- Sometimes, the fact that you haven’t seen a particular type of film in a long time can make you overlook almost everything else – like a heroine playing cute (which, in Tamil-commercial-cinema lingo, is defined as annoying) by speaking in two voices, or a man spitting out some semblance of the film’s themes to the hero at the beginning. The first half of 180 worked very well for me because of this very reason…
- … which is that, after a long time, the Tamil cinema screen appeared free of blood, sweat, swearing, unshaven faces and striped underwear peeking out of bunched-up lungis. It was as if the screen at Sathyam had been laundered and scrubbed clean.
- Of course, if all films were to turn out like this, we’d start complaining about that and begin to yearn for blood, sweat, swearing, unshaven faces and striped underwear peeking out of bunched-up lungis, as we do with Bollywood films. But for a change, this is nice. From the fonts in the “thanks” credits at the beginning to the shape of the packet of puliyodharai handed over to the hero in an autorickshaw, this is a film that’s been assembled by people with terrific taste.
- And that matters because this is an urban film, about upper-middle-class people, and it makes a difference that it’s been made by people who understand what upper-middle-class urban life is all about. Unlike, say, Shankar, whose urban characters look like people from Saidapet wearing Manish Malhotra costumes. If you want to show people from Saidpaet, take a leaf from Selvaraghavan and show them as they are, in all their natural glory. Don’t coat them with a layer of varnish and then expect us to buy them.
- The other thing about the urban life this film depicts is that there’s none of the galeej business that filmmakers often feel compelled to include because they do not want to alienate the majority of the audience who they think will not identify with these characters. But why make that movie then? Make the movie that you want to make, the one that you think these audiences will identify with. Why make Siva Manasula Sakthi?
- And in those films, your murderous impulses are often roused by heroines who look like extraterrestrials in this milieu. They look alien. Their colour is different. They do not know the language. And we’re supposed to be filtered idiots because we’re supposed to buy these heroines as “Tamil” simply because they’re shown travelling in suburban trains clutching the latest Anandha Vikatan. The heroines here, in contrast, look like earthlings. They look like Tamilians you’ve seen around you. They look like they could be travelling in suburban trains clutching the latest Anandha Vikatan.
- The reason the first half works so well is that the film does a good job of withholding information. We know that the story being told to us in flashbacks has a bearing on the present-day story, but it’s not easy to guess what it is. The intrigue is interesting.
- After a spate of Tamil cinema wanting to redefine Tamil cinema, it’s nice to slip into a film that wants to do little more than tell a sweet story with sweet-looking people. It’s the equivalent of reading a slightly trashy romance tucked inside a leather-bound copy of Ulysses. Sometimes you just need a nothing movie, a movie that’s about nothing more than the movie itself, a movie that aspires to nothing more than being vanilla ice cream.
- And then the second half happens, and in a misguided attempt to inject edge and angst, the film sprinkles molagapodi all over our half-eaten vanilla ice cream. (Spoiler alert) I felt cheated, by the end, for investing in and bothering about a character who’s just a selfish jerk (or maybe a self-absorbed jerk). After wondering which of the heroines would end up with him, I felt happy that the answer was neither. They deserve better. So he’ll bring happiness to all these other lives around him, but not the wife who became his life? Give me an effing break!
- Why do the foreign extras in Indian movies always come off so badly? I mean, is it a quasi-patriotic stylistic choice, to make the local actors look good?
- And unless your name in Ingmar Bergman and unless you’re raising questions about the existence of a higher power, it’s never a good idea to corporealise death. It looks ludicrous, especially when Death looks like a long-in-the-tooth Harlem gangster who’s maybe considering a change of profession as a rapper.
Copyright ©2011 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Posted in: Bullet-point Report
Baradwaj Rangan 
Rohit Ramachandran
June 25, 2011
Nice review.
You’re right about molagapodi on vanilla icecream. Correct. You felt cheated? That’s just how he felt once molagapodi was sprinkled on his life. You’re right, he is a selfish character. It’s only his world that has lost its footing. Everyone else’s going to move on. In fact, human beings are selfish at the core, they bury it as long as their needs are satisfied. I was personally glad that he did everything for himself, which wasn’t to make other people happy but to clear his conscience. Had it gone a different way, the film would’ve collapsed.
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Karthi
June 25, 2011
Siva manasula sakthi mela semma kaduppu pola!
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Sharan
June 25, 2011
This review has really got the beat. The Priya Anand character appeared very sympathetic. Watching 180, I felt like I was watching Kal Ho Na Ho: The helping protagonist, the damsel in distress. BUT, if I called this film to be a relief from the action violence, I would just be sugarcoating hell. 180 did bore me with absolutely nothing in it. Why screen it for 135 minutes? Make it within 120 minutes.
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rameshram
June 25, 2011
sounds like a straight to internet film to me, although i think the shankar comment deserves a mention. Shankar DOES NOT make films for the”upper” class tamil. he makes films for the ‘obc’ tamils who hate their upper classes (brahmins or chettiars.rajas or pillais) with a passion. That is the reason for shankar’s acendency in tamil nadu and credibility as a mass filmmaker in hollywood. Its not only that distributiong power and ticket buying power is with this group in india(TN) , its also that “urban” depiction of the sophisticated tamil , according to tamil film grammar, deserves treatment as if this were a risble new mani ratnam film.(english padam mathiri padam edukkaran. kayandu poiduthu)
The new set of films attempting to corner this “urban” zeitgist are trying to create an audience for the big cinema- multiplex crowd in chennai. its an interesting experiment, I have(having moved some in the chennai party crowd) always felt that the cehnnai urban (man or woman) charecter to be irritating and self absorbed, and I get the feeling that most chennai urban people think something like this too…
I like the telugu popular film equilibrium as it currently is” the hero is a naxalite (or wannabe) the heroine is the daughter of a marwadi businesshouse/kamma homestead, and much machattes and(female) wet dreams occur before happy ending.
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rameshram
June 25, 2011
Agni nakshatram’s heroines, one doing a striptease to carnatic music (and thinking its a nifty idea too) and another swimming in a pool in her drawing room(without any vevasthai) are achetypes forever etched in the psyche as upper class chennai urban charecters.
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Kavitha
June 25, 2011
“filtered idiots” – hahahhaaa… were you thinking of “vadikattina muttal”? Englishlaiyum nallaththaan irukku 😉
+1 on your comment about Shankar – while writing these so-called urban characters, he forgets to make them urbane.
I haven’t watched the movie yet (and skipped the spoiler comment) but is this director any good at song picturisation or does he belong to the 5-boys-in-thoppis-dancing-in-the-background variety?
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mohan
June 25, 2011
1)
@Rangan,
Surely oh surely you did not miss the entire film being populated by brahmins?
From Siddharth’s character to Priya Anand’s character(who yearns for a cup of filter kaapi and reminisces about “Kausalya Supraja Rama…” while sipping that cup) to his friend Saambasivam(who other than brahmins give such foolish names like Saambasivam SaambharSivam et al.) and the telugu maami who teach bhajan lessons.
Will you accept that the term you have used to describe the characters’ lifestyle “upper-middle class urban life” is nothing more than a euphemism for “sophisticated” tamil brahmins’ lifestyle with just the most obvious give-away of the brahmin slang being removed to make it palatable to wider audiences?
