In Shankar Dayal’s Saguni, Pranathi plays Karthi’s love interest. What drew them to each other? They are related, and have known one another from childhood – but what sparked the attraction as adults? He’s come to Chennai from Karaikudi to appeal against the demolition of his ancestral home, and he’s penniless, so he accepts a job as her chauffeur. Doesn’t this create misgivings in his mind, unease in hers? These are not questions the average mainstream Tamil movie has patience for. He’s a man. She’s a woman. They’ve signed on to play lovers. So we’d better accept them as lovers. We watch listlessly as they do what lovers do in the movies – break into choreographed dance in distant destinations instead of sharing quiet moments, engaging in arguments, discussing dreams and disappointments, and generally being there for each other. By now, we know better than to expect any semblance of a lived-in real-life relationship from lovers in commercial Tamil cinema.
But don’t we have the right to expect at least a semblance of sense in this relationship? Pranathi’s mother (played by Roja) accuses Karthi of pretending to be in love so that he can amass the family’s property. He leaves his job, naturally, but sticks around to explain to Pranathi – she’s on vacation – that that’s not the case. She returns. He looks at her expectantly. But she won’t give him the opportunity to explain. (She believes her mother.) His face falls, as if he expected her to give him a chance. When you’re supposedly in love with a man, wouldn’t you demand from him an explanation? Wouldn’t you give him a chance? And when your girlfriend brushes you aside, so callously, wouldn’t you insist on telling her what really happened, so that she at least has the facts on hand before she makes her decision? But no – they go their respective ways. She weeps. And we cut to a “happy song” in an Alpine wonderland.
Who writes these things? And why do they have so much contempt for the audience? Saguni, as the title suggests, is about the political games that Karthi is forced to play in order to save his home, and these scenarios – involving a host of well-regarded (and randomly discarded) actors like Prakash Raj, Radhika, Kota Srinivasa Rao, Nasser – are about as plausible as the one that led to the leads cavorting in snow-capped mountains to register their profound sorrow. Politics and the movies are made for each other, and we’ve had some memorable entertainments in the past that straddled the ground realities of the former with the make-believe of the latter – like Shankar’s Mudhalvan, one of the great populist fantasies that gift-wrapped what-if moments with sublime wish-fulfillment. Here, nothing is at stake, the winners and losers frustratingly preordained. But the audience I watched the movie with didn’t seem to complain. We get the governments we deserve. We get the movies we deserve.
Or maybe they, like me, had decided to forget the rest of the plot and be entertained by Santhanam. What a golden zone this actor’s career is in. His appearance – as a Super Star worshipper, and the sole auto driver in Chennai who goes by the meter – garners more applause than the leading man’s. Just by showing up, he makes people laugh, whether enumerating the clichés in our rural romances or while rhyming “foreign” with “urine.” Even Karthi, who can’t seem to decide if he’s in a drama or a comedy, shines in his company – the two strike up a nice rapport when they discover their names are Kamal and Rajini, and it’s almost a relief that the entire first half is devoted to their shtick. It’s hardly the pinnacle of humour when they relieve themselves against a compound wall and are hauled away by cops named Ajith, Vijay and Trisha. But if the alternative is to sit through mindlessly inserted songs and fights and tired demagoguery, we’ll take it, thank you very much.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
Copyright ©2012 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Adarsh V
June 23, 2012
Wonderfully written, especially about the romance in our movies. Remove the songs, and Anushka doing a guest apperance had more screentime than Pranitha the heroine..
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Prakash
June 23, 2012
The woman’s … Ok..the gal’s name is not Pranathi but its anagram. Youv’e seen the wrong movie and hence the entire piece goes null and void. #Eppudiiiii :)))). Seriously speaking, nethiadi vimarsanam.
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venkatesh
June 23, 2012
“What a golden zone this actor’s career is in” – am i the only one who finds this guy already repetitive ?
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mukul
June 23, 2012
this is a very interesting review.Especially when you consider as a debut film the director would have shown more maturity in handling romance portions in todays day and age atleast. I also hope you would write a review on the recently released film thadayara thaaka. in many levels it was a surprising film especially if one goes in with little expectations.
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Rohit Ramachandran
June 24, 2012
“We get the governments we deserve. We get the movies we deserve.”
Hahahahaha, brilliant!
