MYSTIFYING HYSTERIA
Why do we get so worked up, so indignant, so personal when a filmmaker makes a film we don’t quite expect?
JUN 27, 2010 – THE HYSTERICAL REACTIONS TO RAAVAN suggest that Mani Ratnam has, overnight, been invaded by the spirit of Ed Wood, thus making the worst movie ever made in the annals of worst movies. On one level, though, this clamour is entirely expected. Shaad Ali, some years ago, made Bunty Aur Babli, whose desi-ghee wholesomeness was embraced by everyone. Then, for his next outing, when he settled on the camembert-flavoured Jhoom Barabar Jhoom, similarly hysterical reactions lay in wait. Sanjay Leela Bhansali played the audience like a finely tuned Stradivarius with Black. But when, with Saawariya, he took on a chilly love story treated as a baroque musical, similarly hysterical reactions lay in wait. Anurag Kashyap was feted for the gritty dramatics of Black Friday, but when, next, he delved into the surreal Kafka-world of No Smoking, or when Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra followed up Rang De Basanti with Delhi-6, similarly hysterical reactions lay in wait.
See the pattern? These are not lazily made films. Even if they do not work at a personal level, they’re undeniably works of vision and ambition and daring. Why, then, were they treated like witches in Salem, hounded by drooling lynch mobs from press and public? Why were they denied a fair trial, with the facts for and against dispassionately discussed? Instead, why were they banished, outright, to box-office bonfires?
One reason is surely the expectation carried into a film. However much we attempt to resist the onslaught of pre-release hype, when slick promos indicate that we’re getting a juicy kidnap drama, a genre thriller with enough star wattage to light up the village in Swades, it’s difficult to accept a darkly eccentric psychodrama. The Raavan that audiences were promised was not the Raavan they saw, just as the No Smoking they walked in for, on the strength of the booty-shaking promo with Bipasha Basu, was not the No Smoking they got.
Had the Raavan promos revolved less around songs and dances and focused, for instance, on the psychedelic petroleum paintings that haunt the opening credits, and had the promise been that of “a Mani Ratnam you’ve never seen before,” audiences might have reprogrammed themselves accordingly, abandoning expectations of the middle-of-the-road moviegoing pleasures of a Mouna Raagam or a Guru. Because we do live in an era where genuinely challenging films like Dev.D and Kaminey are greeted with warm applause, if not all over the country then at least by the pockets paved with plexes. And Raavan is a multiplex movie, no doubt about that. How could it not be when the Sita figure tells Raavan that she’ll stay behind if he’ll desist from killing her Ram, not only because she wants to save her husband but also because she’s, by now, captivated by her captor?
But leave aside this possibility for a minute, this supposition that had audiences been primed differently, they would have processed the film differently. Let’s talk about the cross that directors have to bear when they are successful. We expect them to turn into an assembly line, tossing out shiny new objects from the same old moulds.
From Bunty Aur Babli, we assume that Shaad Ali is this kind of director, and that he’ll make this kind of movie that will entertain us in this fashion, and when Jhoom Barabar Jhoom confounds these expectations, we turn hysterical to a ludicrously disproportionate extent that belies the basic fact that this is, at the end of the day, just a movie. If it doesn’t measure up, just shrug your shoulders and head home, instead of foaming at the mouth as if the filmmaker had wooed the wife away from you and subsequently decamped with your pension funds. And Twitter, along with the blogosphere, only makes it worse. Within seconds, your followers know about your runaway wife and your gloomy retirement, and they pick up cudgels on your behalf, and soon, the rabbits begin to multiply until the burrow explodes.
At some point, we’ve got to sit down and think that cinema, too, is subject to Sir Francis Bacon’s dictum. Some films are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested. And with the latter category, the Twittering and the blogging (and even the reviewing) will have to wait until the chewing and digesting is complete. We see foreign films that are challenging and whose rhythms take time getting used to, and accordingly, we view them with respect. Why don’t we extend a similar courtesy to our own filmmakers, our own films?
The problem with these ridiculously extreme reactions is that they will dissuade younger, less established filmmakers who are cautiously eyeing the edge of the envelope, wondering if the time is right for a push. Yes, we are a passionate people, and we burn effigies of cricket captains when they lose matches. But aren’t the enlightened elite who talk about cinema – in reviews, on Twitter, on blogs – supposed to know better than the man on the street? The latter, at least, has an excuse. At the close of a hard workday, he demands that he gets his hard-earned money’s worth of easy entertainment. But how are we, sitting in front of our laptops, justified in adopting this stance? Let’s insist that promos be crafted to reflect the tone and tenor of films. But let’s give films a chance. If we find them lacking, let’s lay out our contentions, our analysis, in calm prose. But please, let’s put aside the pitchforks.
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 
aravind
June 26, 2010
BR ku oru O pOdungappa! 🙂
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varun
June 26, 2010
“…filmmakers who are cautiously eyeing the edge of the envelope, wondering if the time is right for a push.”
B. Rangan, I compulsively visit your page, many times a day, waiting as much for new, good, analytical prose on cinema as for new, good, analytical prose. On anything. Or nothing. Just lines, like the one above, that tell me that there’s always a better, more evolved, more magic-laden way of putting together the sounds of the Universe.Thanks for keeping the compulsions worthy.