Why ignoring the apparent brahmin overtone while showering paeans on the director’s “terrific taste” for such abstract things such as title fonts and the shape of “puliyodhari packets”?
Doesn’t this smack of one brahmin reviewer discreetly patting the back of another brahmin director for an amateurish-at-best film for no other reason save the fact that they are of the same caste and the director has made a film about the “homies” so to speak?
It is my opinion that much of your happiness in this film is from seeing characters that you could personally identify with.
Take for example, your take on the heroines:
“They look like Tamilians you’ve seen around you. They look like they could be travelling in suburban trains clutching the latest Anandha Vikatan.”
Come on, not even 1 in 10 tamil girls look as pretty or talk as revoltingly artificially and “look-oh-i-am-so-sweet”ly as either of them. And most definitely not the ones clutching AV and travelling in trains, which is why the director has sense enough not to show these actresses in such an environment.
And, how come, Mr.Rangan, you can so easily overlook the most basic difference between 180 and SMS, which is that random sexy looking girls don’t come fall on your laps all lovey-dovey, especially if you are weird enough to go around selling sundal on the beach.
And another related fact of life:Boys, much more often than girls, make the first move.
Even when girls do fall for a guy first, it is not in the ridiculously juvenile manner shown in films like 180.
Yet another related fact:
Appadi namma moonjiyum paathu oru ponnu love propose pannudhunaa, adhu 90% oru attu figure’ aathaan irukkum. Idhuve ulaga niyadhi.
That SMS respected these fundamental truths while spinning genuinely funny situations around them is the reason for its cult status among tamil urban rom-coms.
Rest assured, 180 will fade into oblivion after all the hype dies down and everybody gets to know how inane and contrived it really is in comparison to SMS or for that matter, almost any film.
P.S.DId you know that Pillayar Theru Kadaisi Veedu, another film that released this weekend, also deals with the prospect of imminent death from cancer?
How about that for a coincidence?
2)Quoting two of Rameshram’s comments:
“he makes films for the ‘obc’ tamils who hate their upper classes (brahmins or chettiars.rajas or pillais) with a passion”
“That is the reason for shankar’s acendency in tamil nadu and credibility as a mass filmmaker in hollywood”
I disagree with the latter as strongly as I agree with the former.
Simply because, the class of anti-brahmin directors includes virtually every director in the industry(apart from certain brahmins like Maniratnam).
From Bala(in all his films) to Selvaraghavan(in YNM) to Kamal(in all films he directs and ghost-directs) to even S J Suryah(Remember Kiran from New?), anti-brahmin hatred and biases have long since percolated deep into most tamil directors’ psyche.
But this simply doesn’t factor(either positively or negatively) into a director’s box-office or even critical success.
That, I think, still goes down to how good are his films on an average. In short, people go for Bala/Shankar’s films because they expect to see an interesting if not, excellent film, and these expectations rarely remain unfulfilled.
BTW, When did Shankar achieve “credibility as a mass filmmaker in hollywood” ?
😉
Just wondering.
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mohan
June 26, 2011
@Rangan
Also note that SMS was not marketed as a “realistic” film or some such thing.
And the heroine Anuya, despite being a northie, acted perfectly well in most scenes, particularly the hyper-frequently broadcasted comedy scene in Sathyam theatre involving Jeeva, her, Santhanam and Nepaali Nikki.
Come on man, be truthful. That one extended scene alone was worth more than the entire 2 hour 15 mins of mokka named 180.
So what if she looked different colour?
180 heroines mattum veyilla karuthu poi irukkaangalaa?
Why this hypocrisy from you?
In fact, both heroines in 180 look like Fair and Lovely cream models(after the 10 days of use 😉 )
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Rohit Ramachandran
June 26, 2011
Lol Rameshram I think he’s referring to economically forward classes by upper classes, not caste.
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bran1gan
June 26, 2011
rameshram: Machetes and wet dreams before happy ending? Please never ever stop commenting in this space 🙂
Kavitha: He’s okay with songs, i guess. Nothing must-see, but nothing bad either. There was one that had a nice idea about b’day presents…
mohan: One can only write about the reactions one has. Why those reactions came about, you can’t reason out all the time. I look out for aesthetics in a film and even wrote something earlier about the fonts of Raavan’s poster – graphic design is a very ignored element in Tamil films and fonts and stuff like that make a difference. Maybe they don’t to you. So you should be writing your own take on your films where you don’t take a film’s aesthetic elements into account.
The AV-clutching girl, BTW, was in SMS, a film that I loathed. You seem to think it’s a good movie. Well, good for you.
PS: “Even when girls do fall for a guy first, it is not in the ridiculously juvenile manner shown in films like 180.” You’d be surprised 🙂
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mohan
June 26, 2011
@Rangan
Look, I don’t fault you with taking aesthetics into account. I am just saying:
How come you can pass off the in-your-face brahmin overtones in the entire film as “urban upper-class lifestyle”?
You say:
“One can only write about the reactions one has”
So title fonts before even the film actually started deserved mention as an example of “terrific taste” but not a single word on one of the main leads all-of-a-sudden launching into “kausalya supraja” while recovering from a fractured knee?
Now surely you aren’t telling me that girls reading Anandha Vikatans exhibit such nutty behaviour and this is a symptom of “upper-class Tamil lifestyle” and “terrific aesthetic taste”?
My question is not about your reaction alone, but more specifically how come you did not show any sort of a reaction to these latent themes in the film?
Don’t tell me it escaped your attention. In the multiplex where I watched, even ordinary movie-goers, including people with whom I had gone, were able to discern these things.
You, as an observant critic, would not have missed them.
Then why choosing to ignore the obvious or worse, passing it off as something else?
P.S.I don’t think SMS is a good movie. It has too many terribly artificial scenes to be called that. But I do think, for all its flaws, it is far more entertaining than 180. It had some really good sequences that make up for the shoddy ones. Unlike this one, which is just uniformly shoddy.
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rameshram
June 26, 2011
Rohit, they are pretty interchangable in India. Rangudu, even if your observation smacks what kumudam terms ‘ vanja pugazzchi’ ill accept it because you know not what you miss.
Mohan( my phone auto corrects you to Mohammed.) Attend a screening of robot in lala land, the intro always is robot – a film by Shankar. Indeed its the third film financed for shankar by amritraj money and connections. ( jeans and Indian were the others)
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rameshram
June 26, 2011
Lol at br’s response to Mohammed’ s comment but an observation here .. Mohan, anti brahminism is not imo a dogma . It serves some for a purpose. After all if it weren’t profitable to be anti brahmin people would lose the vice in half a second.take karunanidhi, he loses his anti brahminism at will. I was commenting at the dynamic underlying the anti brahminism we see. Just as brahminism has an economic rationale anti brahminism does , too. It’s good to recognise that no?
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bran1gan
June 26, 2011
mohan: I have never made any claims about my reviews being comprehensive in any sense, so I don’t see why this particular take on a film should be singled out. As always, I’ve written about things that struck me and you seem to be saying “but why not talk about the things that struck others?”.
