossible that it was a fluke? (Because now we’re getting into whether or not the things that make it a masterpiece were “intended” by the author.) Sathya, BTW, is Arya’s bro.
Sureshkumar: IMO the function of white is more in the train when he doubts her “purity.” When he shouts for Beera, she just happens to be wearing the same dress. But yes, the shout itself, like many of the other double-images in the film, is an echo of the earlier shout — where, once, she screamed for Dev, she now screams for Beera.
I like the colour coding in this film, but I wish the costumes had been more natural. They were distractingly elaborate. I loved the visual of Aishwarya dancing in jeans. That simplicity was breathtaking 🙂
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Shashi
June 22, 2010
Since you used f-word in the post, Google is now showing ads of “Tamil Hot Blue Films” on this page.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 22, 2010
I’m curious because if you agree with me that the film (and not the author) offers proof of intentions, wouldn’t the fact that the film is a masterpiece make it impossible that it was a fluke?
Give me a minute to get a grip on that statement!
OK, Now I’m not sure if I agree with you entirely. I believe that if a film offers the proof to validate an “interpretation” (and not for the authorial intention itself), then there is no need to fish for the director’s neurons. For example, a statement or a scene in a film may be subtly racist, but the director may have put it in good spirit. But if one can prove that the point made there is actually unconsciously racist, then there is no way one could vindicate the director’s work based on his conscious statement (unless of course, you prove using the director’s other works that this was just a Freudian slip or a cultural-given, at best).
I’m assuming that a fluke success is one where the director does not consciously intend to assign a particular meaning to an event/film but, somehow, everything – conscious, unconscious, mistakes, accidents, cultural trend – falls into place and becomes profound. I really can’t think of fluke masterpieces right now (there should be many B-Horror films that fall into that category), but Ishqiya did have a bunch of such moments.
P.S: So Shahir becomes Sathya, like Jamshad becomes Arya and Shamsuddin becomes Shaan, eh? Why at all?
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Sureshkumar
June 22, 2010
BR – I really doubt if Dev doubts Raghini’s purity in the train scene. To me, it just works as yet another literal nod (though incorporated in a far far better way than how Surpanaka’s nose is brought in) to the Epic. Isn’t it just another strategy of *Encounter specialist* Dev to capture Veera?
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Just Another Film Buff
June 22, 2010
Are there ads on this page? I don’t see any. You mean in Google Reader?
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Just Another Film Buff
June 22, 2010
Oh, OK. I’m logged in to WordPress. I won’t see the ads. That figures.
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bran1gan
June 22, 2010
Just Another Film Buff: Not at all. We are in perfect agreement that “if a film offers the proof to validate an “interpretation” (and not for the authorial intention itself), then there is no need to fish for the director’s neurons.” I guess when I read “fluke” I understood it to be a fluke on the part of the director.
Sureshkumar: I didn’t mean that he was actually doubting her. But in that scene, she’s “pure” again, having returned untouched to her husband, and the white plays up that purity. And because, at that point, we don’t know what he’s saying is a trick, there’s a certain association the colour brings to her character.
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Bala
June 22, 2010
I did wonder though, was I seeing things or was she(Priyamani) lying on top of a cot ?And if so, how did she get it there ?:D
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Karthik
June 22, 2010
Hmm, I’m not alone, then! I was getting tired explaining for the umpteenth time that,
a. My interpretation is mine alone
b. I do not intend to ridicule those who do not see Raavan the way I did
c. I have no idea if Mani intended these things and I do not care if he didn’t either
And the number of comments in my analysis (!) was growing bloody fast!
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Aishwarya
June 22, 2010
I don’t know if you’re familiar with Moff’s Law? Jai Arjun Singh linked to it (as did I) a while ago, and it’s a wonderful rant.
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Harish S Ram
June 22, 2010
i hope the BR thats coming up is more of a structured rant 🙂 here its intentionally rambling. The power of the words drum tight skull. WOW!!!
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Janaki
June 22, 2010
No NO NO… but that’s what makes your reviews that much more fun to read. My fun exercise is to see the movie and then come and read what you have written. Just to check to see if I noticed things you would have. Punch the people who tell you this rubbish. 🙂
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rameshram
June 22, 2010
the other thing that must mildly upst you is when some well intentioned one says ” i am learning all the hard words of english because of all your reviews sar!”
you should link them to some really opaque stuff on film-philosophy where they connect up claude levy-strauss and dynamic signifiers with intentions in gobardi’s “time for drunken horses” .
idhu ‘ard words. naan ezzutharadhu jujube.
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rameshram
June 22, 2010
http://www.film-philosophy.com/index.php/f-p/article/view/225/180
case in point( also obliquely addresses your ravikkai bit.)
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Abhishek
June 22, 2010
There is nothing to argue with in your review of Raavan.The way you write is simply outstanding man.I am waiting for K2K now.Didnt know you were the writer.
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munimma
June 22, 2010
A successful movie makes one think and analyze, I believe. So in that, MR did wonderfully well. Some open ends make it interesting, picking the viewer’s interest. And for what it counts, I too enjoy your overanalyzing.
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bran1gan
June 22, 2010
Bala: She fell in. They needed a way to bring her up in a picturesque manner. The cot was lowered. She was loaded on it. They raised the cot. The rest was edited out. Happy now? 🙂
Aishwarya: I think someone here pointed me to that link, but good to read it again. Hilarious. And so true.
rameshram: “i am learning all the hard words of english because of all your reviews sar” LOL! Oh, that’s rant-worthy too. BTW, with the thamizh maanaadu around thye corner, you shouldn’t be saying things like “ravikkai bit” 🙂
munimma: “And for what it counts, I too enjoy your overanalyzing.” And here I was trying to say that there is no such thing as overanalysing… Hmmm!
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rameshram
June 22, 2010
padapada vedhanai vendam! emkultthu veerargal angilatthil tamizzzzz klapargalenil tamizzzzzil angilm punaya vidargal ( doing the sivaji clearing the throat roar)
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complicateur
June 22, 2010
One unintended space and the entire meaning of the sentence changes. Medium becoming the message…again.
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Mambazha Manidhan
June 22, 2010
What did you think of the scene where Beera speaks to Ragini from the round boat that was going round and round with the camera swirling around him?
At first, I thought it was kinda cool.Then it became distracting when it started to feel like a tora-tora ride.The intended effect of the scene is nowhere near the poetic beauty of the Grain-crusher scene in Dil Se just before Shahrukh says ‘Dil Se..’.
Reg. “I loved the visual of Aishwarya dancing in jeans. That simplicity was breathtaking.”
Ditto. This might sound crazy but I think the reason is because her hair was plaited thereby bringing a whole new look to seductive dancing.
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munimma
June 22, 2010
let me rephrase it – “so called overanalyzing” 🙂 I thought it was implied.