As for the piece, I agree, with the advent of online ‘social’ media combined with “2000-odd prints hoping to make Rs. 50 crores in first weekend” culture, the whole system has become very unstable. ‘Make or break’ has become ‘make or break RIGHT NOW’. And such a scenario, fortunately or unfortunately (more of the latter, though that is potentially another debate) bestows the opinion-makers with more powers than they ever had. And you know the Spiderman line.
I, for example, decided to NOT watch Raavan after reading Raja Sen’s review. (The trailers didn’t excite me at all, to start with. Plus Abhi-Aish are very low on my ‘to-watch’ list.) But after this third post by you on the film, am starting to have second thoughts. May be, next week.
And since you mention, “these are not lazily made films”, I would say, how do you count-in bad casting decisions? Abhi-Aish may not be lazy choices, they were in all probability the commercial-choices, but that does hamper a film as much as a lazy casting would. No?
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Just Another Film Buff
June 26, 2010
“…instead of foaming at the mouth as if…”- Haha.
BR, you really feel it was just because of the hype and expectations that the film bombed? And that if the film had been promoted differently it might have succeeded?
Even though Mani Ratnam is a star, I think the film might have bombed because of the endlessly negative reactions to AB’s acting in the film. A large part of our audience goes to movies to see the actors only. And Raavan was risking a lot there.
“dissuade younger, less established filmmakers who are cautiously eyeing the edge of the envelope” – but it seems to me that naysayers didn’t think it was anywhere near the envelope at all.
And reg. Twitter. Do you say that we should not spread the word if we didn’t like the film?
“will have to wait until the chewing and digesting is complete” – When do we decide that we have chewed and digested the film enough? Can we afford that for all films? But I’m all for giving thorough attention to all films, no matter where they come from.
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bran1gan
June 26, 2010
aravind: You know what reminds me of? A joke that was pulled from an Arre O Sambar column, about why there will never be a sequel to the song O Podu. (Because no one wants to hear a song that goes, P Podu.) Ducking now.
varun: Thank you. You don’t have to see it just because I say so. Just give it a chance when it comes on TV 🙂 Of course the casting is a major problem, but it’s not as if there’s nothing else in the film. The narrative, according to me, is the major star here. There’s just so much packed in there, and not just at an “ooh what a pretty picture” level.
JAFB: “you really feel it was just because of the hype and expectations that the film bombed?” Not at all. Good films flop all the time. Bad films work all the time. I was just talking about the tone of the criticism. And yes, with careful marketing as a “psycho” niche film like Dev.D (and with better casting), I do believe this could have worked to an extent. (Though, clearly, the budget was too big to restrict the film to plex-markets.)
Regarding the chewing and digesting, you didn’t feel that people were writing about the film just to have a go at it? Be critical, please — but lay out the contentions calmly and clearly.
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Venkatesh
June 26, 2010
BR: A point well made but here is a flaw – “But aren’t the enlightened elite who talk about cinema – in reviews, on Twitter, on blogs – supposed to know better than the man on the street?” – The notion that the twitterati and bloggerati is somehow more enlightened from the man on the street is incorrect. The vast majority of discourse that happens on films and music is just pure balderdash. People spouting opinions out of their arses that they cannot backup with any sort of intellectual rigour, the so-called top-level critics and reviewers wouldn’t know the fundamentals of art criticism if it came and hit them on their face. The one who know the least shout the most – a noisier version of The Dunning-Kruger effect – accentuating the signal/noise ratio.
Me , i am just glad that there are a few places i can go and read reasonable opinions and learn. I might not agree with all of them but i am glad that i get to read them and it makes me think.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 26, 2010
Well, that last statement sounds reasonable. But even among mainstream professional critics, such reactions can be seen. Remember Ebert, the way he used to tear down movies as if they were his intimate enemies? Or Masand, when he threw an egg on camera for RGV’s Aag? I think they consider the aggression to be a part of their style. One reason why I find your reviews to be offbeat is that they diss the movie in a deceptively soft manner. It is very tough to be like that – not giving in to hyperbole.
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Just Another Film Buff
June 26, 2010
At the risk of sounding like a nerd, don’t you mean: “decreasing the signal/noise ratio”?!
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varun
June 26, 2010
BR:
I will see it, if I do, just because ‘the way’ you have said so, in your (not one, not two, but…) three posts on the film.
And no sir, no TV at home. DVD is an option for later, much later, but on a DVD shelf, it has to compete with cinema of the world, including main-stream Hollywood. Not a good idea.
And abt the casting part, you’ve already said in your review, one has to get past the main leads’ performance to reach the film. I think it’s a bit like trying to taste an Indian sweet while getting past the sugar. Still, will try.
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Kishor
June 26, 2010
Hi Rangan, I have also observed some more subtexts while watching Raavan.
1. When Beera jumps from the cliff, he first tests the depth with a small stone, then he makes a careful jump. But when Raagini jumps, she jumps carelessly without checking and falls on a tree (not even able to finish her task). This shows the difrerence between intellight village folk like Beera and stupid city bred Raagini.
