Spoilers ahead…
In Pizza, Karthik Subbaraj displayed a talent for the twist, but that was simply at the level of the narrative. In his second feature, Jigarthanda, Subbaraj pulls the rug out from under the traditional constructs of the hero and heroine, whom we almost always know as good people, washed in white. Kayal (Lakshmi Menon) says, at one point, that she is not like a “cinema heroine”, and we nod fervently – for she’s done something vengeful, something a “cinema heroine” would never do. As for the hero, Karthik (Siddharth), his moral centre is… well, he doesn’t seem to have one. He uses a friend (Karunakaran). He uses Kayal. He’s an unabashed opportunist. He’s a maker of short films who’s got his big shot at making a feature, based on the life of a Madurai gangster – “Assault” Sethu (Simhaa) – and he goes about his work with the ruthless single-mindedness of a hungry shark chasing its prey.
Karthik trains his camera on Sethu and requests him for his catalogue of sins, and when Sethu begins to talk about murders and kidnappings, Karthik isn’t horrified – a slow smile spreads over his face. Kaching. All this is material for the movie. As Sethu narrates the story of his life, Karthik sees these events as scenes from the screenplay he will write – each scene unfolds with “actors” he will cast, and with screenplay notations (“EXT”, “SCENE”), and he even gets a fix on the interval point. In a scene that’s played for laughs – but really shows how far Karthik will go – Karthik positions his camera on a tripod as Sethu, surrounded by his goons, sits across a rival for talks. Karthik realizes that the scene is flat – it needs some action. So a complicit Sethu (he’s bought into the fact that his life is becoming a movie) issues a signal and all hell breaks loose, and Karthik snatches the camera from the tripod and begins to film the scene in hand-held fashion. The only thing that matters to him is his art. His producer wants a blood-spattered gangster movie – the brief sounds juicier in Tamil: “raththam therikka therikka”– and that’s the most important thing.
So on the one hand, Jigarthanda is the gangster movie that the producer wants. It takes the classic trope of a mole infiltrating a gang and turns it on its head – it’s a filmmaker who sneaks in. Subbaraj’s detailing is meticulous – also quirky and tongue-in-cheek. When a couple makes out, they aren’t just making out – they’re making out with Kate and Leo masks in front of a television set that’s broadcasting Titanic. When a character gets out of an auto-rickshaw, he doesn’t just step out – we see his legs first, swinging out in slow motion, clad in checkered pajamas. And the editing rhythms are slightly (and delightfully) out of whack. Karthik asks a gangster he’s befriended to tell him about Sethu, and the next instant we cut to the song Kannamma, which follows Karthik and Kayal through the early stages of their relationship. And I loved the extra seconds the camera lingers on Sivaji Ganesan’s face when a shootout occurs during a screening of Paasamalar. (The juxtaposition of the gentle song, Malarndhum malaraadha, and the gory action has to be the drollest touch in Tamil cinema this year.) The writing is refreshingly out of whack too. An assassination scene ends with Sethu calmly doing what he came to do in the first place. (I won’t spoil it for you. It’s hilarious.)
But there’s something else going on in Jigarthanda, and that’s a meta movie about moviemaking itself. Not for nothing is the hero named after the director. Subbaraj seems to be saying that the only way to make the movie you really want to make in the present Tamil-cinema scenario – where anyone, apparently, can become a hero and begin calling the shots, and where directors with vision are forced to compromise – is to become some sort of gangster, so that you don’t have to fall at the feet of others; the others will do the falling, at your feet. Jigarthanda is, at some level, a perverse wish-fulfillment fantasy, and its narrative arc traces the progression of the making of a movie. First, we see the flash of desire. Then the money kicks in. Then it’s on to the scripting and location scouting. Then, we end up on the sets – lines are fed to non-actors, “sarakku” songs are staged, love happens, comedy happens, a kinda-sorta love triangle happens, and we see what happens to wannabe filmmakers who don’t have the drive of a Karthik (whether Subbaraj, or the hero). They end up with hoarded dreams, refusing to wake up even after decades.