“How come you can pass off the in-your-face brahmin overtones in the entire film as ‘“urban upper-class lifestyle’?” Because they didn’t seem in-your-face “Brahmin overtones” to me. Is that so hard to see? 🙂 That ‘Kausalya supraja’ you point out as central to your thesis is, to me, something as silly as a character (brahmin or non-brahmin) imitating Usilai Mani’s “besh besh, romba nanna irukku.” It’s a reference to a popular “brahminical” refrain, that’s all. At least that’s how I saw it and it didn’t bother me at all.
Also, I think you confusing aesthetics of MAKING a film (things like title design) with “upper-class Tamil lifestyle.” I was only talking about the former.
rameshram: No vanja pugazchi boss. I just singled out that line because it made me laugh, but your comments are always interesting.
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rameshram
June 26, 2011
as regards kausalya supraja, there used to be a mudaliar that lived opposite my place called govindasamy(pbuh) who used to start his day every day with kausalya and the dhinak dhinak dhin ganapathy song blaring from his sterio as he harvested fresh mallis in his towel for a morning puja.
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mohan
June 26, 2011
@brangan
“Because they didn’t seem in-your-face “Brahmin overtones” to me.”
I don’t buy that, but I’ll let it pass since you sound so sincere.
“Also, I think you confusing aesthetics of MAKING a film (things like title design) with “upper-class Tamil lifestyle.””
(Sigh)No man, I was merely pointing out that (figuratively) you are paying attention to the design on the food plate while ignoring the food itself.
I see you are still struggling to answer my other question relating to this rather high-handed assertion of yours:
“They look like they could be travelling in suburban trains clutching the latest Anandha Vikatan.”
It is obvious that this statement has more to do with your personal likes/dislikes of the heroines of the two films rather than any actual facts on the ground.
Apart from the horrendous crime of having fair skin, which, as I have repeatedly pointed out, applies to the heroines in 180 also, what great sin has Anuya from SMS committed that you absolutely “loath” the film, while actually being happy to see what you yourself describe as a “nothing” movie.
She emotes pretty well, has good timing, dubbing may be a bit off, so that makes her “loathsome”? 😀
That train scene clutching AV was not meant to establish her as a true-blue tamilian anyway, rather it was to set up the initial meeting from which the story could kick off.
She carried Anandha Vikatan since Vasan Visual Ventures was the producer.
It is called Product Placement. If you see carefully, the AV appears in a few other scenes taking place at her office as well.
When there are so many sane and logical explanations, why do you keep snatching at non-existent straws?
If you still can’t bring yourself to face facts, why not the simple, “I just don’t like her face!” instead of this convoluted and ultimately inconsistent reasoning? 😉
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mohan
June 26, 2011
@rameshram
On your point reg. economic rationale behind anti-brahminism, well, in actual society yes, as a constant reminder as to the need behind the reservation policy and other welfare measures aimed at so-called socially backward classes, yes.
But as a tool to attract audiences to the theater, a vehement NO, I am afraid.
We are not living in the 70’s you see. Anti-brahminism has long since lost its edge as even a political tool. To suggest that it somehow motivates the OBS and SC/STs into flocking to the theaters in droves is laughable.
Case in point: When a biography of Periyar was made into a movie recently, there was some news about how students in villages had to be organized by the government authorities and brought to the theaters, since the film itself was a huge flop.
Anti-brahminism is still there in people’s hearts but its exploitable economic value ain’t much.
As for Karunanidhi, you missed the crucial point. He may be on-and-off anti-brahmin, but his winning/losing elections is independent of whether he is virulently anti-brahmin or not.
People are more concerned of things like Infrastructure, Law and Order, Development schemes etc. So there again, anti-brahminism’s economic potential draws a blank.
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iba
June 26, 2011
kaanja maadu kambula vilunduchaam 🙂 (hope it’s not lost on you)
let down more with this review than with the movie, if that is possible, was expecting a nice diss!
don’t have an issue with brahminical overtones in our movies but in this case it was unwarranted in most places to the point that i could not but cringe. for portrayal of urban upper class lifestyle in madras (brahminical) manmadhan ambu sets the benchmark i guess.
couldn’t stomach many other things as well, the least of all was the part dealing with his professional life… i wonder if people ever have such nice and amiable chiefs and what horrendous acting by the firangis… portrayal of professional life in the west in this movie was similar to the portrayal of urban characters in shankar movies…. bah! and come on, someone faints in a restaurant in us and our protagonist true to our heroes’ traditions is at the forefront and the girl goes wow… and many other nonsensical things, this movie deserves not more than a four letter review imho. i would have rather endured 10 gabtun flicks!
perhaps you are lowering your bar rangan saar for tamil movies.
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rameshram
June 26, 2011
“But as a tool to attract audiences to the theater, a vehement NO, I am afraid.
We are not living in the 70′s you see. Anti-brahminism has long since lost its edge as even a political tool. To suggest that it somehow motivates the OBS and SC/STs into flocking to the theaters in droves is laughable.”
motivates , no, but you can’t go to this audience, as it is, and present them with an overtly brahmin(nadai udai bhavanai) film and get yourself a hit…which is what i mean, when I say the OBCs that control distribution in TN are in no mood to project their upper classes to their audiences.
I may not like someone…or even hate someone , but that does not mean my dislike of you is based on a “dogma” and invariant. I am of the opinion that dislike for the brahmins in tamil nadu is something like that, not a “anti-semitic” style persecution as some may like to suggest, for whatever reason.
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mohan
June 26, 2011
Quoting iba:
“come on, someone faints in a restaurant in us and our protagonist true to our heroes’ traditions is at the forefront and the girl goes wow… and many other nonsensical things,”
Very rightly said.
In our discussion on the brahminical overtones subject, I had desisted from mentioning the other major problem with this movie:
The director’s pathetic attempts at somehow making Ajay/Mano out into some all-purpose Social Samaritan/ Saviour seeing whose selfless deeds women go all weak on the knees.
Guys, if selling sundal on the beach, helping out neighborhood newspaper boys and saving some poor ol’ lady who has fainted(probably from seeing the weird shit done by our “hero”) were all that was required to get pretty girls to fall head over heels for you, trust me, most guys would be very happily settled right now.
Naanga padura kashtam engalukkuthaan theriyum. 😉
This film is full of all sorts of such nonsense. Like Ajay/Mano introducing himself by joining his housholder aunty’s bhajans.
Director saar, idhellam advertisementla vena OK. Padathula laam too much.
And that SaambharSaadham/Saambasivam fellow coming in very serious scene and reading the doctor’s prognosis of pancreatic cancer and creating some unintentional hilarity by saying “I don’t get it”.
As a frustrated viewer at my theater yelled out towards the end of my show:
“Yenda ippadi mokka pottu saavadikiringa?”
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Gradwolf
June 27, 2011
“That SMS respected these fundamental truths while spinning genuinely funny situations around them is the reason for its cult status among tamil urban rom-coms. ”
Somebody cry! SMS enjoys cult status among tamil urban rom-coms? As the self-appointed secretary of #GRCA, I vehemently disapprove. I am pretty sure the President will go to any lengths to stop this farce! There are several words in the above sentence that are grossly misplaced. Sorry, can’t add more.
BR: Thanks for bringing up SMS in your BP-review. Bang on target. When someone says 180 is 180 minutes of torture, SMS is the exact film that would come to my mind.