2. Beera’s man tonsures police constable with a knife and also they use the knife to kill others. This shows that we can use weapons both for constructive and destructive purposes.
3. When Dev hangs by the bridge, Beera uses only one hand to hold him, symbol his righteousness. Whereas Dev uses one hand for sometime to hold onto and for sometime uses both the hands. This scene shows his double standards.
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rameshram
June 26, 2010
i have n opinion on this (ta Da!!!) people will like what they do. SS vasan, thyagaraja bhagavathar, sivaji,chandrababu etc were all bankrupted by the fickleness of public taste. as a critic i refuse to accept that which i dont like(hehe- dev d, kaminay) so i would extend the same courtesy to everyone else.
i understand people spent plenty of money making the films in question. wish i had plenty of money to waste on my pet projects. to be rich like that, as deng ziao ping said, is truly glorious.
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Kishor
June 26, 2010
One more subtext. Throughout the film, there is water, water, and water everywhere. But Dev and Beera meet on a bridge without water under it. That means they have become soulless and their lives are meaningless.
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Shankar
June 26, 2010
You can add Shyamalan to the list too…many of his films were marketed wrongly as well…the “twist” angle ruined him. Hopefully the Airbender restores him back on stage. Even in his failed movies, I love the mood…very intense and personal.
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Niranjan
June 26, 2010
On the issue of Raavan – btw I haven’t seen the movie yet but have seen a myriad of reviews – one point of significance was that many in the western media gave the film a positive review despite their ‘lack of understanding’ of song /dance placements. Most in the Indian media described the movie as boring and overlong but for instance the review in the LA Times (or perhaps NY Times) described it as tightly paced! And I think the main reason for that is the fact that we know the story of the Ramayana. I am not justifying an outlash at the movie but when it comes to ‘familiar’ material and an interpretative version, this kind of varied reaction was bound to happen. No one had any issues with the Ramayana versions on TV though they are all without exception extremely hammy, cheesy, tacky, and a whole list of things I could keep writing. Mani didn’t do the same with Dalapathi – advertise it as his version of the Karna story, and so, only after the initial days of the movie did that angle of the movie come out. People in fact seemed awed at the fact that they had watched the story of Karna and didn’t realize it.
I guess my point is that if one is making an interpretive film especially of a known epic classic then people come in with different kinds of expectations. If Peter Jackson had made an interpretative version of LOTR and called the movie the same, I’m sure that movie would have bombed in the US too.
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Raj
June 26, 2010
I am really surprised at this post. If Rangan liked Raavan, he is perfectly entitled to and one should not argue with his review or the things that worked for him. But this write-up all but claims that movies like Delhi-6 and Raavan are, objectively, good films and should not be ripped about without giving them a “fair trial”. Despite theorizing about audience expectations and what not, the fact remains that badly made films flop and well made films work. Tweeting, blogging notwithstanding – Raavan was a disjointed narrative that did not make sense to most people and thus it was rejected. If I watch it 5 years from now, I will still not like it. It has no rhythm that I will get used to with time.
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bran1gan
June 26, 2010
Niranjan: That’s a very interesting theory. Thanks.
Raj: Thank you for helping me make my point. See, you think my article is a load of crap. You don’t agree with it at all. You’re critical of it. But you lay out these issues — one at a time — in a civilised manner, instead of hopping on coals and yelling, “This article is BR Ki Aag.” That’s exactly what I’m saying needs to be done with films too.
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Gradwolf
June 26, 2010
I agree with Venkatesh. It’s not about being an Internet elite. It’s more of being a cynic and following popular opinion. There are presumed beliefs like Mani Ratnam is past his prime, SRK can only ham, Kamal is overrated etc etc. There are a few of those considered elite and their opinions become popular in turn giving way to these cynics. And one more thing, nitpicking is suddenly so cool.
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rameshram
June 26, 2010
br,
i dont think this is an issue of refuting dismissive critics, as much as of rallying people that LIKE good film like raavanan, but suffer from indifference/ cynicism towards art in general and films in particular.( from crap having so much currency everywhere- sun music-star television…
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S.Suresh
June 26, 2010
BR,
I personally don’t think Maniratnam pushed any envelope here. You can clearly see what he had in mind. There is really no major sub text here. What the film lacked was coherence. Mani, if he were a better director, would have taken this film along in a different way. No use blaming Abhishek alone. (I don’t consider him a major actor anyway.) The problem with the film is its inability to establish many things like whether Veera / Beera is a leader or whether he is a brigand, no depth in establishing Veera’s love for Ragini etc. I found holes both in characterization and logic. The logical holes are many, which we can forgive saying it is commercial cinema. But overall if Mani had established some of the relationships and background better, there would have been a better emotional connect.
While I understand and agree to your point about people being harsh to film makers from whom they expect a lot, we will also have to understand that when these film makers make a decent film, people praise it as if it were the next best thing to sliced bread (or if you are a Telugu, the next best thing to Mumaith Khan.) The hyper criticism is undeserved for sure but so is the hyper praise. But no one complaints about that 🙂
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Hermoine Granger
June 27, 2010
@Niranjan: Hey, thats what I was thinking too. If it wasn’t soo labelled as “Raavan” from scratch and each and every character was so obviously taken from the epic (I thought the only thing missing was a label showing “Soorpanaka” or “Hanuman” in case we missed the reference), then the public would have gotten a kick in interpreting and that surprise would have worked in the film’s interest. Not everyone can see the film on a “visual/subtextual” level and all that.