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vijay
June 24, 2012
“Just by showing up, he makes people laugh”
Those are the perils of watching in a theater, with a crowd that prompts you to laugh as soon as he shows up. This is how they make comedians out of nincompoops
When you sit in in the confines of your home and watch these movies in isolation some time later you may realize how annoying and one-note Santhanam is. All that he can do is channelize Goundamani. Thats about it. And he falls short even there. Ivana poyi “actor” nu vera sollureenga
“or while rhyming “foreign” with “urine.”
already done by Vadivelu in Mudhalvan when press guys hound Arjun’s character all the way to the restroom. “enga ayyya foreign’ka poraar, urineku dhaane da poraar”, Even otherwise this is the kind of pun that someone like Vivek( a much more talented and well-rounded comedian in his peak years) could conjure up in his sleep
I am not sure if you have watched much of early-to-mid 90s comedy tracks, mostly Gounder related stuff. I am not a big fan of his but he nailed these kind of nakkal roles really well
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vijay
June 24, 2012
And Karthi is somebody who is quickly losing it. A couple of more Siruthais and he must be put to rest. Avanum avan kONa vaai sirippum
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Manojh (@manojh3012)
June 24, 2012
After watching this, I struggled to recollect a masala script in the last few years of tamil cinema when the heroine was mercilessly obliterated from the scheme of things, and drew a blank. Atleast, Tamanna had something to do in Siruthai’s climax.
Also, I was of the opinion that we could churn out some “sensible” masala movies, movies that gave you the worth-my-money feel because they moved at break-neck speed and were to some extent interesting – ayan, ko and rewind further – ghilli, saamy etc.
Siruthai and now this are new lows in the masala genre for me.
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Manojh (@manojh3012)
June 24, 2012
To be more specific, hero’s fight against an establishment type masala
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Kumar
June 24, 2012
I think Amaidhipadai should probably be among the best political satires of the 90s. Tughlaq was another master class. Since 2000, there have been very few movies in this genre. We either have action movies with politics thrown in or vigilante dramas.
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brangan
June 24, 2012
Prakash: I know, I know. The sub told me as much later (and if you notice the version on the Hindu site, it says Pranita). My bad.
venkatesh/vijay: “golden zone” in terms of audience reception. I agree that he’s already become a bit repetitive, and in a movie like Kalakalappu (I reviewed it here), he’s not as amusing. But in something so bad as this one, we take all the help we get.
Actually the gounder tracks were a different level altogether, because that was the first time something like this was happening — not just “clean fun” but also a bit of cruelty, a bit of debasement, a bit of satire… Unlike the Nagesh tracks, which were “wholesome” for the large part, the attraction in the Gounder tracks was the disreputability. Even the Parthiban-Vadivelu combos I find much more inventive than Santhanam and the rest.
mukul: Have been meaning to watch that. A lot of people said good things about it.
Manojh: Dhool told a similar story in a much more entertaining manner. And this may be a minor point, but the songs there were shot very well. I break into hives every time a story set in India goes off to some Scottish isle for a song. Their logic is that the paamaran doesn’t go these places and so it’s like a tourist-y distraction for them, but I suspect that if they took a survey amongst the paamarans, they’ll end up surprised…
Kumar: Actually this cannot be compared to Amaidhippadai simply because it’s not all that political. Nobody is going to mistake this for a satire…
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Udhav Naig
June 24, 2012
You have started reviewing Tamil films regularly? Nice.
What happened to Hindu’s aasthana critic?
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Vasisht Das
June 24, 2012
Q: “Who writes these things? And why do they have so much contempt for the audience?”
A: “We get the governments we deserve. We get the movies we deserve.”
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Adarsh
June 24, 2012
Wonderful write up. I havent watched the movie yet, but was it so bad that you had to write this instead of the aasthana critic doin it her(?) usual way inorder to make it look good? :p
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brangan
June 24, 2012
Comments from the Hindu web site:
It is unfortunate that Shankar Dayal has failed to give credit for the title to Subramaniam Swamy. If he does not know it, let him know at least now that the word; Saguni & amd Swamy are synonymous and that Swamy has exclusive copyright for this name of his.