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Shalini
June 22, 2010
Why so worried about what others think of the way you think? Didn’t your Mom tell you to just be yourself and all would be fine? 🙂
PS. A simple “Wow” is an excellent all-purpose rejoinder.
PPS. Anyone who references “Notorious” is alright in my book.
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MumbaiRamki
June 22, 2010
Sometimes you take things too seriously .. I don’t mean ur analysis of films , but the comments .. Possibly there can be a color to choose & indicate if we meant it really or just a casual comments 🙂
“But because it’s in my mind (and not necessarily in the director’s), it doesn’t mean I’m imagining all (or any) of this ”
Even Imagination is an extension of your reality , extended by connecting different points in our brain of the past, present reality , possibilities ,perspectives which is PERSONAL and UNIQUE ..So what you are doing is imagination which is brought out by what you experience .Its an hypothesis of the director’s intentions, which could be the same or not !
Finally….wonder how awards are given !!
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bran1gan
June 22, 2010
Mambazha Manidhan: I thought the point was that the coracle was spinning and his head was spinning, especially as, by them she’d become Mahua, one of them… Remind me of the grain crusher scene please? Thanks.
Shalini: Not worried, just annoyed at times. And at those times, a rant like this helps 🙂
MumbaiRamki: Are you talking about the commenters? I was actually talking about real people, who I’ve been running into. See para about cocktail conversations. That was a real bottle of wine I was talking about. Especially as these debates always degenerate into pissing contests. It’s easier to smile and let go and later rant in your blog 🙂 BTW, what awards are you talking about?
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rameshram
June 22, 2010
“Didn’t your Mom tell you to just be yourself and all would be fine?”
My mom kept comparing me to cousins whom she thought were doing very well in school…and would surely get into engineering….unlike me.
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B.H.Harsh
June 22, 2010
Mambazha Manidhan : Glad to see someone else too remember that Grain crusher touch so fondly. 😉
Wonder if Raavan too reaches the ‘cult’ status of Dil se a few years from now. Because for all we know, Dil se too wasn’t received very encouragingly by the critics OR the audience.
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MumbaiRamki
June 22, 2010
Forget ‘puppy’ awards like filmfare …Im referring to awards where experienced directors/film folks constitute the jury … What is the line of background score venturing into direction venturing into cinematography venturing into costumes ! yellam oru imagination thaan …A film like houseful ( parthiban’s one in sen tamizh)would have been great if it was shot in the night – but the cinematographer is not recognised for whatever was done ..whereas a menon who shows already beautiful ex-miss world riding on a misty morning in a digitally worked frame taken in a broad day light and fooled to be in twilight wins the award …i feel awards by itself is less meaningfull !
(If the dialogue neenga nallavara kettavara didn’t have illayaaraja’s famous background score and pauses , my humble opinion is that it wouldnt have got this longevity !)
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Mambazha Manidhan
June 22, 2010
I was referring to this scene.
(correction: this is after he says ‘dil se’ not before as I had written earlier)
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bran1gan
June 22, 2010
Mambazha Manidhan: That’s a grain crusher? Thanks 🙂 Awesome scene though. I love their trek through Leh too. “Maa ke haath.” Manisha’s thawing at the hands of SRK was so awesomely done.
BH Harsh: Do you think Dil Se has achieved a cult status today? I think its songs are still popular, but I don’t know that people keep returning to the film or even remember it fondly!
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jussomebody
June 22, 2010
Dil Se is all about the crackling sexual tension for me. During every rerun I have caught on TV in the last few years, I have marvelled at how well it was captured. The scene where she drinks water from the bottle, for instance. I like how… I don’t know, naturally, it all played out. Kaatu Sirukki is pretty crackling too, but in a much more dramatic way.
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Bala
June 23, 2010
Totally:D For some strange reason I had an image of her dropping the cot in and then jumping in after it 😀
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B.H.Harsh
June 23, 2010
Rangan : Atleast most of the people I know remember it as a film ‘ahead of its times’. And thats quite a lot, isn’t it? 😉
Needless to say, The soundtrack is a milestone. in.every.which.way.
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NullPointer
June 23, 2010
Recently read an MR interview where he mentioned something to the effect that setting,atmosphere ect serve as an aid to telling the story better/helps the actors emote better etc. Somehow with Dil se the whole atmosphere served the movie so much better as compared to Raavanan where the forest,atmosphere at times distracted me more than it should have . One can go on and on about each Dil se scene and never stop -my personal favorite being the scene where they both meet at the radio station with the swaying door in the background.
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apala
June 23, 2010
Dear BR,
Sorry dude, for having to endure such conversation instead of enjoying your wine (sweet or dry, btw?!)!!
I do enjoy cerebral movies more than the in-your-face-here-it-is movies!
But I tried my best here — could not “see” Raghini” but make-up-intact Aish all the time! And Karthik jumping trees (isn’t the name enough for us?) et all and those “lakalakalaka” rants by Veera(ppan?!) etc., made me lose my focus. And as I mentioned before, Suhasini then completely ruined it for me. (I hope the dialogues in Hindi were better).
But I respect you a lot dude. So, I am going to try my best to see the same “rainbow” that you’re seeing – at least try again with Raavan this time.
(BTW, from the day I saw “Dil Se” in Bangalore quite a few years ago – fell in love with that movie. I think Dil Se has the best of songs of all Mani-ARR combo!! Easily a “classic”, I vote “yay”!!)
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sachita
June 23, 2010
You are prone to spotting things which are absolutely not there or requires a fair amount of imagination but this once, your
Raavan review didnt have anything that wasnt there in the film – the black and white or the white sabyasachi and all that. dont know if you consider that good or bad.
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bran1gan
June 23, 2010
NullPointer: Yeah, it was too picturesque. Apocalypse Now is also set in a tropical jungle, but you never really stop to gasp at individual moments. The whole film is a one giant picture postcard, but the astounding photography never stops acting as a running commentary to the characters.
The other thing about Indian cinematography that annoys me is that every scene is so shiny-new. I was speaking to a filmmaker and he said it’s because of the stock, which is made for foreign climes. I’m not sure how that holds because a film like Dev.D did have a lighter tone to the imagery, while in Raavan, for instance, every colour is so fully ripe and saturated, and every frame is so “clean.”
apala: Oh, please feel free to hate Raavan 🙂 This is about not liking Raavan at all. Merely about being contemptuous/unwilling to give someone the right to like it for XYZ reasons.
sachita: “You are prone to spotting things which are absolutely not there…” OMG! Now I’m seeing things? So the day is not far away when I’ll start hearing voices inside my head (cue The Police) 🙂 Any other Police fans here, BTW? Just five albums, but each one a classic.
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Saleheen
June 23, 2010
YES! I thoroughly approve of this rant!
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Shyam
June 23, 2010
Speaking of visuals, I am not sure if Kamalhasan intended it, but in Hey Ram, when he is goaded into participating in the anti-gandhi thingy, his first step is onto the sludge created due to the rains.