And about how films were promoted, I recall one of the earliest ads for Vaaranam Aayiram being so cheery and upbeat that many people thought that it was a happy go lucky college romance story and were in for a shock on seeing it was a biographical coming-of-age one.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2010
Nice article Baradwaj. Raavan may have worked had they cast Akshay-Saif instead of AB-Vikram. Even before the reviews were out, the movie got a poor opening in most of the centers. Probably because of poor marketing and not hving enough star power.
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vidyut
June 27, 2010
It appears that the reaction down south to Raavanan has been different from the reaction to Raavan elsewhere. I believe some of this may be attributed to the differing perceptions of Raavan’s character in the epic. At least among Tamils, he is not reviled as a complete reprobate that he is considered up north. And this won’t be the first time that the profiles of the main characters from the Ramayana have been reconfigured by a Tamil though Mani’s treatment is subtextual. M.R.Radha’s “Keemayanam”, adapted as a play by the DK, was the first to do it although that one was apparently imbued with poor taste and political overtones meant to whip up frenzy.
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Mithun
June 27, 2010
haha…BR, the internet would become a very boring place if people do not voice their visceral reaction to movies and such.
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Rahul
June 27, 2010
I have resisted writing about Raavan till now because I wanted to watch it again. Having skimmed through some reviews, I am surprised why not much has been made of the political overtones in the movie, especially when the original Ramayana is as much a political tale as it is personal one and when there is at least one overt political reference in the movie.
I know I am digressing from the theme of this article and I do not really agree with you on that but more on that later.
The political reference that I was referring to is Laal Maati, which relates to communists, or Maoists in current times. Some may perceive the name as a gimmick but it’s difficult to not sense a consistent political tone in the movie. Beera’s highly pronounced gestures may be taken as a case of bad acting\casting choice, but it can also be taken as the dehumanizing of a character by classifying him as one who does not belong to us. He and his people are those who have fallen off the contours of society. They do not look or act like us. We could care less about what happens to them or their type.
The slotting of Dev\Veera as good\bad highly simplistic. This is a tale of two moralities. Whoever is good\bad depends on where you are looking from. Dev, like Ram, is working to enforce the morality of the society in which he lives. Veera is living by the code of morality that he needs in order to live with dignity and peace. Both are villains\heroes to different sets of people\frames of reference.
Seeta’s character is the most interesting. She metaphorizes the unwashed masses, those who have to live their lives subservient to the keepers of the morality a la Ram. They have their safety, roti kapda and makaan but they can be sacrificed for the Greater Common Good. This happened both in the original Ramayana and the Mani Ratnam one.
The threshold, or the breaking point comes when the one who live inside the system but subservient to it think that they may be better off if they ally with those who live outside the system – in the same way in which many of us want to engage and have a more nuanced position with respect to the Maoists and the tribals. The message is that if they keep allowing things to happen for the Greater Common Good one day they themselves would be expendable.
The other important question to ponder is – if Ram\Dev is acting as a soldier of a certain code of morality is he accountable for what is wrought by the system as a whole? Is he accountable for the rape of Priyamani’s character? Similar question is whether a citizen of America who voted for Bush is responsible for the death of innocents in Iraq. These questions arise because of the reading of this text as as much political as personal. I am pretty sure this is how the original Ramayana was written. Ram is referred to in many places as Maryada Purushottam, or “the keeper of morality”. Seeing how easily he gave away Sita in the end, it can be argued that his quest to regain her was less because she was his wife and more because she was the first lady.
Interpreted like this, I think this was a very timely and terrific adaptation.
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Rahul
June 27, 2010
Re this article, I think one needs a certain minimum level of engagement with a movie to even think about its follies and virtues. Sometimes one would rather not waste time on that but instead move on to the next one.
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rsprasanna
June 27, 2010
hi! i think the audience today is very aware of world cinema and has a plethora of choice to satiate its taste buds. the irriration with raavan is majorly because of the fact that it ‘did not work.’ in terms of the craft of storytelling. people have made pithamagan a hit here. it is not about dark psychology and the audience not being able to digest it – as u rightly pointed out with dev d et al. also add to the fact that almost everyone knows this took 2 years to make and close to 100 crores… we were bombarded with news about Raavan… in other words the myth building about Raavan a la the titular character.. happened aroudn the movie almost daily for 2 years…. and then this movie is the result of all that. the audience has been making this movie too for the last 2 years, remember. even for those who will watch this fresh – lets say if they lived in Mars and did not know who is mani rathnam – the movie may not be a great experience given that there are too many moments which may not ‘work’ (highly subjective statement made by me of course)…. sometimes movies work, sometimes they dont. given the high stakes that they took – 100 crores, 2 years – the outocme either way would be drastic right? Infosys not makign a huge profit in one quarter is Huge News. When it does make a huge profit, its not news… its just good for every stake holder 🙂 My two cents (after much rambling, all i am trying to say is – a movie working or not goes beyond ‘concept’ ..intentions or the built up credentials of the main Captaion of the story telling endeavour… it is a su of all these and yet a whole more than the sum of its constituents.. almost like magic. why almost? it is magic after a point right? else every movie would ‘work’.)