from: S.Sugunakumar
Posted on: Jun 23, 2012 at 21:58 IST
Honest feedback will be an advice to watch the comedy scenes alone in TV and not to venture to theatres… After a promising start and a string of good choices, Karthi has faltered though he acts his portion well – may be the difference in narration and final product was too much. Also makes us feel as if trying to edit the movie to fit the stipulated time has made it look odd and discontinous (an issue with Karthi’s Aiyrathil Oruvan too)… Could have been better 😦
from: Siva
Posted on: Jun 23, 2012 at 23:50 IST
apart from Andrea, Anushka… even Pranitha seems to be guest appearence..except for songs and last scene…seems to be missing in most parts of the film
from: saranyan
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 00:33 IST
The review captures beautifully what I felt after watching this movie. There is NO logic whatsover, and I have seen and liked other illogical movies. This one however, is so unimpressive in its details, that you wonder how the actors actually accepted to do it. It’s like the director asked his kid to think of a story, and then visualized it on screen.. or it could be that the director still is a Kid in his thinking. Whatever may be the case, all the talent has been wasted on this so called “entertainer”..
from: Jeeva
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 12:10 IST
By reading this review, i am unable to make out neither it is a good
movie nor what is the movie all about. B Rangan is using these column
thrust on the readers what his personal preferences are which is very
much the same like what the director of this movie has done, which is
not like Rangan… in the veins leaves same impact on me as well..
A more more matured approach in writing is desired
from: Nanda gopal
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 12:47 IST
its a flop..don’t waste time by watching this movie
from: shukoor
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 16:19 IST
‘Shaguni’ in Kannada stands for dung of a cow/bull. But that comes to much use. This movie doesn’t rise to those levels. Abominable. If this level of professionalism is applied to a grocery store, all customers will slip and fall on arrival, and those that manage to get out alive with purchases will die of poisoning.
from: B S Kumar
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 16:19 IST
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 24, 2012
Enjoyed the review. Yeah, Santhanam is in that golden zone. Every comedian gets to be in that zone for 5 to 6 years before fading out. Goundamani stayed there for the longest time, about 10 years. Santhanam is in his second or third year. I thought he was pretty good in masala cafe but his jokes fell flat in oru kal oru Kannadi. .
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Manjunath M
June 25, 2012
“We get the governments we deserve. We get the movies we deserve.”
A punch line even a RAJINI movie would miss………respect Mr. Rangan
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DLPR
June 25, 2012
The dialogue that I remembered the most when people were laughing during Kathi – Santhanam comedy track was “Idhu avalo periya comedy illa”.
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Praveen
June 25, 2012
Rangan Sir, did you watch this? 🙂
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brangan
June 25, 2012
Praveen: OMFG! That was hilarious. Thanks 🙂 Who’s this dude? Does he do this regularly?
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vijay
June 25, 2012
“I break into hives every time a story set in India goes off to some Scottish isle for a song. Their logic is that the paamaran doesn’t go these places and so it’s like a tourist-y distraction for them, but I suspect that if they took a survey amongst the paamarans, they’ll end up surprised…
”
Thats why you gotta hand it to MR..he scouts the hell out of desi locations. Running to Switzerland or Swaziland for a song has never been his style.
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raj
June 25, 2012
I read this on print. At first, I didnt notice the reviewer’s name, and I checked the byline. Ofcourse, it wasnt the usual reviewer.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 25, 2012
Great video. Who is this guy Roger.
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Raj Balakrishnan
June 25, 2012
Oops he is review raja, thought roger.
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Hermoine Granger
June 26, 2012
Just about to post the ReviewRaja video. Now that’s a proper Indian review ratings, storyline, and all! (evil grin). Btw, what’s with the sudden overflow of output these days? Working overtime?
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venkatesh
June 26, 2012
Praveen : You are my Hero .
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brangan
June 27, 2012
Comment on Hindu web site:
Watched the movie yesterday and its pathetic. There is absolutely no coherence at all in the plot. Such a waste of time and money
from: Ramya
Posted on: Jun 24, 2012 at 19:37 IST
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raj
June 27, 2012
Rewriting my comment – because for the first time I know, BR modded it (for a reference to his colleague’s name)
Basically, when I read this in print first, I had assumed it was the “Regular Hindu Reviewer” and was wondering if BR had managed to indoctrinate her into his way of thinking – for, instead of giving credits to “the lightman who lighted up Karthi’s face in the postoffice scene”, this was talking about relationship dynamiocs(ort he lack of it). Then I realised it was B Rangan himself. . BR, does it look okay now?
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Praveen
June 27, 2012
Here you go
And
Review Raja on FB
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Praveen
June 30, 2012
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brangan
July 1, 2012
Praveen: Thanks 🙂 And interesting that he says Kamalahasan instead of Kamal Haasan. Some real research is going into these videos 🙂
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Praveen
July 1, 2012
True Mr.Rangan. I have a doubt if he has a Tamilian roomie feeding him with a good dose of Tamil cinema, trivia and data.
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