I remember being quite excited about that frame alone. Director’s touch, as the wise men would say.
Shyam
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vijay
June 23, 2010
Interpretation is fine as along as the director isn’t put on the pedestal based on what YOU thought he was trying to say. End of my mini-rant 🙂 And the same “evidence” in a film can lead to different conclusions/interpretations as in how the polygraph test has been written about in a lot of reviews.So what seems like a brilliant conceit to some might look like an accidental plug to someone else.
As an aside, in a very unique case, I have read several reviews/opinions of Moondram Pirai and not one of them interpreted it as a teen fantasy with a cold splash at the end, which was what the director’s intention supposedly was 🙂
Another question that pops is, for what kind of films are you willing to dive into details and unearth the subtexts and such based on the evidences provided in a film? Reviewers don’t do this kind of analysis for all films. Some movies are dismissed in a para. So should the movie have worked for you in order for you to dwell on the interpretations? Should the director have some credibility based on his body of work? Or should it feel like an abstract work? This itself is subjective. Because a movie like Dasavatharam would have a lot more to ponder if we want to dig deep into interpretations and come up with analyses, but then I guess since the movie itself didn’t work overall(due to a mediocre screenplay, bad acting or whatever), such attempts were given up.
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Venkatesh
June 23, 2010
BR: “every colour is so fully ripe and saturated, and every frame is so “clean.” – Very very true. This is especially true of MR’s later movies, i haven’t seen Raavan/Raavanan but this “ultra-clean” visual somehow breaks the illusion of the movie and draws attention to the “shot”.I call it the “Look Ma, sooo shiny” phenomenon.
JAFB: Re-your referencing Jim Emerson’s quote. I found this to be more truer to my sensibilities : “People should look straight at a film… That’s the only way to see one. Film is not the art of scholars, but of illiterates. And film culture is not analysis, it is agitation of the mind. Movies come from the country fair and circus, not from art and academicism”
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Ramsu
June 23, 2010
Here’s what puzzles me: there are people who pretty much get tenure in literature departments doing precisely this. I mean, consider something like, say Finnegan’s Wake — the only way you’re gonna get anything out of that book is if you read all kinds of subtext. And don’t even get me started on paintings.
So, why the objection when someone does it to a film? Is it simply a function of whether something is perceived as art or as entertainment? Do you have an easier time of it when you train your analytical eye on foreign films in your PotP posts? I doubt too many people object to your finding more subtext than subtitles in Visconti’s work 🙂
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bran1gan
June 23, 2010
vijay: It is not based on the kind of film, i.e. masala, comedy, drama or whatever. It isn’t based on the director either. It’s a case-by-case basis. As the film unspools and begins to “speak” to you, you come away with a clutch of thoughts (depending on how carefully you “listen”), and sometimes a “mere comedy’ like MMKR can turn out to have a truckload or subtext. The other thing is is that there can be a lot of vision on paper but botched on screen, like, as you mention, in Dasavatharam. A general rule of thumb is that any Kamal movie, however bad, will be filled with a ton of subtext 🙂
Venkatesh: I’m surprised Emerson said something so reductive and bland. That’s a bit like saying Stone Age man used paintings to decorate his walls, so Picasso should be viewed the same way, without interpreting it. Even our cinema has its roots in the nautanki and the koothu and so on, but when a director filters those elements through his vision, surely you’re not going to deny that an “academic” eye may be worthwhile!
Ramsu: See, that’s the thing. No one says much when I “overanalyse” those foreign films, but with Indian films, they get all kinds of crazy. Is it because we, traditionally, define film as mere entertainment? Is it because we don’t have a longstanding tradition of training a critical eye towards cinema (especially commercial cinema)? I think it’s a bit of both. And I think people get defensive when you say “these are the reasons this film is interesting” because if they haven’t seen those “reasons”, they think you’re trying to invalidate their viewing experience. While all you’re really saying is, “This is why it worked for me. And it doesn’t have to work the same way for you.” I think we have too long a tradition of consensus-bound evaluation of film (i.e. flat-out good or bad or, worse, “can see it once”), so when someone breaks away from the pack, it causes unrest. Again, just speculating.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 23, 2010
BR, I believe that quote is from Herzog (So, obviously, it will be against whatever we call art and its function!)
But there is something that sounds true in that. Like Deleuze (right?) said: Cinema is difficult to explain because it is easy to understand. And like Kubrick said: Maths and Cinema are the two universal languages. Unlike other arts, it can speak to the subconscious of anyone who has a pair of eyes. The quote is more like wishful thinking than an agenda.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 23, 2010
OK, the first quote is apparently from Metz.
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Gradwolf
June 23, 2010
Heh BR, how about doing a Between Reviews or ruminations on subtexts in MMKR? *cough*
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rameshram
June 23, 2010
branigan and just,
i did not think(on third viewing) that lush cinematography distracted from my viewing experience. it was in my mind, a red herring to ” muzzu pushnikkaiya sotthla maraccufy(conjuring trick)” the audience into believing that this was a ‘ramayana with production values” branigan, i suggest you see the tamil version asap. abhishek has ruined the film for you.
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raghav
June 23, 2010
BR, while on Kamal..on a totally different note..loved this video esp when Kamal gets sarcastic about the culture thing..
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Venkatesh
June 23, 2010
JAFB,BR: The quote is from Werner Herzog.
“That’s a bit like saying Stone Age man used paintings to decorate his walls, so Picasso should be viewed the same way, without interpreting it”. Definitely not. That is an absurd argument.
The nub here is Picasso’s paintings like Finnegan’s Wake are meant to be viewed with multiple interpretations – unschooled and schooled. It is the author’s intention – the author is explicitly catering to the variance in the “knowledge” of his audience. An even better example you gave was KamalHassan’s latter movies. (JAFB – i am going through the detailed analysis of Hey Ram on your blog – a good read.)
Without watching Raavan/Raavanan i cannot comment on the specific case of this movie, subtext or lack-of thereof.
However, as @Vijay pointed out in the case of Moondram Pirai, my problem with an “academic” look comes when reviewers see things in the film that was never meant to be. Is that a valid deconstruction technique ? Does the knowledgeable reviewer know more about the movie than the author ? Is it an acceptable position to say the director did it subconsciously without realising it ? My answer to all of the above is a resounding no, hence the Herzog quote.
On being asked by an auteur(paraphrasing) – “Does the stillness of your camera reflect the stillness of life ?” Satyajit Ray replied – “No, i did not have the money to afford a hand-held camera”.