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MumbaiRamki
June 27, 2010
“had the promise been that of “a Mani Ratnam you’ve never seen before,” audiences might have reprogrammed themselves accordingly”
1)True , but gone are the days when we used to have movies that picked up in the second week . You have a negative reaction in the first week , another bogey of films hit the theatres . Esp in tamizh , we are having too many films and the trend is to release in as many theatres as possible , create the hype , expectation as an ‘engaging’ film and make them to come to see in the first week itself , even before reviews start stalking across the web !
2) secondly foreign films , we watch in DVD , where we have all the time to rewind multiple times to understand , chew the movie in different perspectives . Im not sure if children of heaven would have got the same raving reviews and also $$$ if it was released now in theatres . It had most reviews thru dvd watching.
3) There is another interesting point. At one level , when an established director with a unique style goes off tangent and gives a film , we say ‘ its not ‘his’ film’ and this percolates as a negative thing across the city. And if he dishes out , using a similar style we say ‘ its the same stuff’ – It is difficult to bring into a single umbrella of all the filmi taste buds of all , but i can summarise ” Engage me with a 2 hour drama of a different subject , different from your previous outings and yet sub consciously make me feel that your style is manifested somewhere down deep’
4) And probably we discuss the expectations ( in depth) less, because we deep-read less, meet people less, and our expectations is an unhealth but quick mixture of trailers, twitters, facebook , jazzy captions , coupled with a desire to get out of the tiring monopoly of software codes. ( Imagine , how it used to be a separate activity in pallavvan/pandiyan bus on the way to devi , back in 1990s , the discussion about how the film could be – I really miss it man !!)
( baradwaj , love you when you say that you don’t use facebook , twitter and ask ‘what dont you read more ‘ , thats guts man !)
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Satyam
June 27, 2010
This piece truly pleases me because it’s a subject I’ve often reflected upon. I put up something loosely similar the day Raavan released:
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bran1gan
June 27, 2010
Raj Balakrishnan: Are you serious? Akshay-Saif? As in, Khiladi and Anadi? I presume you’re talking solely from a box-office view, but even there, these stars aren’t sureshot any more.
MumbaiRamki: Excellent points all,m especially “we deep-read less, meet people less, and our expectations is an unhealth but quick mixture of trailers, twitters, facebook , jazzy captions.” But I do think there still are people who dissect a film to death on MTC buses. Or are you saying they’re all on Facebooking via their Blackberries now? 🙂 BTW, I do have a Facebook page, courtesy a friend who said I’d better grab the name “brangan”. A lot of the commenters here are “friends” there, though they’d tell you I hardly visit or post 🙂
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rameshram
June 27, 2010
he has a kickass profile pic though.
rangan/ramki, all the factors you mention were there for vidhu vinod chopra too, and every critic i know wrote lukewarm(rangan) to insulting(asseem chabbra, who defriended me on facebook because i laughed at him about his 3 idiots review) pieces after seeing 3 idiots, the audiences STILL turned up in droves and for repeat viewings of the film.
I think the issue is, the film institute graduate is behaving like an MBA and market segmenting and focussing films to a target audience and working on distribution models, while the MBA is behaving like an airy fairy filmmaker/film geek by poducing awesome pictures with a little less commercial sense.
maybe the next collaboration mani should explore is with vidhu vinod chopra. alternately he can write to me (BEFORE he starts planning his next 😉 ).
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MumbaiRamki
June 27, 2010
I think very few of us( me – NOT) have read the original valmiki ramayana and hence somehow parallels drawn to ramayana make me skip that part 🙂
Rameshram sir – neenga koduththa kasa vida neriya kandu pidipeenga pOla !!!!Chance illa sir !
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2010
Yes Baradwaj, from a box-office perspective. Guys like Akshay and Saif would atleast ensure a full opening weekend. Of course, we can do even better and have Shahrukh or Aamir, but then they are more expensive. Seriously, don’t you think Akshay is a better actor than AB? And Saif has done Omkara. They would have pulled off Beera and Dev.
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MumbaiRamki
June 27, 2010
Rameshram -> I think it is difficult to explain why a movie captures so many people’s attention and finds its resonance and not few critics . Mix the perspectives of marketing ( engaging marketing versus glossy one which is good to watch but doesn’t pull you to theaters), time of release, prevalent expectations , screenplay, subject matter & its familiarity , no and kind of theatres released and finally cognitive dissonance – we get a complex equation of that. A movie like anbe sivam got thumbs up from most people ( again , most by what we feel 🙂 ) when it got its release in DVD and TV . But it almost made lakshmi movie makers solvent . Every movie will make its own combination of its factors and succeed!
But what baradwaj , i guess, is trying to say why can’t we give a chance to the directors who have established themselves and are trying to morph over time instead of rejecting it black & white ? I don’t think its about BO.
( Still amazes me that a film kadhal except for the name of Director shankar got the biggest opening and collections in 2004 – collections , fine can be understood. Opening ? )
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Manojh Ananthakrishnan
June 27, 2010
“And with the latter category, the Twittering and the blogging (and even the reviewing) will have to wait until the chewing and digesting is complete”.