First half was breezy and worked wonderfully for me too. I am amazed by the fact that films like these, that remain focused on the “urban upper middle class” characters always attract the same kinda flak for the same reasons. Sometimes makes me question what world/circle I am living in if only I identify with people populating films like these.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2011
Shankar anti-brahmin? His writer was Sujatha and does anyone remember Anniyan? Shankar is a Chettiar, nationalist and (I suspect) pro-Hindutva.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2011
And please do not speak of S.J. Suryah and Shankar in the same breath. Shankar is a great entertainer, Suryah is a scumbag.
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lowlylaureate
June 27, 2011
wasn’t Anuya clutching AV just because it was a Vikatan production? In SMS i meant. Subtle Product placement.
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bran1gan
June 27, 2011
mohan: You like Anuya in that film. I don’t. It’s as simple as that. The point is not that Vikatan produced the film, but that I couldn’t buy her as someone with a Vikatan. With the girls in 180, they seemed more rooted in their milieu.
I think you — in your desire to make me admit that I actually hated 180 but somehow felt I had to write nice things about it — are the one clutching at straws. I did like the first half. The second half not so much. And that is what I’ve said above.
I have said this is a “nothing” movie in the best sense of the word. Rom-com-na there will be some things that you may or may not like, depending on your taste. There was one called 27 Dresses that was universally reviled, but I thought it was quite fun to sit through and didn’t have any major problems with it. Things like the all-purpose Social Samaritan/ Saviour are — depending on how you look at it — either annoying or sweet in a harmless fashion. For you, it was the former, for me it was the latter.
As Gradwolf says, why do films like these always draw flak like this?
iba: My first bullet-point is saying the same thing, no? 🙂
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@brangan
“in your desire to make me admit that I actually hated 180 but somehow felt I had to write nice things about it ”
Nope. In fact, what I desired for you to admit were:
1)The film had decidedly brahmin-ish overtones.
2)The possibility that your being able to identify with the lead characters in this film and some of their dialogues, was influenced by such overtones, perhaps even unconsciously. This, in turn, would have explained why you might have ignored/not-found-glaring some things that others found cringe-worthy.
The second point is not a crime or something. It is only natural that one identifies much more closely with characters that resemble people with whom we’ve grown up or mingled with.
But it is strange that you turn hostile on even mentioning this simple fact.
I also find odd your repeated insistence that these things, which were so markedly different from run-of-the-mill tamil love stories, did not even “strike” you. But since you protested your innocence, I did not argue the point any further.
“You like Anuya in that film. I don’t. It’s as simple as that.”
Glad you FINALLY got my point.
As for the AV matter, let’s just agree to disagree.
P.S.I, too, liked 27 dresses. 🙂
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rameshram
June 27, 2011
i idnt say shankar was “anti brahmin” mohan said that. I said his films are not made to cater to upper class tamils(chettiar or brahmin)
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bran1gan
June 27, 2011
mohan: From the beginning, I’ve been saying that there’s no telling why certain people have certain responses to certain films — and if subjectivity were simply the issue, we needn’t have carried on such a long conversation.
And no, I wasn’t being hostile at any point. Cheers.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@rameshram
“motivates , no, but you can’t go to this audience, as it is, and present them with an overtly brahmin(nadai udai bhavanai) film and get yourself a hit…which is what i mean, when I say the OBCs that control distribution in TN are in no mood to project their upper classes to their audiences.”
Yes, but that isn’t the same as saying “let’s bash brahmins in our film and we’ll get ourselves the crowds we want”
Whatever anti-brahminism is evident in Tamil films is the result of 40-odd years of dravidian ideology permeating the tamil consciousness.
As to your point about movies not being made brahmin-style, the main reason, to put it in simple terms, is that movies are made for the masses, of whom the brahmins make up less than 0.1%.
And you must also note that you can make a movie with some generic OBC character and people will come to the movie since caste behaviour among OBCs is more loosely specific and it is easier to identify with a different OBC caste. In contrast, people find it hard to identify with the brahmin characters and the whole setting. They stand apart in a crowd, in a manner that one OBC caste member would not in the eyes of a different OBC caste member.
Such things like Vegetarianism, poonools etc.
But I would still argue that you can make Superhit movies with brahmin leads.
Didn’t Minnale become a blockbuster?
There was also one film named Nala damayanthi that had a pretty decent run, if I remember right.
Minnale, especially, walked that tight-rope between acknowledging the hero’s caste while not appearing to put too much emphasis upon it very successfully.
Many, many people I know still hold it in high regard as one of the best modern Tamil rom-coms.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@Gradwolf
Yes, SMS is a cult film. Wiki defines a cult film as:
“A cult film (also known as a cult movie/picture or a cult classic) is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases”
In fact, it had a good run at the box-office too so even the fame-outside-small-fanbase secondary criteria is satisfied. Not to mention its popularity among youth circles with classic quips like “Machi, enakku oru quarter sollen” and “Ovvarum manushanukkum ovvaru feelingu”. And the air-time hogged by scenes from the film in different Tamil channels.
Now, what is all the fuss about?
I have not claimed it is a universally admired Classic like Alaipayudhe.
Each person may have their own own idea of cult tamil rom-coms no? Why so much kaduppu?
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avataram
June 27, 2011
Refreshing review for someone who is tired of ParuthiVeeran, Punnakku Veeran, Subramaniapuram and assorted films with colored lungis and machetes. Even Mani Rathnam tried to make an OBC flick in Ravanan and failed. This review is worth it for the comments it generates from rameshram alone.
And who are these guys who like SMS? Machete dont text!
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@avataram
So, according to you,
1)colored lungis+machetes+heroes frequenting tasmac bars(like in SMS)=worthless films that can be enjoyed only by illiterate people.
2)suit-coat+suave+peter pasanga+uncannily upper caste flavor=good films.
And since the Darling of the Elites Mani Ratnam himself could not make good “Coloured Lungi” films(as you call it), the entire class of rural/CineMadurai film deserves nothing but scorn and ridicule.
Like a fox said to another one after it could not reach high enough to pluck a fruit from a tree:
“Indha pazham pulikkum” (The fruits on this tree are sour)
That’s beyond retarded man.
God help you.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
“i idnt say shankar was “anti brahmin” mohan said that. I said his films are not made to cater to upper class tamils(chettiar or brahmin)”
Boss, Don’t put words into my mouth. I did not single out Shankar for anything. I just said nearly every Tamil director has some degree of anti-brahmin biases.
Personally, I find Shankar’s films to be mostly even-handed in his treatment of castes, whether brahmins/OBCs.
Even my first response was to your own accusation reg. Shankar catering to urban OBCs whom you said hated brahmins.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
That earlier comment of mine was directed towards rameshram.
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vijay
June 27, 2011
BR, All over net “lungi” has replaced “idli” or “sambar” in derogatory comments in the usual North vs South fights, and so was a bit amused to read this here too.
That jab at Shankar seems a tad misguided because he makes masala films intended for ALL centers and his heroes have to do it all. Would you look for authenticity in a SP Muthuraman or Rajashekar directed mid-80s masala?