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bran1gan
June 23, 2010
Venkatesh: You are going back to saying, “The director didn’t intend this, therefore there is no use thinking that way.” What JAFB and I are saying is, “It doesn’t matter what the director wanted to do; the film (which, in any case, nowhere near what the director wants to achieve) is what we’re taking our cues from.” Very different ways of looking at it. There is no such thing as “never meant to be” because if the film (not the filmmaker) tells me that such a meaning is there, then it is there.
rameshram: Just returned from the Tamil version and I must say I preferred the Hindi version. Yes, Vikram is far easier to take than AB — even though he’s asked to do the same bak-bak stuff (and that doesn’t work at all, even in this version), where he scores 100% is in his physicality. He looks like a man of the forest. He looks like he belongs there. So the casting “looks” right here, even if towards the end, he’s more neutered than AB was — Raavanan as lovesick puppy dog. (Because Vikram plays the character more sympathetically.) You what I kept think when cringing at Vikram’s OTT moments? “If only Kamal in his Guna days had played this…” 🙂
But despite the more convincing lead, I found the ellipses in Hindi more fascinating. See, if you begin to explain and link the dots, as in Tamil, it comes off as half done — as if someone found that entire chapters of a book were missing and tried to set things right by adding a sentence here and there. The weirdness of the incomplete book (about which we know in our heads anyway) is what makes the Hindi version so interesting.
If the Tamil version had been a half-hour longer and had had scenes that took the story/characters deeper, I wouldn’t have minded because that would have been a genuinely different movie. This comes off like someone making an intentionally abstract Hindi film and just filling out a character here and there through expository dialogue because “Tamil audiences are too dumb.”
The Hindi lyrics are better, situation-wise. Govinda was better than Karthik. Nikhil Dwivedi was better than John Vijay because he looked so upright/innocent, and so his heinousness came as a slap in the face. John Vijay looked like a leering lech anyway. And Prithviraj had this strange smile throughout, like a villain who knows he has the advantage. I liked Prabhu though. Ravi Kishan brought a blithe mischievousness to the role, but Prabhu brought gravity.
One thing about this film that amazes me is the hysterical overreaction to everything from AB’s performance to Suhasini’s dialogues. The latter is nowhere as bad as they were made out to be, though people kept slipping in and out of dialect, and that was very odd to keep listening to. One laugh-out-loud moment for me was when Prabhu hands over a plate of food to Aishwarya and turns away singing Kalyana samayal saadham from Mayabazaar. This was probably unintentional, but imagine… a food-loving character from the Ramayana referencing a food-loving character from the Mahabharata. Talk about intertextuality 😀
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Just Another Film Buff
June 23, 2010
Thanks Venkatesh. Your anecdote reminds me another. When Cassavetes was praised in person by a reviewer for his handheld, freewheeling style, he replied: “You stupid bastard. I couldn’t afford a tripod.”
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Just Another Film Buff
June 23, 2010
And not to mention that Picasso’s blue color joke…
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rameshram
June 23, 2010
Branigan
I think I see where you are coming from. to me, as you would have noticed in my writing as well, the “completeness of the book” is only a narrative swankness that any copywrighter(amrita) can accomplish. blinding insights, even if once every twenty minutes , makes for a brilliant movie.
I didnt have a problem with lovesick puppy. If I had written a “commentary to overlay over the film to “complete” it, (ahem, mani take note 🙂 ) it would have been abundantly clear that we were looking at vikram’s essay through ragini’s eyes. in face didn’t you notice how much vikram overplayed the lovesickness(this is a straight line from “he’s not that into you” because it’s impossible that ANYONE, leave alone a bandillerio in a jungle with many mistresses gets that lovesick with no establishing motivation. In someone’s memory, perhaps)..
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Amrita
June 24, 2010
@ BR: There! There! Have a cookie. 😀 Trust me, it makes the world better. So I came late to the party and this caught my eye instead. Since I’ve already fulfilled my quota of explaining Raavan, I thought I’d address this instead:
No one says much when I “overanalyse” those foreign films, but with Indian films, they get all kinds of crazy.
I’m sure your two theories have something to them but from what I’ve understood from the Rediff boards (and really, there’s no better snapshot of the exceedingly common view) it comes from a conviction that the Indian product, especially in Hindi, *must* be inferior and stolen from somewhere. And for that nobody but the Indian film industry is responsible. If you live in a country where the arrival of Akon is a national event and “A-list” directors reverse the straight-to-DVD trajectory by cadging their movies wholesale from their video libraries, this is the end result.
I’m not saying this is true of the people who come here or took you to task over Raavan, but this seems to be the general view. Indian movie = timepass. Yesterday, today, tomorrow. Unless it’s made by someone carefully labeled arthouse i.e. Not For Us: Ray, Gopalakrishnan, Kasaravalli. You could stretch that list to a round ten maybe.
@ Venkatesh: Does the knowledgeable reviewer know more about the movie than the author ?
I don’t know about a knowledgeable reviewer but a viewer knows at least as much if not more about the art than the artist. An artist finds a vision and explains it as best he can. You could be a writer, a filmmaker, an artist, a singer, what have you. There is a vision and an idea behind that vision. The artist unveils it. The best metaphor I’ve read of the process till date is that of Michelangelo liberating his statues from the blocks of stone surrounding them.
But think of the Pieta. You know *what* it is because Michelangelo showed it to you – and a couple of million guidebooks that tell you all about it. But the *meaning* you find in it or lack thereof, is entirely your own. No piece of art comes with a manual for interpretation, after all.
And I know it sounds really iffy and mumbo jumbo but the artist’s subconscious does play a part. Sometimes you dont know what you’re doing until someone else points it out to you. Like that Inside the Actor’s Studio interview with Steven Spielberg in which James Lipton pointed out that In Close Encounters, the aliens make contact through music played on a computer: combining his parents professions. 😀
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kannagi
June 24, 2010
Ah now we talk. Vikram layed it strraight while Abhishek infused some mystique and unpredictability etc – do you sunscribe to that desparate fan boy defence of Abhishek’s failure?
Why are Abhishek fans trying to paint a layer of non-existent depth to his performance. He simply goes out and does his cool dude wearing a stubble and trying to look deep. And his supporters in the web world desparately trying emperor’s clothes tactcis.
Brangan has surprisingly been restrained but still, insinuating that vikram played puppy dog but abhishek blah blah is here also.
Emperor’s clothes being re enacted by abhishek fanatics around the web(all 16 of them who even see abhishek as iconicc already 😆 – epdi vekka padaama solli puttinga maaplaingalaa!)
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kamil
June 24, 2010
Hi Rangan! Have you read this latest piece on Raavan by Time Magazine – http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1999246,00.html
And Btw I love your rants and innate overanalyzing impulses! Is there a BR on Raavan/an on the anvil??
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bran1gan
June 24, 2010
rameshram: I didn’t have a “problem” with lovesick puppy either. I understand that Raavan, by then, has fallen for Sita. But Vikram looks so fearsomely right in the part that it wasn’t easy to see him melt down so quickly towards the end. The motivations were fleshed out in the Tamil version but the characters were not. And what was abstract/unknowable now becomes startling because now the arc seems tangible, and this last portion seems too sudden.
I wonder how it would have been if Vikram had played Beera. I think that would have been the ideal solution because his unfamiliarity with the language PLUS his familiarity/ease with the terrain would have created a fascinating push/pull aspect to the character and added to the overall weirdness of the Hindi film.