BR, this argument took me by surprise. To point out, you had responded to an “accusation” in one of your follow-ups to Raavan’s music review which if I may rephrase – “How long should a critic wait before judging an album (in response to the readers’ views that it takes time to get used to ARR’s music)?”. (I was on the same page as you so far as the music of Raavan went.)
Is there a contradiction here? In your opinion, how long should a critic wait to judge? Or do you really see a difference between reviewing a movie and an album?
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bran1gan
June 27, 2010
Manojh Ananthakrishnan: There I was talking about the claims (from a section of Rahman fans) that you need to give this music time to grow on you and such. And I said I’ve listened to the soundtrack five times and that’s enough grounds to begin an exploration in a review-form. I’m not saying you need to watch the film many times, but what does it say when people start tweeting from within the theatre, during interval, and such? I’m talking about this overwhelming instant need to proclaim one’s views.
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vinodhv
June 27, 2010
I’m afraid I’ll have to say that your argument is flawed . It doesn’t give any respect,to the people watching the movie , they deserve. Well you are aware that film professionals wallow in crores only by those pennies from a daily labors’ earnings. So they ought be responsible. Its a tough job to stay consistent still thats why they are paid so much !
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Venkatesh
June 27, 2010
JAFB : “At the risk of sounding like a nerd, don’t you mean: “decreasing the signal/noise ratio”?!” – you dear sir are correct and precise, which is the way it should be.
BR: “I’m talking about this overwhelming instant need to proclaim one’s views.” – narcissistic personality disorder 🙂
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rameshram
June 27, 2010
“narcissistic personality disorder”
nasti pannara disorder
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Niranjan
June 27, 2010
@Hermione Granger: The aprt about promoting movies in India – what you say is very true of Indian cinema but in Hollywood there have been exceptions. For instance, all the trailers and previews of ‘Ratatouille’ looked like the story of a rat in Paris that was stealing food – you know, that kind of adventure story. So in a sense, the audience got something totally different (and some might find the idea of a rat cooking, rather off-putting too!) from their expectations, but the direction and the story arc of the movie were so good that it blew any naysaying away, and how!
I guess all this debate about Raavan has kicked off because the movie is flawed and that is probably undeniable.
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rameshram
June 27, 2010
@niranjan
?! raavanan is not a flawed movie.its not a successful film at the box office but as a work of art it delivers the goods pretty successfully.
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Vamshi
June 27, 2010
I have a few small notes:
a) Could it be that these extreme reactions are a backlash against the incessant hype about the movies before they launch. Every medium and every mode (twitter, facebook, blogging etc) from Cannes to Chennai for 2 months since the music launch, we have been inundated with PR stuff dished out by the makers. If i were a viewer, i would feel that “f*** you, i have listened to your crap for two months (or even 2 years). Now take my honest reviews – the movie sucks. You misled me and wasted my money and time”. Nuances and deliberation have a place in a climate where i do not have to read reams about who was wearing what at the premiere in London or Cannes.
b) Amitabh – take a jump. Sreekar Prasad is one of the finest editors in India by a margin and one of the most feted. Unfortunately, he can’t make your son act better.
c) I don’t agree completely with the premise that the audience did not get what they expect. Let’s give the audience the respect they deserve. It could also be conjectured that the audience has been fed up by a lot of superficial stuff dished out by Mani over the past few years. And unlike what you are saying, this is not a case of Mani venturing into new territory. He has been making frequent inroads but retreating even more often because of his sheer lack of depth in complex situations as in Bombay, Dil Se, Roja, Guru etc. But inspite of a lot of inconsistent and plain silly fare, we are supposed to accept whatever Mani Sir churns out. There is a generational shift here – the earlier generation of viewers who still had respect for Mani from his Mouna ragam or Nayagan days might have cut him some slack but a 20 year old now whose memory of Mani is only from say Roja onwards would be wondering what the fuss is all about.
d) As i keep saying to friends – Hitchcock made mysteries, Ford made westerns – the world is not any poorer for that. Similarly Mani should stick to upper middle class Tam Brahm romances, or Mylapore romances. No harm in that. Unfortunately the space he has vacated has been taken by people like Gautham Menon. Once Mani created that grammar, now he has to see others doing great things with that language. I also don’t buy into the logic that Mani has grown up and it is difficult to create romances with the same verve when you are in your mid-fifties. Well John Ford created some of his greatest westerns with a patch on his eye and in his 70s.
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Gagu
June 27, 2010
I guess I am in the small minority who after watching Raavan want to see Ravanan (spelling?) also. But I was struck by another books analogy while watching the movie – we shrug off a bad book but hardly ever a movie we disliked for whatever reason. But then I was reminded of how I have proclaimed, “I can’t ever respect a person who claims to even like the ‘Fountainhead’ a little bit.” Another thing Rangan, don’t you think the debates about a novel being ‘good or bad or passable’ would have raged as wildly as when Dickens or Premchand were writing? Novels were the most accessible source of entertainment then, as movies are now. Maybe that’s why a movie release generates so much hysteria.