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rameshram
June 27, 2011
“Yes, but that isn’t the same as saying “let’s bash brahmins in our film and we’ll get ourselves the crowds we want”
Whatever anti-brahminism is evident in Tamil films is the result of 40-odd years of dravidian ideology permeating the tamil consciousness.”
we agree that this exists we disagree on the cause. I do not believe that dravidian ideology(your boogieman, and to me very much a straw man) was the cause as much as the effect of an anti (upper class in general , but) brahmin sentiment in the obc community.
“As to your point about movies not being made brahmin-style, the main reason, to put it in simple terms, is that movies are made for the masses, of whom the brahmins make up less than 0.1%.”
making my point for me.
“you can make a movie with some generic OBC character and people will come to the movie since caste behaviour among OBCs is more loosely specific”
correct and wrong.. correct because of the ‘Making movies with a generic OBC ” observation. wrong because people flock to see a movie with a generic(mass, not elite) BRAHMIN charecter as well. the film that readily comes to mind is gentleman (SHANKAR’s Gentleman) Kichha(Arjun) has overtly brahmin features and charecteristics. yet he was accepted wholly by the audience. o where did the deepseeted idealogical dravidian hatered go? like all boogymen, he went under the cot in the light of day. PEOPLE ACCEPTED KICCHA BECAUSE HE WASN’T THE ELITE AND BECAUSE THE DIRECTOR DIDN’T USE THE PUNUL AND THE VEGETARIANISM AS A SYMBOL OF SOME CULTURAL SUPERIORITY OR HIGHER EVOLUTION. They hate you because you have a bad attitude about your superiority to them…
Minnale was a hit?!
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kannan
June 27, 2011
Dai Ranga – pudichirikka or pudikilliya? Sollu maamu!!
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Avataram
June 27, 2011
Mohan, your entire argument can be summarized as “You are with us (the minority that loves SMS) or you are with the terrorists.” I think that Machete by Robert Rodriguez is the best OBC/CineMadurai/Lungi-Machete film ever made. Maybe you should see Machete just once?
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@rameshram
“PEOPLE ACCEPTED KICCHA BECAUSE HE WASN’T THE ELITE AND BECAUSE THE DIRECTOR DIDN’T USE THE PUNUL AND THE VEGETARIANISM AS A SYMBOL OF SOME CULTURAL SUPERIORITY OR HIGHER EVOLUTION.”
Forget “cultural superiority”, no special emphasis was laid at all on the aspect.
THAT is the point I am making.
The movie is such that the brahmin-hood(for lack of a better word) of the hero is made to seem incidental.
The theme that Shankar repeatedly pounds into your head is the Robin-Hoodish character of the hero, not his brahmin status. He could’ve been any other caste and the story would have remained essentially the same.
So while the brahmin angle lends a degree of Uniqueness to the film, IT IS NOT THE PIVOT UPON WHICH THE FILM RESTS.
The audience, therefore, DON”T GIVE A DAMN whether he is a brahmin or not as long as all ends well and rights are wronged, TYPICAL of ALL Shankar’s vigilante films.
Case in point:
1)There is no perpetual “brahminisation” of Arjun’s lingo, if you observe carefully.So effectively, he is an ORDINARY man who is seeking revenge for his friend and trying to cleanse society of the malaise that led to his death.
This is particularly evident in his interactions with Madhubala, that other teenager and Goundamani.
2)And when his head is tied in a sack with a rat inside, he does not go all squeamish.
He simply chews off the rat’s head.
NO Tipping of the hat in service of vegetarianism.
Finally, quite apart from Arjun’s caste, the film had several other MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THINGS going for it, like NOVEL STORY(at that point for Tamil audiences), RACY SCREENPLAY, and GREAT MUSIC.
So you can keep harping on the brahmin feature of the hero till the cows come home but THAT’S NOT why the film was such a great hit. Bottomline, it mattered not an iota in the film’s fortunes.
“I do not believe that dravidian ideology(your boogieman, and to me very much a straw man) was the cause as much as the effect of an anti (upper class in general , but) brahmin sentiment in the obc community.”
I don’t believe it was much of either. It just strikes me as part of the larger British Divide-and-rule policy which most Indians weren’t smart enough to see through.
Either way, not for a moment did I deny anti-uppercaste sentiments in the pre-Dravidian era. I merely stated the fact that the dravidian movement stoked its flames till it had gained enough virulence for them to make use of it politically.
Hence, rather than aiming towards a casteless society, our politicians(including but not only the dravidian ones) swung the pendulum to the other extreme.
In the process, latent tensions that ought to have been made to cool down with a process of national integration were actually deepened. Now we have more castes, more caste-based violence, and more reservation.
Caste, that ought to have been shunned and dismissed as an ugly scar on the country’s history, now enjoys unparalleled prominence in all spheres of society.
Rather than moving towards a casteless society, we are now witness to the shameful age of websites like VanniyarMatrimony.com, BrahminMatrimony.com et al.
“They hate you because you have a bad attitude about your superiority to them…”
Boss, you think I’m brahmin? Good for you 😉
“Minnale was a hit?!”
Unless you were living under a small rock for past 10 years, you would know that the answer to your question is in the affirmative.
Ippadillaam kaetta pinvaagiruvonu nenacheengala? 😉
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@avataram
““You are with us (the minority that loves SMS) or you are with the terrorists.”
Minority? Says whom? You?
In this blog dominated by bunch of (mostly upper-caste)Peters, perhaps yes.
How can you speak for the majority of Tamil audience, particularly when the film was a box-office hit?
Anyway, you were the one who started it by thumbing your nose up at people who liked SMS.
I just countered your patronising comment.
Why show your condescension at me if you are unable to enjoy good films like Paruthi Veeran and Subramaniyapuram?
If you don’t like a genre, it doesn’t meant the genre is trash.
FYI, I liked both Idhayathai Thirudivittai(Maniratnam’s film based on similar premise to 180) and Faazil’s Poove Poochoodava(again, similar premise).
I also enjoyed other urban modern romances like VTV and 7G rainbow colony.
And when I criticize a movie, like I’ve done here in my earlier comments, I give my line of reasoning backed with examples from the movie. Perhaps others here may not agree with my reasoning, but at the very least, I justify my criticism and restrict it to the movie concerned.
Not tossing around empty words trashing the whole genre like you’re doing.
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rameshram
June 27, 2011
“Boss, you think I’m brahmin? Good for you ”
you?! not you. this discussion was never about you.
re minale, I know vaseegara got a lot of coverage on the internet, but in terms of money making hit film, a&B centers at best…not even A centers.
all the other stuff in your post to me: My point: OBC audiences which form large numbers and have huge ticket buying and distributing influence in Tamil nadu hate it when they see depiction of upper class “virtues” as if it is something they have to emulate/worship, and get fairly “anti brahmin” when spoonfed these(eg: maniratnam films) .
your point?…Im not sure wht it is exactly.
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avataram
June 27, 2011
A simple filter making people say Abivadaye before entering this blog will avoid such ularals in the comments section. If the post is itself in bullet point format for easy readability, who is going to read a kilometre long ularal from an OBC?
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2011
I would like to add to the list of hit tamil movies with a brahmin as the protoganist: Shankar’s Anniyan. The public didn’t have a problem with that one.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 27, 2011
On the topic of SMS, loved Boss engira Bhaskaran made by the same team.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@avataram
Nunalum than vaayaal kedum.