Scene for scene, Jigarthanda is fresh and alive and cracklingly inventive, and there are stupendous stretches of comedy – with an acting coach; with a revolver loaded with a single bullet; with a camera that needs recharging. But the two films – the gangster movie and the meta movie – never really cohere. When the film begins, it’s a drama. Then it takes a detour into borderline-absurdist comedy. And it becomes a drama all over again. The changes in tone are jarring, and most problematic in the case of the characterization of Sethu. Simhaa is terrific – he’s the film’s centre, its anchor. His hair and beard are graying, his teeth are mottled – he looks like Rob Schneider after a month at a tanning salon. He has a great intro scene, where he sets a journalist on fire, and the entire first half is devoted to furthering the legend of this man’s grisliness. But midway, he’s reduced to a buffoon. His shtick is good, but it’s also terribly out of character – it’s like watching a film where the Robert De Niro character from The Godfather: Part II transforms into the Robert De Niro character from Analyze This. (Or closer home, one where the Kamal Haasan character from Nayakan transforms, in the second half, to the Kamal Haasan character from Vasool Raja MBBS.) Why did we need such an elaborate buildup to Sethu’s life of crime (the film runs a numbing 170 minutes) if his best scenes are going to milk his character for comedy? Or seen the other way, why would a character so steeped in blood stoop, overnight, to such tomfoolery? Or is Subbaraj saying that the lure of cinema is such that even such a man, this “oru maadhiriyana psycho,” cannot resist his life being turned into a big-screen gangster saga like Nayakan or Thalapathi, even at the cost of his dignity?
Subbaraj thinks exclusively in terms of twists – the one involving the eventual destinies of Karthik and Sethu is a doozy, at least in theory – and he shortchanges us when it comes to the emotional graphs of the characters. This wasn’t a problem in Pizza, where all we were required to do was scream (and later, slap our heads in surprise), but it makes the character-heavy Jigarthanda a lesser movie than what it could have been. I wished Kayal had been given more to do – the part comes off as underwritten, and when she expresses strong feelings for Karthik, we are taken back by her teary intensity. And with the others, things seem to happen too conveniently. I was never convinced that Karthik, who’s shown to be such a scaredy-cat at first, could pull all this off, befriending gangsters without breaking a sweat and eavesdropping on others. As for Sethu, he’s reduced to the plight of the garden-variety Tamil-film gangster – reacting to scenes with “mother sentiment” and “child sentiment”. It’s a good thing Santhosh Narayanan is around. His flamboyant score imbues even the weaker scenes with a Tarantinoesque swagger.
And yet, we are readier to forgive Jigarthanda its flaws than we are with other films – and I think it has to with its new-gen vibe. When earlier filmmakers displayed ambition, they still worked within the contours of the “Tamil film” – at most, you could call their work a “Westernised” take on the Tamil film – but filmmakers like Subbaraj are ushering in genuinely singular and outré modes of expression, with morally ambiguous characters and with take-it-or-leave-it tropes from the wide world of cinema, and yet trying to infuse it all with a sense of Tamil-ness. He isn’t just walking a tightrope – the tightrope is oiled and he’s riding a unicycle and it’s all happening over the Niagara Falls. You can’t stop watching. He even works in a bit of reflexive criticism. At the beginning, Karthik is on a television programme, awaiting the jury’s verdict on his short film. A National Award-winning director calls it rubbish. A producer, a less lofty man, concerned only about profits, says it’s the best film in the competition. And a war of words ensues between Art and Commerce. Films like Jigarthanda, targeted at Twittery youth, fight a mighty fight to bridge that divide, striving to make a commercially viable entertainment with truckloads of auteurist artistry. If nothing else, you have to respect the man on the unicycle.
KEY:
* Jigarthanda = see here
* Pizza = see here
* mole infiltrating a gang = see here
* Titanic = see here
* Kannamma = see here
* Malarndhum malaraadha = see here
* Simhaa is terrific = see here
* Rob Schneider = see here
* oru maadhiriyana psycho = some kind of psycho
* the man on the unicycle = see here
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2014 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
MANK
August 2, 2014
He isn’t just walking a tightrope – the tightrope is oiled and he’s riding a unicycle and it’s all happening over the Niagara Falls. You can’t stop watching.