Amrita: I was going to extend this to a Bitty Rumination about the subconscious but you beat me to it. That’s exactly it, and I guess as a writer, you brought it up inevitably. Any creative endeavor has two components — one that’s intentionally done and one that’s done despite the author/painter/director not realising, at a subconscious level. And it’s the audience that plays “shrink” and tells the author that all this is there in your work, whether you intended it or not.
kamil: Thanks for the link. There’s a BR this weekend, but not about the film per se, I’ve written enough about it, don’t you think? 🙂
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raj
June 24, 2010
Hey one question. Some time back you ranted that “if Johar had made this same movie, people would have rubbished it but now that Jha has made it, it gets excused”
Don’t you think the same applies to you with Johar replaced by Jha and Jha replaced Mani?
Dont you think the same applies to you w.r.t Abhishek where you see merits in him which dont exist?
In other words, when you ranted against Johar critics there, you were damning yourself.
(ofcourse, you could turn the same argument around to me!)
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raj
June 24, 2010
“I wonder how it would have been if Vikram had played Beera. I think that would have been the ideal solution because his unfamiliarity with the language PLUS his familiarity/ease with the terrain would have created a fascinating push/pull aspect to the character and added to the overall weirdness of the Hindi film.
”
That is an interesting thought. Somehow I believe that Mani set out to make it in Hindi with Vikram as Beera and Abhishek as Dev – my belief is that A.Sheikh realised that Beera was the author-backed role and bullied Mani into giving it to him- although all concerned are painting a different picture now. I think you nailed it there – and as someone who is the ideal target audience for Mani, I think your opinion counts more than that of Abhishek fans who seem to imply that as of date, only Abhishek is this super-actor for whom Mani conceives roles (ha ha what grand delusion there!) and that Beera was conceived for A.Sheikh.
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
“But Vikram looks so fearsomely right in the part that it wasn’t easy to see him melt down so quickly towards the end.”
well AFLAK! what did i just say?! the fearsome- lovesick is consistent with the reading that this is how RAGINI LOOKED AT IT.
its not like vikram hasn’t played a more classy love sick puppy in some of his other films. here i hink his instructions were to overplay lovesickness.
“I wonder how it would have been if Vikram had played Beera”
do you know the darndest thing, when i watched abhishek play beera, i wasn’t thinking vikram(who would have been as miscast as mammoty in dalapathi imo,) but ( the 70’s)AMITABH for whom the role would have been a natural one , and vikram, then need not have been so restrained in his essay as dev.
“I guess as a writer, you”
hehehe , nice! 😀
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
you heard it here first but richard corliss is a fucking asswipe. 😀 tell him i said so.
( the charecter, mofo, is not based n a marxist union leader( thats hollywood propaganda to associate the film somehow with marxists,) but on veerappan (veera- beera…hello!?))
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BR_Fan
June 24, 2010
Such nonsense you know, those who try to find leads to defend Abihshek’s perf. I don’t mind Mani getting credits of being more ‘obscure’, but it should be made clear that Abhishek’s performance was complete failure and he letdown Mani in this very regard.
Very sad my hero BR would be doing this, or maybe we misunderstand. I think he specifically points to hindi’s ellipses and over-expository lyrics/dialogues in Tamil..
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BR_Fan
June 24, 2010
BR(Hero) Sir,
Speaking of Guna, doesn’t this film also begin with camera ascending to cliff’s top with its hero (sun glaring behind as against the full moon alongside Guna) looking over the cliff. The film’s closure with Raavan’s death falling down the cliff signalling a ‘marriage’ with Ragini (her white saree and her face colored with Raavan’s red blood – symbolically ‘married’) Just as in Guna, the death symbolically feels like a consummation of their marriage.
Both the films close with serene ‘nature’, the silence of the cliffs (In Guna, the house provided a superb imagery in 70mm screen) Considering that Mani’s own hero is Mahendran and his favorite film being Udhiri Pookal, there too the death of the ‘villainous’ character is followed by ‘onlooking’ nature (his kids being part of the background without dominating the scenery)
I also felt this in Nayagan, Velu’s death brings about a quick montage of him going through various events in his life, but essentially his relationship and kids dominate. And the young grandson looking over his dead body along with his mother and father, again a ‘nod’ to ‘Udhiri Pookal’ without the ‘natural’ scenery.
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raj
June 24, 2010
Interestingly, Mani himself says that he is more in control and micro-manages the tamil versions while in Hindi, he is less in control. That is, to say, what you see in Tamil is closer to what he is consciously making. Yet, you have people saying it seems to have been conceived in Hindi and retro-fitted in Tamil. That is to, say, we are saying very violently to Mani that “Dude, what do you know? We know better than you what you intended sub-consciously!”.
At one leve, we see Rangan annoyed by commenters who rubbish his creation – (viz) people insinuating that he has imagined the sub-texts. (i.e.) people are actually rubbishing Rangan’s assigning of sub-texts in the movie and it annoys him when people say “Dude, what you saw really didnt exist.”
Yet, the same critic wants to tell the maker that “Dude, you may not have consciously intended it but it is there in your work!”
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BR_Fan
June 24, 2010
Surprised by the castration suggestions and eunuchs etc. I always thought Mani wouldn’t venture much into seemingly Kamal/Bala milieu.
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BR_Fan
June 24, 2010
Correction it’s not saree. But it’s white salwar, thus in many ways symbolically signifying that she widow-ed Ram, the bhagwan she knew doesn’t exist anymore?!
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Venkatesh
June 24, 2010
BR: “There is no such thing as “never meant to be” because if the film (not the filmmaker) tells me that such a meaning is there, then it is there.” – I have 3 problems with this position:
1. As @Amrita alludes to it , very iffy and mumbo-jumbo,(the artist sub-conscious theory, that theory is a rabbit-hole) especially in a medium like Cinema which is a considerably more literal medium than Art or Music. A corollary to this is – does a film contain things that the artist did not intend which somehow knowledgeable audiences can perceive ? MY answer : maybe , i have never come across a single case in cinema where the maker accepts this position and yes that matters to me. If the maker did not intend it then what anyone else says is almost irrelevant. It is the equivalent of people saying Shakespeare is high-art, its not it was the “saas-bahu” serial of its time.
2. The other reason is humans are trained to search for patterns, we see patterns in everything , isn’t this non-literal interpretation just another possibly more sophisticated form of it ?
3. When directors consciously have a non-literal interpretation almost no-one catches it. An example, in Agneepath there is a reason why the protagonist goes from East to West and West to East in the initial and final dead-body transportation scenes. I never read a single person who got that., the director or may be it was Amitabh B who mentioned it in an interview years later. So, how “right” is the reading of the subtext ? The probability of it being BS are very high.