And when you talk about the ‘need to proclaim an opinion right now’ isn’t that the case with everything? I’m only 28 and I am already missing the gentler rhythms of the 80s and the early 90s. FB and twitter seem to be both off-shoots and cause of the same ADD-addled universe.
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bran1gan
June 28, 2010
Niranjan/Vamshi/Gagu. A lot of excellent points. Thanks. This thread has generated a really nice discussion. Also, I wasn’t disrespected the audience when I said they didn’t get what they were promised — just that sometimes, you walk in for one kind of film, and when it’;s so radically different, you either take the pains to reorient yourself or you just switch off. Either is a valid response, and I guess most people did the latter.
But I see your point. With some filmmakers, we expect things like characters to like (or care about), and when they come off cold and distant and secondary to the narrative (i.e. more like placeholder archetypes), it’s tough to take. Especially with Mani Ratnam, whose career so far has been filled with crowd-pleasing characters.
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rameshram
June 28, 2010
I think respect for the audiences tastes is a tangential point to the one you are making in this rumination branigan, the crowd killer dismissiveness we see at the opening of ravanan finds resonence in people like vamsi, not because the film was bad, but because, as he put it very eloquently,
” audience has been fed up by a lot of superficial stuff dished out by Mani over the past few years. And unlike what you are saying, this is not a case of Mani venturing into new territory. He has been making frequent inroads but retreating even more often because of his sheer lack of depth in complex situations as in Bombay, Dil Se, Roja, Guru etc. But inspite of a lot of inconsistent and plain silly fare, we are supposed to accept whatever Mani Sir churns out. ”
in other words they are ” rebelling against mani sir”. by painting raavanan with the same broad brush as Bombay, Dil Se, Roja, Guru etc.
irrespective of what vamsi thinks manis strengths are (tambram romances), he is in no mood to look at raavanan as a nuanced , mature script. The anger in the post is palpable, but who or what is the poster angry at?
the question is specially relevant because both ravanan and villan seem to have been well accepted in the south . the issue seems to be of a multiplex/ north indian reception of the abhi/ash starrer ravan. I guess the tamil/ telugu audience thought the film was a “tambram romance”
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hari
June 28, 2010
Is there any other director associated with a particular community, just curious.
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rameshram
June 28, 2010
hari,
i think mani is sufferring the classic “moderate crush” that has destroyed tambram intellectuals that have any semblence of reformist moderation.
Their harshest and most contemptuous criticism comes from cynical people to their right demanding orthodoxy in their own “community”(why wasn’t the ramayana more like the ramayana? why are there no songs? “maniratnathukku kayandu poiduthhu…” ) and its not as if some(a significant minority ) in other “communities” identify him as brahmin, and dislike him for it…..something that, im sure cuses mani a lot of discomfort because, unlike gv iyer or someone, mani NEVER made overtly brahmin films.(havent seen a brahmin charecter in his film since mouna ragam).
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rameshram
June 28, 2010
people thought , when mani was remaking the ramayana, perhaps that it was going to look like naan kadavul.
international film is something of an unknown to even city bred tamil audiences, so ravana probably felt alien .
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Niranjan
June 28, 2010
One thought I have had on Mani’s recent output is this. He seems to have been attempting ‘interpretative versions’ of stories, events, biographies, etc., for a little while now, probably starting with Iruvar. He picks a topic, or story, or event, that all his intended audience are familiar with (for instance The MGR-Karunanidhi ascension to politics, the Sri Lankan-Tamil dilemma, the story of Dhirubhai, and now The Ramayana) so that he need not fill in all the story lines. He locates his characters appropriately so that all know what the story line is, and then he would probably like to highlight certain scenes, or moments from those story lines, but from an very emotional point of view as in, the emotions of the persons involved matter but not the content of their conversations. This was achieved very nicely in Iruvar which I think is probably his best work in that sense. But after that, as Vamshi said, “He has been making frequent inroads but retreating even more often because of his sheer lack of depth in complex situations” and again, I feel that is so because it begins to feel like conversing with the proverbial shrink who broaches a subject and when asked for his ruminations on it, merely tosses it back at you saying, ‘So what’s your opinion of that?’. And after a point, it gets a bit annoying!
For audiences that are not familiar with the milieu or his underlying story line, there is either complete disconnect or something fascinating because they can tell he is withholding something. But unfortunately, we Indians are not the French who as Tarantino reminds us through his Shoshanna, “admire directors, even the Germans!”
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Upamanyu
June 29, 2010
You hit the nail right on the head with the last paragraph! Couldn’t agree more. I have been meaning to say this for long. As I said in an earlier comment here, we are always trying to assert our existence. The easiest way to do this is to S-H-O-U-T our opinions (about anything and everything under the sun) from the rooftop. To spice things up, we have to take cheap digs at anyone who has a different opinion. The biggest problem is, we neither think nor feel. (I don’t really consider thinking and feeling as mutually exclusive spheres.) We are always in a frenzy to prove our point. The frightening part is, even our opinions are dictated by others’ opinions. Isn’t that why we keep seeing film reviews which concentrate more on the the box-office grosses, the publicity material, critical or fanboy-ish “consensus”, media hype, making-of features, “cultural impact” and the awards received than on how a movie works on a personal level?