What a line man!. This is why we cant stop reading you. You review really has me salivating. Its after a long time that you have gone so much in detail of a tamil film, so i believe its a movie worth experiencing.
Subbaraj seems to be saying that the only way to make the movie you really want to make in the present Tamil-cinema scenario is to become some sort of gangster, so that you don’t have to fall at the feet of others; the others will do the falling, at your feet
God Forbid!!
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Bart
August 2, 2014
Watched the movie and read your review. Enjoyed both. The movie ended 10 mins b4 it did (after the on road head to head clash). I too felt simha doing comedy in second half diluted the intensity. You never felt for any character in the movie. Great music and camerawork. Heroine and her mother’s characters underwritten ( y get into saurashtra spoken, Saree lifting …). More focused writing and editing might’ve elevated the movie more
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oneWithTheH
August 2, 2014
I enter this (South)Indian Cinemas in silicon valley for the Friday 10.45 PM show(an earlier show was at 7.45 PM) and see this incredible queue starting from the entrance to one of the halls, passing through the length of the corridor, extending well outside into the side-walk. Every other facility in the vicinity has closed down for the night but for this one.
The place is buzzing and when I eventually get to the ticket counter, somebody on the other side of it screams “Jigarthanda sold out 10.45 and 11.30 PM shows..”
I was disappointed but pleasantly surprised and happy too.
I have never anything like this before. That too for a movie sans any “star”cast.
If this is not word of mouth and social media dictating, I don’t know what else is!!
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Vijayakumar
August 2, 2014
What a daring and original movie! I sincerely hope that we get to see attempts like these more often.
MANK has said it already, but I will say it again.
“He isn’t just walking a tightrope – the tightrope is oiled and he’s riding a unicycle and it’s all happening over the Niagara Falls. You can’t stop watching.”
Amazing line!
The movie sure had its problems, but they all fade away when compared to what it has achieved. I did have an issue though with the film within this film – “a. kumar” – I mean what the heck was that and how was it such a big hit? They say it is some new genre and stuff, but it looked like a Power Star movie to me. 😀 Probably that is why they used the name Terror Star, but then again how come everyone loves it? I thought the movie was still travelling in realistic territory.
And I usually look at some technical aspects of the movie too when I watch, but never have I paid this much attention to sound. Especially for that long single shot that ends up in the assassination, I just looked at the Atmos speakers above me to notice where exactly the sounds are coming from, thanks to that wonderful article. That scene was riveting and the sound added a lot of value; the effect would not have been the same if it was shot in a motel and ended in its restroom. I loved the pre-interval stretch as well involving Soundar, that couple with masks that ends with Sethu waiting at Karthik’s doorstep. The drama in itself was carrying the scene, but the sound was used so deftly that it elevated its mood to a different level.
Also BR, why don’t you do many interviews with directors these days? I would love to see these new-gen directors sharing their perspectives through your questions! Can we expect to see something like that soon?
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Ravi K
August 2, 2014
SOME SPOILERS
I watched this film with a bit of trepidation, but every time it felt like it was veering towards the usual filmi stuff the film subverted it. The love story, such as it is, doesn’t develop like you expect it to. The heroine was underdeveloped, as is usually the case in Tamil films, but for a change she had some personality beyond “stock love interest” and even some negative shades. Even Karthik is not especially likeable. I had issues here and there (like how the one gangster knew that the bug in Sounder’s phone transmitted
I liked the twist regarding “A. Kumar,” but the film starts to feel long when we get into the acting school bits and the making of the film within the film. The tone shifts didn’t bother me too much. I felt the film had earned them by this point.
The twist regarding “A. Kumar” had a bit of a “Bowfinger” influence in that Sethu had no idea that Karthik was making this movie. And I saw a little bit of the end of “Sullivan’s Travels” in Sethu’s reaction to people enjoying the film. But those (possible) influences felt organic. However, I wonder why Sethu wouldn’t demand to see the film before it was shown to an audience.