You have now proven this age-old tamil proverb in ample measure.
By your casteist hate-filled rant, you have exposed your mentality as an arrogant upper-caste freak.
Hoping for any sane meaningful reasoning from you is therefore futile.
Go on, keep spouting your casteist bile for all to hear.
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mohan
June 27, 2011
@rameshram
Reg. Minnale, I am happy that I can give you atleast anecdotal details to back my claim here.
I remember having to watch Minnale thrice in different theatres(not just because I loved the film; I did like the film but I had to watch each time due to family/friends having missed it and I went along)
First time was at a local theater at my hometown on the 4th day. Sort of C-center, you might say. Theater was house-full.
Second time was at Sathyam in Chennai some 3-4 weeks later. Here too the movie was running to packed houses.
The third time was at the Prarthana Drive-in theater near the Chennai outskirts, more than a month later. And it was still drawing good crowds.
And I know it successfully completed 75 days at the Karapakkam Aravind theater, since they used to have a board listing the names of movies that had had successful runs at that theater(Don’t know whether they still update or even maintain those) hung in the entry hall and Minnale was mentioned in that list.
Apart from such anecdotal evidence, I can only speak of my friends and acquaintances, all of whom liked it.
I am no expert on exact A,B or C-center box-office returns. I can only talk about general perceptions as I see it. And such perceptions have led me to believe that the film was a definite hit.
If you have all center box-office details, do correct me.
I am not in the habit of touting all the films I liked to be hit films or all those which I disliked to be flops.
I loved Rhythm and Anbe Sivam, but while both were critically praised, neither seemed to gain significant commercial success. I hated Billa, but it made tons of money.
“your point?…”
I have explained it in both brief and in details. If you haven’t got it by now, you sure as hell won’t get it upon one more iteration. I have neither the time nor the patience to endlessly repeat myself.
Finally, you cite the example of Maniratnam’s films as glorifying brahmin “virtues” and propose that this is the cause of his recent failures. Care to elaborate?
Myself, and a lot of others, were of the opinion that it was more to do with his characters being eternally cursed to speak in whispers and mouthing dialogues that looked like they were written by someone who had no familiarity with the milieu in which such characters actually existed in.
Some of the dialogs in Raavanan, for example. Unfortunately I can’t recall the exact words right now. Just the feeling of unnaturalness.
This wasn’t as much of a problem during his Alaipayuthe/KM days, but noticeable since Aayitha Ezhuthu and really bad in Raavanan.
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rameshram
June 28, 2011
“I have explained it in both brief and in details. If you haven’t got it by now, you sure as hell won’t get it upon one more iteration. I have neither the time nor the patience to endlessly repeat myself.”
you certainly took a lot of words on someone else’s blog to say that..
re mani ratnam, vuttudu pa elaam vuttudu…. 🙂 ..paavam manusan settha pambu poi poi avairaye adikkarathula enna palan?
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avataram
June 28, 2011
I was just commenting in the hope of usuppethhufying other commenters, to get more comments from rameshram. But instead, I seem to have usuppethhufied the wrong person. My apologies all around.
But casteist, hate-filled rant? Come on! Next, you will be running around with a pair of scissors on Avani Avittam.
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bran1gan
June 28, 2011
avataram: “Next, you will be running around with a pair of scissors on Avani Avittam.” hahahaha! I’m not getting into these discussions, but I haven’t had so much fun in the comments sections in a while. (BTW, this was just about the scissors comment — disclaimer.)
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rameshram
June 28, 2011
naana?! i am the uru of the shantam. i am so shantam that i am sowkiyam. enna poi usuppetharanam fool!
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Anon
June 28, 2011
இந்த மொக்க படத்துக்கு இவ்ளோ ஆர்ப்பாட்டமா? போங்கடா டேய், புள்ள குட்டிங்கள படிக்க வைங்கடா.
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SaambharSivam
June 28, 2011
Mohan,
I see that you have a chip on your shoulder because you were not born a Brahmin. Poor you. Wear a poonal and pretend to be one. Or watch films like 180 and live vicariously. But you won’t. You would rather watch an illiterate Siva Manasula Shakti. Keep watching it and hope and pray to Sri Saambasivam that in your next life you are born Brahmin.
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Vasisht Das
June 28, 2011
teriyamathaan kekkaren, idukku poi ivlavu build-up-aa? neengallaam ida apdiye maintain pannungada…!
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JPhilip
June 28, 2011
Largely found the movie facile but enjoyable ..ice cream on a hot day ..won’t change my life ,didn’t kill me either .
Find Mr Mohan’s comments here quite odious ..u seem to have a lot of angst over the little things in life ..time to move on .
Keep up the good work BR .
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rameshram
June 28, 2011
anon-ukku jai
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mohan
June 28, 2011
@Saambharsivam
Which zoo did you escape from? 😉
Responding in kind to your bigoted babble won’t take me long, but then I am far too civilized for that and frankly, it would only lend legitimacy to your warped mentality.
I pity your miserable existence.
@rameshram
😉
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raj
June 29, 2011
Avataram, since you were the one who raised it, can you elaborate on the inferiority of abhivadye-incapable obcs? I think you are a sane, sensible commenter here. Pity some obcs aren’t so
Hey I am a brahmin too. Urban Upper class means brahmin no? Why don’t these saidapet/west mambalam obcs understand
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bran1gan
June 29, 2011
raj, mohan and others: Just a qualification in case I inadvertently set something off. I saw the characters here as uppper-middle-class but not necessarily as Brahmins. (In the sense, even if they were, they were “invisible” Brahmins.) The emphasis in my view was only on CLASS, not CASTE.
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rameshram
June 29, 2011
raj, avataram,other brahmins,
when revolution comes mohan will have you ALLlined up against a wall and shot. Shot, I tell you!
to quote the amala movie,(in which the kid says to satyaraj…or someone…) nee brahmanana?!
OBCa!! Kokka!
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MumbaiRamki
July 1, 2011
Some of my observations on teh film.
1) Love is an accident- so much so that the both the romantical episodes start from an accident.
2) I just hated the first half- as though manirathnam signed the film roll with his sense of romance – did not work. Not that it was not practical, but for me it was not made appealing .
3) The Sky is shown frequently – world is open and you need to explore – subtext ?
4) The ‘Manirathnam’ first half heroine meets with an accident – because she does not wear an helmet – help for our traffic police !
5) The trailers were completly mis leading – it looked like a passive bourne identitiy kind of film .
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lowlylaureate
July 1, 2011
uh…um is it possible to view a film from a neutral viewpoint without bringing caste into it? I thought one of the few intelligent things in 180 was to not specify the cultural backgrounds of the protagonists, although the comments here are based (maybe) on a fact that the actors playing the characters seem to be upper caste, even if that was the intention of the director i see no point in squabbling over a non issue, the movie overall was quite ordinary and would have stayed so even if it didn’t have upper caste overtures.
Using matrix effect for throwing newspapers!, bah humbug.
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raj
July 4, 2011
Ramesu, when the revolution comes, katchi mARikkalAm – adhellAm oru kashtamA? Brangan mAri pattavangaLukku orE mugam – avarOda biases easyA expose Ayidum. namakku pala mask-ugaL. We’ll pull on the OBC mask when the time comes, no?