So in summary, may be the people who say “you over-analyse” are clumsily saying “we don’t see it” and may be you are seeing things simply because you have a very highly tuned pattern-matcher that is broken 🙂 The people who criticise this reading only for Indian movies , i am with @Amrita on that.
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aravind
June 24, 2010
>>One thing about this film that amazes me is the hysterical overreaction to everything from AB’s performance to Suhasini’s dialogues.>>
Count me in. haven’t watched the Hindi version. But I thought Suhasini’s dialogues were functional at least, if not great.
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Venkatesh
June 24, 2010
JAFB : Re-Cassavettes anecdote : He is one of my favourite filmmakers , i can imagine him saying something like that – he cuts through BS , just like Herzog, another one of their ilk was surprisingly Hitchcock. To the point and no metaphorical posturing.
Another anecdote : Robert Mitchum when being told about the French calling his movies film-noir and expressionist due to prevalence of the standard genre trollops replied – “we called them B-Movies”.
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raj
June 24, 2010
No Indian Express previews, articles and plugs on K2K?
enna Bachchan fanA irundhu enna prayOjanam. Publicity and propoganda epdi pandradhunnu kathukavE illaiyE!
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
venktesh,
it is VERY MUCH the case that some people can see things in films that the filmmaker never conciously intended. in fact an honest film is pretty much an invitation to the most thorough public examination of one’s innermost thoughts as i can imagine.
The other explaination(which is a film crit version as opposed to a psychoanalytical one , above) is that a part of the film is CREATED by the audience as the movie watching experience unfolds. This theory has no patience for the filmmaker as a sole author, or even for there being a sole author in text. not only is the director not the sole filmmaker(because the film is a collaborative art) and the script writer, the cinematographer or the editor have the power to layer the film with meaning, but the audience can come away finding meanings from the text that are subjects of culture, history and whom and what the audience is informed by.
For instance infusing ravana with ” multiple personality disorder ” may never have been the original intention of the author of the epic. maybe he just wanted( if he didnt concieve ravana as having literally ten heads)t say he was conceited enough for ten heads worth of weight (headweight, as the more modest junta would characterize the conceited), in fact it’s a safe bet that valmiki had never heard of schizophrenia. so now we’re all cartesian reminiscence men revisionists because we used analysis psychobabble and jargon to deconstruct ravana’s character?
a film- a meme- a text is like sperm much is produced in the course of a lifetime, and most has potential to make babies of is species(which is the author’s intent) although there is no guarantee exactl whose baby it will be bcause of the creative rgy that is the film.
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bran1gan
June 24, 2010
rameshram: Oh, I think Venkatesh understands very well where we’re coming from. It’s just that he doesn’t buy it. He is, in short, not a deconstructionist. Put differently, he thinks it’s hooey 🙂 What’s AFLAK, BTW?
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
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bran1gan
June 24, 2010
rameshram: WTF dude. Can’t stop laughing now 🙂
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Venkatesh
June 24, 2010
RameshRam: I understand the logic and argument of where you are coming from. But as BR said ,
BR: “He is, in short, not a deconstructionist. Put differently, he thinks it’s hooey :-)” – in a nutshell probably yes :-).
Mind you its not for want of trying though, its just that i am yet to read a deconstructionist treatment of a film or genre that improved my understanding, from the original meanings of deconstruction, how Derrida used it, to the more relaxed “see underneath the overt image” meaning – the whole thing is much too flaky and very arbitrary for my liking.
Lets agree to disagree on this one then. 🙂
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
venkatesh what ever makes sense to one makes sense. art criticism is such a fun place only because fundamentalist Christians and vedic hindus can agree about something and disagree with hermeneutics and constructionist (who both would agree on the same something)…but I guess Im deconstructing art criticism instead of taking it on it’s face value , as if Brannigan shat out the statue of david fully formed , smelling like coco chanel’s arse. 😉
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rameshram
June 24, 2010
I meant deconstructionists, but I guess for the purposes of this argument constructionists and deconstructionists are the same people 🙂
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bran1gan
June 24, 2010
Venkatesh: This is not “relaxed” at all. It is very much like how Derrida was using it — flexible meanings as opposed to fixed meanings, exploration as opposed to containment. The fact that it applies to cinema as opposed to literature doesn’t change much. No language — literary language, cinematic language — is entirely adequate to “structure” “reality.” Maybe, as written in a review, the tone may be lighter, but the principle, at heart, isn’t very different.
But I can see you have issues with this, and you’re not alone either. But about the reading that you bring up, haven’t you seen pieces by Robin Wood or Jonathan Rosenbaum or (among the popular critics) Kael and Sarris? (And I’m not even bringing up heavyweights like Bazin.) With their singular focus on the film (as opposed to the intent of the filmmaker), they truly expand your understanding. You may not buy into it. But you come away enriched by their thoughts nonetheless.
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Arun
June 24, 2010
I see your review has made quite a few viewers reevaluate their first impressions on Raavan ! how does it feel to wield such power 😉 ?!
…but I bet this piece wont make you reevaluate Rajneeti 😉
http://passionforcinema.com/the-dissertation-of-dr-samar-pratap/
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Hermione Granger
June 24, 2010
Kadhal Kondain would have made for a much more straightforward and well-developed Raavan, no ? Or am I the only person “seeing” things ? 😉 “Unhinged” hero likes pretty innocent girl, kidnaps her, feels terribly attracted to her, but suppresses his inner urges, complete with a climax where he falls down a cliff by choice, even though the heroine doesn’t want to let either him or her oh-so-good boyfriend down . If MR wanted to explore the tension between the hero and heroine in the forest, I think that one was better depicted. As you can see, I am not into “cold films” and I don’t have the gift to see stuff like “the water for water revenge” (poorly put, I know), so my memory of Raavanan a week after watching it is of visiting an exotic land with lush waterfalls.
One of the other things that struck me was how Aayirathil Oruvan could have been looking good in that exotic landscape, the beautiful black pillars near the lake and all…..atleast those shabby graphics could have been avoided had he had the money.
And yes, it is interesting to see how people give such muted reviews that don’t outright criticize MR as much as they would have while dismissing Gautam Menon or Selvaraghavan despite their individual flaws. No, I am not talking about you, I have read your imaginary rant to Kamal after Dasavatharam. This is on your fellow reviewer in IE who labelled VTV as “poorly directed”.
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Venkatesh
June 24, 2010
RameshRam: “what ever makes sense to one makes sense. ” – This i agree with but if you take it to its logical conclusion – reductio ad absurdum – you are left in a very subjective airy-fairy place with no rules where every take is equally valid and merited. “art criticism is such a fun place only because fundamentalist Christians and vedic hindus can agree about something ” – Dude , don’t get me started. 🙂
BR: “This is not “relaxed” at all.” – Never meant it was relaxed here, just that i have seen it used “loosely” in other texts. Re-the reading , i have read almost all of Pauline Kael’s reviews(i remember in entirety her review of Beauty and the Beast, the Cocteau version) and yes some articles by Bazin. I am meaning to read his “What is Cinema ?” when i get some non-existent free time. Increased understanding possibly but nagging doubts on the basic premise of all the theorising that leads to the varied interpretations and the flights of fancy, definitely yes.