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kumare
August 3, 2014
once Sethu knows karthik is there to make a film, he becomes very close (alomst is shown as a comedian) – this is seen to be an abrupt and jarring transition by many including in this review.. I guess a point is missed here. If you notice closely, while narrating Sethu says life goes on in a routine way..and amongst the gang, they keep it going only with humor and mocking (which is true in every group of friends, not necessarily gangsters) .. the transition is to show that gangsters too are real people..
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Pranesh
August 3, 2014
The first half was terrific. Haven’t seen such applause at the interval for a Tamil movie. I hope Simha gets some meaningful awards and nice roles for his acting here.He’s easily the hero of this one.
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Ram Murali
August 3, 2014
He isn’t just walking a tightrope – the tightrope is oiled and he’s riding a unicycle and it’s all happening over the Niagara Falls. You can’t stop watching.
–> I know that I am not the first commentor to be AMAZED by your incredible play of words. But I wanted to doff my hat off to you…such vivid imagery with words…kalakkiteenge sir! “aaha, pramaadham…review review…padi…!” (in case you didn’t recognize it, it’s a twist on what kamal says in the “kanmani” song in “guna”)
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Pranesh
August 3, 2014
oneWithTheH: I think we watch in the same theater. A piece of advice: The thursday 7:45 is the best time to watch 🙂 For the larger productions, there is a stupid cake cutting party at 10 45 on Thursdays. I just get off early from work on Thursdays and catch the movie.
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Banupriya
August 3, 2014
Simha shown as a terrifying psychotic rowdy and reduced to a buffoon in the second half is the whole point of the movie.when u r criticizing it and making analogies..it simply shows tat u didnt understand the movie..dissapointing review!!!
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Bart: I too felt simha doing comedy in second half diluted the intensity.
For me, it’s not about diluting the intensity. I can very well live with this transformation from villain to buffoon. Heck, it’s exciting when a filmmaker tries to do this (hence my line about the tightope at the end). It’s really out-of-the-box thinking.
But it’s not ORGANIC. (And how do we know something is organically done in a film? When we are CONVINCED by it. And here I was not convinced.) It’s a great idea in theory but it’s not pulled off, IMO, very well. And I felt a distinct disconnect with the character once he started going down the buffoon route.
You never felt for any character in the movie.
But that’s okay, no? There is one of those look-how-cool-I-am movies, and these films are rarely about emotion. That’s why I felt — as I mentioned in the review — that Kayal’s breakdown and tears etc. weren’t convincing. They belong in some other movie. In such a film, she should have been a “vengeful bitch” and we’d have celebrated her for it. (I mean, you’re already making the hero a bastard, so why not shape the heroine on similar lines? An eye on the box office, perhaps?)
This is why “Aaranya Kaandam” is a much superior film. That too is very much a look-how-cool-I-am movie, but it doesn’t bother with emotion or sentiment. It stays true to its vision, whether with the men or the women characters. It doesn’t pander. It also didn’t do well, which is why we may have directors like Subbaraj taking care to… compromise at places.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Vijayakumar: it looked like a Power Star movie to me
I found these portions quite underwhelming. And it seemed to me that Subbaraj was thinking more along the lines of this whole “villain to comedian” thing being a clever TWIST that would get people abuzz, rather than something organic he wanted to explore in the storytelling.
Subbaraj is a very good director. If he became a good writer too, then we’d really have something… I’d hate to see him turn into a desi equivalent of M Night Shyamalan, obsessed with giving us films with gimmicky, genre-bending twists all the time.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Ravi K: the film starts to feel long when we get into the acting school bits
After the twist, didn’t you look back at the first half and reevaluate it just a little bit? I did. As the second half went on, I was wondering why the first half needed to be so long and so detailed about getting to the point where Karthik begins to make the movie about Sethu. The whole thing could have been done in half the time.