BTW, sangaru OBC pleasernu solliputtEL? avaru brahmin mole apdinnu tamizh blog world-E oru reNdu varusham munnAla allolagallola pattudhu. Anniyan apparently celebrated the brahmin sissy Ambi while marking the minor offenders from lower castes like that caterer, traffic offender etc as major villains. It was supposedly a brahiminist, fascist mentality – whatever. inge neenga avarai OBC championaa kaatikittirukenga
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Mambazha Manidhan
July 5, 2011
– Mr. Jayendra, just because you play golf with Mani Ratnam, you can’t become Mani Ratnam. Leave that Color Correction room and please read some scripts.
– The characterization of the heroines though, like you say, was well done. They were lifelike (whether Brahmin or OBC) with toothpaste foam in their mouth like real girls and not plastic barbie dolls whose only job is only to fall over rowdie Kens.
– It feels good to see three blatant lip locks in Family Movie. Tamil cinema is slowly entering new territory.
– Was it just me or was anyone else waiting for a scatological spin on the “Intha Rendu Veral la Onnu thodunga” joke ?
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Hermoine Granger
July 7, 2011
Was seriously not able to watch 180 after the “Kausalya Supraja” bit. That is something given that I am the girl who watched Silambattam. Interestingly, I found the movie (the theme, the treatment, the so-called jokes, even the songs) very eighties-ish. I could imagine Karthik in place of Siddharth, Revathi for Nithya Menon, and get something (spoiler alert) a la Poove Poochudava.
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Vinod Iyengar
July 8, 2011
Have been a passive reader of your fine blog for a while and didn’t think 180 was the kind of film that would push me write something. I haven’t seen the film yet and based on the views /reviews, not something I’m gonna eagerly look out for.
However as Rangan mentioned, there is a really interesting (from a cultural perspective and not necessarily from the actual content of the comments itself) discussion going on between Mohan, Rameshram and Avataram with notable cameos from Raj and his namesake. I’m not from TN so my understanding of Dravidian politics and anti-brahminism movement is primarily from cinema and to a lesser extent from history books. However taking the commenters on this blog as a reasonable sample size of average educated youths, the amount of bigotry or hatred (covert or overt) is frankly mind blowing. For a second I was confused whether I had mistakenly landed on Rediff’s (college exclusive) comment board.
p.s. I was tempted to hide my name to see what kind of comments I elicit but I’m just going to let it be
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rameshram
July 8, 2011
I agree with vinod Iyengar. All you average educated youth should be ashamed at yourself for sinking so low in your bigotry and hatred. Sometimes when I read your sopamoric comments, I feel like saying Tchah!
Vinod,
coffee? (as in wake up and smell the….)
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rediff
July 8, 2011
wow..thought i was reading rediff comments section
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raj
July 8, 2011
Thought I was reading brangan’s comment section. Only some sermons on tamil fanticism(from self-conscious as well as self-unaware hindi fanatics) missing otherwise business as usual
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bran1gan
July 8, 2011
raj: Hmmm… and here I was thinking that what made my comment space uniquely my own is the smug sanctimoniousness of self-conscious and self-unware Hindi haters? No, you say? As always, the entertainment levels you provide are off the charts.
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X
July 8, 2011
Been a long time reader here too. Of all the things discussed here, I can be certain that most people here are not “youth” in any sense of the term. Probably most ppl r middle aged and have kids…so v cannot take it as a representation of youth.
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rameshram
July 9, 2011
Rangudu you should have tried out for spiro agnews speechwriter . You’d have produced one nattering nabob of negetivism a week..
All the rest of you, I’m ashamed of you. Tchah!
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Vinod Iyengar
July 9, 2011
@Rameshram: Oh I do smell your coffee. I didn’t mean to insinuate all the folks I named as being guilty of unintended hilarity. Yours sir was definitely intended and can’t stop chuckling. I just named all the gents involved in the conversation.
On the other hand mr.avataram has left me clueless. His initial remarks seemed to be tongue in cheek. Unless its really long joke, i’m not sure anymore.
@Rangan: Oh you devilish wordsmith! you couldn’t resist throwing that out, could you?
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raj
July 9, 2011
Brangan, by trying to establish through (only) empty assertions about my hindi hate, you are exposing your own desparation. That you frequently lose your sense to throw blind punches like this instead of your usual reasoned analysis is entertainment enough for me. Why this desparate need to brand me? Mudinja answer to my specific arguments – this desparate blind panic is so unbecoming of your polished self
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bran1gan
July 9, 2011
raj: Dude, over the years, do you even remember how patiently I’ve tried to put over a point of view? Over several, several posts? I’m certainly not going to keep repeating the obvious. If you want to dial back to square one each time, please feel free. i just don’t have the time to explain myself anymore. I think I’m enjoying, for a change, throwing what you call blind punches and what I call the truth.
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raj
July 10, 2011
These are blind punches – although typically you are deluding yourself with the word truth – why would you go into a huff on a mere request to compare the two industries now and give sermons, lectures, try to paint me a tamil fanatic etc? You haven’t answered that.and then complain about me interpreting your statements when this round of exchanges started with your “interpretation”. Repeatedlyn you are doing what you want to paint me of. Isn’t that funny? Do you, like, have no sense of reality?
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bran1gan
July 10, 2011
raj: of course I have a sense on reality, which is why I have stopped taking you seriously. Like you really want to listen to someone else’s POV about something. I used to think this was the case. Now I know better. That, to me, sounds a lot like reality — getting real, actually.
BTW, sermons and lectures I never give. Sanctimony, boss, is your department. I just write glowing odes to bad Hindi films and say that all Tamil cinema is bad. That’s my department 🙂
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raj
July 12, 2011
You are so disturbed 😆
That’s so typical of a fanatic innit? This fellow is badmouthing hindi so I will throw some blind punches – you are getting touchy about hindi that a mere request to compare made you feel offended on behalf of hindi cinema. And it is not as if I have praised all things tamil and dissed all things hindi here. You have lost your sense in this – admit it.
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bran1gan
July 13, 2011
raj: Actually, no — you didn’t make a request. You never make requests. You never says “do you think this is the case?” – in which case it would seem like a request. You show up with your smugness and demand explanations. Maybe that’s how you interpret “requests” in your bizarro-world, but that’s not how we do it here. And no, that smiley doesn’t fool me. Anyone who’s read your comments over the years knows who you are. You can deny it all you want, but comments are really very revealing — unless of course, this is a facade you put on, in which case congratulations on fooling everybody into thinking you’re a bigot.
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rameshram
July 13, 2011
I think raj is a bigot too. he only speaks english and tamil. I on the other hand am a poly glot because I speak HINDI, english and tamil. 😉
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raj
July 14, 2011
Eh, demand? It was “what do you think about hindi vs tamil now?”
Only iin your wounded mind would that translate as demand as opposed to request. More you come hard on this – faux macho – more you expose your complete loss of marbles(thinking that someone is making fun of my beloved hindi cinema) on this.
Rames gaaru, meeru telugulo kooda matlaadautharu kaadhaa? Adhu pinne parayaadhu poyi engane? Polyglot aayaal pala baashagal ariyaam pattille?