So, for now i prefer to remain in the “This is all hooey :-)” camp.
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bran1gan
June 25, 2010
Arun: Oh, but the intent is not to change people’s opinions. Merely to provide a reading that prompts them to look at the film in a different way, even if they still hold on to their opinions. Been enjoying your cartoon strips in Zeitgeist, BTW. The guy with the goatee is your alter ego, I’m assuming 🙂
Hermione Granger: But she dissed Raavanan too, from what I recall. Not a positive review at all. But for what it’s worth, the headlines for the articles (“Badly directed,” etc.) are given by the people at the desk and not the reviewer and they sometimes get carried away. Unless, of course, if the writer is a control freak like me and insists on supplying the headlines as well as the edited copy 🙂
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rameshram
June 25, 2010
“reductio ad absurdum – you are left in a very subjective airy-fairy place with no rules where every take is equally valid and merited”
so dont reducio ad absurdum. aval than rhetorical refutation katthu kuduthanna namakku buddhi enga pochhu? blinda ellathukkum reducio ad absurdum apply pannaratha enna?
what I ramesh like is wat i like, is not the same thing as what hagyaraj likes is what bhagyaraj likes no? ithula ellam equivalence irukka enna? obviously some are more equal! 😉
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EvelinaM.
June 25, 2010
Coming from the American education system, all we’ve been taught to do in English class is critically analyze the hell out of a literature piece (imagery, diction, syntax, etc). Authorial (or in this case, directorial) intent is irrelevant if you can support your analysis with evidence from the piece. People can allege it is “overanalyzing” but it is critical personal interpretation. You saw a dramatic technique (like the photographs), and gave your opinion on what it could mean in terms of the enitre movie. That is an analysis – an interesting one at that, not reading too much into it.
Oh well. Loved this, though: “Just because you fuckers don’t want to use your brains while watching a movie and want everything explicated through dialogue, I’m not going to stop engaging with the film on a visual/subtextual level”. Wouldn’t recognize you (or your reviews) if you did stop.
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kanishk
June 25, 2010
Rangan – Did you like Iruvar? Was just thinking of my fav Mani films over the past. Although Nayakan is etched atop that list, Ive been thinking of others and Iruvar/Thalapathi/Kannathil comes near that apex.
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BR_Fan
June 25, 2010
enna thala, no response to my post above? cha..neenga national award vangum bodhu, ungalukku naan vinyl posters-lam adichen..
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Mambazha Manidhan
June 25, 2010
I noticed an interesting subtext in Raavan/an.(BR shtyle :P)
When Dev is shaving in his tent,he hears a pistol shot. He comes out of his tent with his unshaven beard, announces that it’s a country pistol and commands his battalion to get moving. In the next scene, he is completely clean shaven and searching for Beera/Veera in his abandoned hideout.Does this mean he loves himself more than he loves Ragini and his mission to catch Beera/Veera ? This narcissism would probably explain why he has so many mirrors in his bedroom. It’s so that he can look at himself all the time irrespective of whether he has a sex life or not.
Or was that a continuity error ?
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BR_Fan
June 25, 2010
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BR_Fan
June 25, 2010
divine interlude in 1:02, your response to rameshram
couple of montages at 1.25, your response to Venkatesh
violin interludes at 2:30, your response to Arun, Hermione Granger
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Arun
June 25, 2010
Yes I get that, but still to see people saying ‘yes I get it now and like it better’ or making them return to the theater for a repeat viewing…hmm.
After your ACJ trip,next thing you know film schools’ll be inviting you to interpret films for students 😉
Do you think we’d ever go the the ‘DVD with director’s commentary’ way?
Would love to see Kamal and Mani start the trend…oh for a director’s commentary track on Hey Ram and Iruvar!
(or for a long promised but never kept BR Hey Ram piece)
Ah thanks 🙂 the comic strip is mostly autobiographical 😉
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bran1gan
June 25, 2010
EvelinaM: At the risk of sounding reductivist, do you think this is more a “Western” trait, then?
kanishk: The only Mani Ratnam film I’m completely indifferent to is Thiruda Thiruda. Even films like Roja and Bombay (which I’m not that much a fan of), there’s always something that keeps you gripped — a line of dialogue there, a scene staging here. But TT! Hell man!
Mambazha Manidhan: I guess among the shots Amitabh alleges were edited out was this one of Prithviraj finally managing to take a shave 🙂 But yes, he does come across as a narcissist.
BR_Fan: Oh, you were serious? I thought you were yanking my chain — a favourite pastime of some of the people here 🙂
Arun: The Hey Ram piece wasn’t meant to be a BR. I was supposed to dig out my review, and I just couldn’t find it 🙂
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BR_Fan
June 25, 2010
I’m always serious even when I lie.
But seriously, 24 inches vinyl posters wouldn’t do for K2K. Will try to get 24 feet (24 – symbolizing fps of film – eppadi?) cutout.
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Nigam
June 25, 2010
‘Any creative endeavor has two components — one that’s intentionally done and one that’s done despite the author/painter/director not realising, at a subconscious level. And it’s the audience that plays “shrink” and tells the author that all this is there in your work, whether you intended it or not.’
but Baradwaj, correct me if I am wrong, I thought you mentioned earlier that the film text speaks for itself and it follows therefore that (unless the film text has made it the case) there is no need to look into the intention, conscious or unconscious, of the director?
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Venkatesh
June 25, 2010
RameshRam: “obviously some are more equal!” – Amen. 🙂
BR_Fan: “couple of montages at 1.25, your response to Venkatesh” – That was seriously funny dude. ( I am assuming you are a dude. ) You do realise that me and BR hold diametrically opposite viewpoints.
“EvelinaM: At the risk of sounding reductivist, do you think this is more a “Western” trait, then?” – If i may jump in – this is more a European trait, C’est La French mostly.
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Mambazha Manidhan
June 25, 2010
“Who’s your best man in CBI?”
CUT TO:
SPB & his wife running to catch a train to Srirangam. SPB’s character and all his scenes were a riot esp. the telephone calls to his miffed wife. TT was full of moments man! This is just one of them.
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BR_Fan
June 25, 2010
Of course, my comment (comparing to that song) ‘dissects’ BR’s response at both audiovisual/subtext level 😉
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Upamanyu
June 25, 2010
I’m perhaps a bit late in joining the discussion. A brilliant, thought-provoking read! I, for one, can understand your situation. I have been part of quite a few discussions on films which ultimately turn into something else. Don’t even get me started on the nature of arguments on the Internet! Even the most respected writers forget civility only to assert their existence in the world, real or virtual. It’s equally annoying when the champions of subjectivity resort to objectivity to establish their opinion and take cheap digs at people who think otherwise. They leave no room for any other opinion. I despise this attitude. That’s why I find it useless to convince anyone about the merits (or demerits) of a film or book. I mean, how can you explain to someone why you love Tarantino when the first complaint you hear against him is his “unrealistic-ness”?