The film lists and rankings only add to that mess. I find rearrangement and removal of films an awful thing. But hey, everyone does it! So it can’t be bad, no? (Among the major critics, only Ebert keeps adding to his list and has stopped assigning ranks in yearly lists.) It’s interesting that you mention Bacon. I was reading a discussion between Kael and Godard about the necessity of a scientific approach to films. That’s precisely what we need to do these days.
I disagree on one count, though. It’s the “man on the street” who has taken over the world of Twitter and blogs these days. Personally, I don’t believe that exposure to a large number of films can make anyone enlightened. (Isn’t that that the logic the IMDb Top 250 based on? It’s the “Top 1000” voters who determine that The Dark Knight and The Usual Suspects deserve to be above 2001 and Kane.) It’s always about the perception of a specific person, I think.
PS: You must have received the email by now. Needless to say, the film I referred to in the mail somewhat provoked these thoughts. What you’ve said in this fine piece is equally true for that film, I feel.
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hawkeye
June 29, 2010
Raavan has poor entertainment value even for a person warming up to see an artsy fair. Frankly, it was boring and incoherent. I did not think for a moment that Ragini fell in love with Beera. Because Mani never had the courage to say so. But even if she was “captivated by her captor” – which is waht the movie leaves open to interpretation – it shows her poor taste in men and mani’s lack of understanding of ‘love’.
I have supported many unpopular mani movies (Thiruda Thiruda being the most difficult) but this loss of quality is a little bit obvious.
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Ram
June 29, 2010
My thoughts are in line with Niranjan’s. I keep wondering if the movie would have warranted a different tone from the critics/reviewers/aam janta (whatever they deem themselves as) if it had not associated so much with Ramayana and had a different title all together. I think the title plus the 2 year wait may have got to the head (within the first half).
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Dani
June 29, 2010
For all the discussions going on with respect to this movie, I feel that we as, critics/viewers, sometimes dissect something too much to just “add” value to it. Why cannot facts be simple?
A movie is either good or bad. A movie can either relate to its viewers or it won’t. In this case, it was the latter. I feel that we are giving too much credit to a movie that was just meant to be a movie that draws its parallelism from the epic Ramayana. In this case and in the case of “Yuva/Ayudha Ezhuthu”, Mani tried something different and failed miserably. There’s no point in blaming the actors when the director has no sense direction in the way he is shaping a movie. So, let’s just accept that Mani tried something that was an excellent “concept” and couldn’t just translate it on to the silver screen. Probably, he is not talented enough to translate a complex idea into a screenplay or he just didn’t get it right this time. We will know for sure, when his next movie hits the screen. Till then, let’s enjoy the other movies that we can relate to.
I, one for sure, can say that the last few outings of Mani have been far from satisfactory and I truly hope he gets his touch back..
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Shankar
June 29, 2010
Aayirathil Oruvan is another film that suffered a similar fate. I just caught up with it last week and was astounded by what Selva has attempted to do. It was as though he was on a trip of his own. I really liked the attempt. The one thing that I was constantly reminded of, while watching it, was how much this film could have been elevated by good BGM. The score by GVP was atrocious and it was quite evident that he is not in the league for a subject such as this.
I wonder how Madrasippatinam is going to turn out in the BGM department!!
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Karthick RM
June 29, 2010
I am an avid reader of your reviews. I find them informative and provoking, compelling the reader to look at the concerned movie in new dimensions. Some disagreements with your views on Raavanan though. Experimentation in cinema needs to be encouraged, but those experiments which turn out to be aesthetic disasters need to be criticized. Especially when the director is one who enjoys wide acclaim in intellectual circles.
My take on Raavanan
http://karthikrm.wordpress.com/2010/06/23/the-land-of-raavanan/
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Just another geek
June 30, 2010
Good one!
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rameshram
June 30, 2010
Im also struck by thedifference in depth perception between indian and american writers about ravan(an) it is too facile to say ” they dont do sandhyavandanam so they don’t count” or ” hey are just being cndescending(theyre not) ”
here for instance is the white female of the species in a beautiful piece of blog-postingness.
http://filmiholic.com/2010/06/18/raavan/
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SS
July 14, 2010
Late in commenting abt the movie and the article. Wanted all the hype & the harsh reaction to calm down… I still enjoyed the movie overall. And I will take Raavan any day over most of the inane comedies churned out like Golmaal etc…
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Ramsu
July 31, 2010
When I finally got around to watching Raavanan, my first reaction was: this is about as polarizing a film as Mani has ever made. I could readily imagine him making a “straight” version of this film that could’ve been, if not a moneyspinner, a reasonably well-liked critical and commercial success.
Could it have been a great movie, though? I don’t think it would’ve had a shot, had he made it that way. This way, it’s still flawed but it had a glimmer of a chance.
ps: As it happens, I was one of those who went hammer and tongs on JBJ. Then again, I’ve never been one for moderation 🙂
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Akash
August 5, 2010
I agree – for some films, people program themselves to fail the movie. No offence meant but I can find n number of flaws in 3 Idiots too. Anybody can.
I think Kites too fell prey to the same phenomenan of “Future Negative Programming” of the audience.
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