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bran1gan
July 14, 2011
raj: Nice to know that your delusions are ever-deepening.
You never said “what do you think about hindi vs tamil now?” That, I agree is a request. But you exact words were:
“Btw, 2006-07la how Bollywood is soaring above rest of India with if not path breaking, several films that moved off formula apdinnu perusA article pottingalE
Would you write one now comparing the current state of Marathi/Tamil movies and Hindi?”
This sounds like a request to you? A request is something polite. If you’re including “apdinnu perusA article pottingalE,” that’s not a request. So no, the wounded soul (which Ash described well) is all you, the way I see it.
The next time you want to ask something, you may just want to ask but not like this.This is why no one takes you seriously. The only reason I’m even continuing this chain of comments is because it feels good to vent after all these years.
Awaiting your next bout of delusion. Sincerely, etc.
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rameshram
July 14, 2011
by got he speaks telugu and malanjalam! he’s bugot-ed in many languages.
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munimma
July 15, 2011
Trust BR to turn a review of an insipid movie into a fistfight of sorts!
BR – “smug sanctimoniousness of self-conscious and self-unware Hindi haters” – there, you have proved that this is a playground for upper class elites who totally get what you said there. Rediff can’t beat that. do I see a sleight of hand in changing the flow of the kaaramana conversation?
Rameshram – I second BR, you make the comments section tres interesting. And that was vedham puthithu. BTW, is your tongue permanently in your cheek?
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bran1gan
July 15, 2011
BR: “Trust BR to turn a review of an insipid movie into a fistfight of sorts!” Hello! Have you ever known me to fistfight earlier? I mean, like ever? 🙂
And yes, I think rameshram should be an Onion-style reporter on current affairs (or just about anything). He’ll easily be the most widely read journo ever 🙂
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hari
July 15, 2011
eagerly waiting for Raj’s reply …
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munimma
July 15, 2011
BR – do you find yourself saying “narayana, narayana” quite often? 😀
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rameshram
July 15, 2011
ena mimimma kannu, do you wish it were somewhere else? 😉 (this is LA pal,(to quote me replying to a friend’s fb query) everything is available for a price!
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raj
July 16, 2011
You agreed yourself that that was what I requested – why play on semantics now?
You are as deluded as you claim I am. You are touchy about perceived insults on hindi – that’s what your own posts prove.
And in that evry thread I think there was an implicit reference to Kashyapar and bhardwajar’s competence by me. But you have chosen your narrative that I am anti-hindi-blindly and are desparately trying to paint a dummy. If this doesn’t prove your delusions/desparatiom,nothing does.
And I do remember not exactly being so looking forward to
at aaranya kaandam.
All facts conveniently pushed under the carpet by you to suit your narrative.
Which is fine – glad to have reduced a fine reviewer and a good writer to a base instinct. And all because he was touchy about comments on hindi movies that he didn’t agree with.
Attack the person, not the content is goebbelsian-defence #1.
Congrats, you have graduated with honours. Admittedly, it took a lot of effort to slip out of the docile, meek self for you but you have done it. Congrats
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raj
July 16, 2011
And don’t presume about who takes who seriously. You have no idea of that – nor do I – to make such lofty proclamations. And it has no relevance to our discussion. Glad to see yu lose all perspective in your desparation to attack me.
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Shankar
July 16, 2011
@hari….really? At least for me, it’s pretty sad to see the conversation head this way. Nobody benefits and it becomes a back and forth. Enna ketta, Dravid mathiri well left vidanum. Just my point of view.
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bran1gan
July 16, 2011
munimma: If you knew me, you’d know not to ask that question 🙂
raj: Still don’t get it, do you? This is not just about semantics. It’s about a bit of respect and politeness — that’s what a “request” is. Take a look at how you worded your so-called request. Say it out loud and see how it sounds (and see how similar it is to most of the rants you’ve unloaded here over the years.) You still haven’t gotten the fact that it’s not what you said that set me off but HOW you said it. The tone. I’m just taking a stand for all the people you’ve pissed off over the years with your tone, that’s all.
And please, I’m anything but docile and meek. But then, your strong point has always been imagining things, hasn’t it?
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rameshram
July 16, 2011
“And yes, I think rameshram should be an Onion-style reporter on current affairs (or just about anything). He’ll easily be the most widely read journo ever ”
I think he means someone like Jon stewart. do you get the daily show in chennai?
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hari
July 18, 2011
You can get daily show anywhere in the world, all you need is the internet …
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munimma
July 18, 2011
rameshram – you are getting predictable 😉 Jon Stewart,eh? Nenappu thaan!
BR – just the kalagam part 🙂
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Nice Guy
July 18, 2011
I think he means someone like Jon stewart. do you get the daily show in chennai? @rameshram based on your verbal diarrhea more likely rush limbaugh type nutcase.
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rajV2.0
July 19, 2011
common every one checking comments even after nearly 1 month.the argumentative indian never fails.Now please nationalism debate plz
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Guest
July 21, 2011
Love this thread! Best comment: “@rameshram based on your verbal diarrhea more likely rush limbaugh type nutcase”
Most ironic: “And don’t presume about who takes who seriously. You have no idea of that – nor do I – to make such lofty proclamations. And it has no relevance to our discussion. Glad to see yu lose all perspective in your desparation to attack me”
hahahahaha. Raj dude, stay away from Rangan if he’s giving you such an ulcer. Why do these folks feel so entitled (Mohan, Raj)? I can’t even fathom why a reasonably sane person would expect Rangan to see a movie and write about it the way THEY want him to.
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Seethu
August 1, 2011
Just watched the movie.. and if only the story writer had put in this much thought as the comments, the movie would’ve been excellent-o.. or atleast better-o. The ending was lame.. I thought he should’ve chosen between the 2 ladies.
Mohan, I seriously dont see which axe you’re grinding. Coming down on a movie as “made-for-Brahmins” is so 1940s. Get over it dude. Much has changed in the last 70 years. So what if the movie had Brahmin overtones, and so what if brangan subconsciously liked the first half because of that? Tell me another reviewer who’s as open to talking about his reviews.
When I see a movie, I dont think “oh, this movie has a Brahmin/non-Brahmin as principal character” – it doesnt matters to me. I dont go looking for caste-based traits in movies – and even if they appear apparent, I dont blame the movie for focussing on a caste. I appreciate good story telling, period. If the caste is central to the film, so be it.
BTW, you’re mistaken if you think only Brahmins know of “Kausalya Supraja…”. Unfortunately the atheist and/or anti-Brahmin drivel since 1940s would have you believe so.
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guest
November 5, 2011
sema mokka both the bullets and the movie.
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Aajay
January 1, 2012
I just want to say this is so unlike a usual BR review. BR is caught in two minds. He loves the movies, yet knows that the 2nd half is utter nonsense. BR tries to write a unbiased review but he just can’t seem to as the movie as related to him to a very large extent. Honestly, BR sir, it was better off if you hadn’t written the review. A movie which one personally relates, a review is hard to write such that it is completely un biased, covering all the pluses and minuses. Plus i think mohan is spot on in identifying it. Cheers. All this is purely imo, derived from your points and reading your comments BR sir.
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