I don’t see how analysis (OK, over-analysis, if you insist) can harm one’s entertainment or enjoyment. Any film that entertains me must do so by provoking my thoughts. I’ll never find a film/book “fun”, “enjoyable” or “entertaining” unless it has something that deserves analysis. I’ll say what I’ve recently written about a film: It’s the analysis of a film that makes it more enjoyable. (I found that particular film plain bad before I looked through it.) I find Barry Lyndon more entertaining than any big blockbusters (from Hollywood and Bollywood) of 1975. And, I certainly enjoy Death Proof as much as anything.
In discussing whether the filmmaker intended something or not, we’re mostly overlooking the most important aspect: The critic. In my opinion, a critique should be more about how the critic perceived the film than about what the filmmaker wanted to do. We should discuss the critic’s perception itself. Like many in the comment space, I don’t think a reasoned perception should be ridiculed just because someone has a diametrically opposite view (which may also be reasoned). Alas, that’s the sole outlook that prevails these days, even among the most elite. But the dominance of unreasoned perception is probably responsible for that. I have utmost respect for Kael even when she rips apart a film I love. But I fail to see how any perceptive mind would see awesomeness in Ashton Kutcher romcoms, Norbit and Transformers 2. We shouldn’t be making broad, generalising comments about critics and films. It’s about a particular critic and a particular film.
PS: I haven’t seen Raavan and nor do I plan to do so. If the things you mentioned in the review are indeed the best aspects of the movie, I’m afraid that this film doesn’t interest me at all. Perhaps I’m too spoiled by this gentleman called Michael Madhusudan Dutta. Any take on the Ramayana would seem to be banal after what he did. Enjoyed your review, though.
PPS: Did you manage to find my email?
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bran1gan
June 25, 2010
Nigam: I was saying why it makes sense to discount a director’s intention because sometimes he himself isn’t aware why he made a choice. It’s from the subconscious. Therefore, as DH Lawrence said, trust the tale, not the teller. Don;’t break your head trying to figure out intentions. Just see the evidence, i.e. the film that’s playing in front of you.
Upamanyu: I’m sorry, but can you send it again to the email ID mentioned on this site? Thanks.
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Hermoine Granger
June 25, 2010
Titles are generally not written by the author of the article ? Ooh, isn’t that where the writer can have some good fun ? And who is “the person at the desk” ? Editor ? I dint think MM’s was positive but for me it was kind of those not-saying-anything-at-all pieces. Agreed that your piece cannot also be called gung-ho but you have taken some effort to show why it is not so.
And please, can you do something so that we do not keep giving our email ids here every time ? I dunno, I just feel a lil not OK to keep using my original name in my mail id every time over the internet like that !
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Nigam
June 26, 2010
Ah! So you are then searching for the director’s state of mind even though all your cues are from the text/film; it like the lawyer saying ‘look at the evidence; there is no other plausible inference but that he must have intended to kill her’, but in this reasoning it is still important to finally surmise what the alleged murderer must have intended/thought/believed, even if it was all in the subconscious.
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kamil
June 26, 2010
Am now inferring that Mani’s inclusion of Prithviraj amounts to smart hedging strategy of ensuring the film’s success in Kerala, if the Hindi version backfired. With Prithvi+Vikram, covering the entire southern market to offset the potential losses in the north. I cant think of any other plausible reason for him to be in Raavan. What ya think Rangan?
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John
June 26, 2010
Nice thread here ,nay a yarn .
Many years ago whilst watching ‘Kanathil..’ ,the scene on the sands where Madhavan breaks the news to his daughter on her birthday troubled me ,as it does her reel life grand dad in it.Was is it a Mani swipe, shot in a swirl of confusion for the girl , was there some sub textual reason for selecting her birthday .And then I read an interview of MR where he quite matter of factly states that he’d asked a few people in the adoption arena and they felt 9(or 8 whatever) was a good age to break the news to any adopted child!
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John
June 26, 2010
http://aparna-a.com/2009/05/09/kannathil-muthamittal-revisited/
To add to the previous vexations about getting into the mind of the filmmaker ,the link to part of an interview by Ratnam reveals some of his character building machinery at work :
”
Once you’ve built the character, it has its own rules. You know this character will not do a few things but will do a few things so that directs you and if you’re honest with that, the emotion comes across generally – if you’re consistent with the character and if he plays it with that consistency then it comes across…”
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John
June 26, 2010
I seem to be on a roll ,a disjointed one at that
Catch this interview of MR and his comment on the cars/trains .nice
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/being-mani-the-man-behind-guru/31135-8-single.html
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Anand
June 26, 2010
BR: Enjoyed reading this. Right from Dalapathy to Raavanan, Mani’s films have always disappointed me in the first viewing. It could be because of the tremendous expectations that I have. But after a week or so, when I come to terms with what the movie has to offer instead of what I expect from the film, I realize that the movie is indeed a good one.
The same happened with Raavanan, but this time the realization was sooner due to your post. Enjoy your drink and dont worry about cocktail conversations!
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bran1gan
June 26, 2010
Hermoine Granger: Give a fake ID, no? Like a@b.com, or given your tastes, bellatrix@isabitch.com? 🙂
Nigam: I’m not “searching for the director’s state of mind” at all. I am only interested in the text. Amrita brought up the point about the subconscious, and I added that that’s why it’s futile to go looking for “intention” because the director himself may not have a 100% hold on intention, thanks to the subconscious processes that shape any creative work. Hope that makes it clearer.
kamil: You may be on to something. That way, Ravi Kishan could be for the Bhojpuri market. And so on.
Anand: Oh, I’m enjoying my drink all right. Even last night, it was the Black Label that eased my evening at a music label launch, when various people sidled up and said, “I have a bone to pick with you.” I can’t show my face anywhere. I’ve become The Guy Who Had Good Things To Say About Raavan, prompting hushed whispers and pointed fingers the second I enter a room 🙂 Seriously, this is all anyone seems to want to talk about when they run into me!
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Hermoine Granger
June 26, 2010
Uh..oh ! For some reason, I always thought that your team of guys who manage this blog for you would be verifying the people who comment here. Well, one day if you decided to email all of us fans individually instead of writing in a public domain, do use the original id ! 😀
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Atul
July 7, 2010
Had missed the conversation at the time though actively went through the comments here.Better late…:- )
BR: Quote,”Any creative endeavor has two components — one that’s intentionally done and one that’s done despite the author/painter/director not realising, at a subconscious level. And it’s the audience that plays “shrink” and tells the author that all this is there in your work, whether you intended it or not.”
So if this is right, fluke masterpieces can indeed occur (when the 2nd of those you mentioned gets prominence), no?!! : -)
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