But then this is the problem with the whole interval concept. When you write your screenplay with this in mind, you know you HAVE to have a big bang around interval point — and the biggest bang in the story is Sethu finding out. So that HAS to be the halfway point. And then you realise that your main movie is beginning in the second half…
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brangan
August 3, 2014
A link, again, to the article I did about the sound of “Jigarthanda”:
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Lakshman
August 3, 2014
A Special mention to the guy who played the acting teacher Muthu Sir. Howlarious stuff.
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 3, 2014
For me, it did not seem like the main movie began in the second half. If you construct a don in the first half, there are two ways to continue his story. The conventional first way is to explain why he turned this way, what the consequences of his decision to become a don was etc; basically going for a grand tragedy. The second is to treat the don not as an archetype but as just another professional. Instead of going for the plaything-of-a-grand-fate angle you go for the casual-blunder-that-finished-his-carefully-builtup-career-off angle. Pudhupettai did at this near the end when Kokki Kumar swiftly and opportunistically catapults himself into becoming a philanthropist. Jigarthanda explores the second trajectory right from the beginning of the second half; for this, the premise had to be solidly set in the first half. Otherwise the film simply becomes about how Karthik made a fool out of Sethu. But now, the film is a meditation on how we have been thinking of gangsters. We have been thinking of them in a grand tragic way. This film nudges us to think of a gangster as another professional who can make a hubristic and fatal misstep (like stockbrokers who caught for insider trading). I felt the film needed the prolonged first half that prompts the viewer to expect a grand faceoff.
When we take seriously the fact that the hero is named after the director, then there might be another way of processing the first half. Really, I am half-embarrassed to do such an analysis, but it’s fun, so I will do it anyway. The first half introduces us to the mythical “common man” who the director must study to please the producer. This Common Man (Sethu) is inscrutable. Karthik’s three targets for getting into Sethu’s mind are symbolic of what CM wants to see in films: forgetful intoxication, titillation, and same old stories. At the end of the first half CM is about to finish off Karthik’s career. CM arm-twists the producer into making a film that he wants. The second half is about how the Karthik is driven to embrace the system and still create something “new” (what else but a farcical comedy, as is common nowadays) that will both help his career and please the producer. And right about this time we get a heroine who confesses her love over tears, a don who succumbs to mother-sentiment and finally understands the superiority of laughter over fear. It is all a lot of kitsch and enhances the farce.
Seen this way Jigarthanda is a meta-film, an artistic critique of our films.
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MANK
August 3, 2014
Brangan, so this Organic thing- is it a truly individualistic as you point out- “i was not convinced”- or can we generalize about it a little and say this character has to go through a certain arc to achieve this transformation?.Or may be some transformations just dont work well when put on screen.Reason i say this , there are countless films where a good guy becomes bad and it looks very convincing to me (greatest eg being michael corleone in Godfather 1& 2), but the reverse – the bad guy becoming good- is not (eg:Godfather 3). Or in a film where both happens – say Kamalahaasan in Hey Ram- his transformation from a non violent man to a violent Gandhi hater and would be killer looked totally convincing, but his final transformation – back to being a gandhi worshipper falling at his feet – looked too abrupt and convenient to look convincing . Which i believe was a major failing of the film, which otherwise for me would have been a masterpiece.May be a similair problem exists in transforming a villain into a buffoon.
But then this is the problem with the whole interval concept. When you write your screenplay with this in mind, you know you HAVE to have a big bang around interval point
I believe this interval thing is restricted to only indian films now. So do you say the foreign screenwriters have a distinct advantage as they dont have to accommodate this. Would our film be better off if we got rid of the interval point altogether.I believe this interval thing is more a diktat of the theater owners than the filmmakers, true?
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: What an absolutely marvellous reading. Your deconstruction about the “Common Man” is especially wonderful. Thanks.
To address your points:
(1) Your “Pudhupettai” example is most apt in explaining why I felt the way I did. Not for a moment did I question Kokki Kumar’s transformation, as it was solidly built up to. It felt organic. It felt like something that could happen in the course of the story.
But here, I wasn’t convinced. The shift was too abrupt. One scene, he’s baying for blood. The next, almost the minute he learns that Karthik is a filmmaker, he capitulates/changes. This didn’t work for me at all.
For instance, why not have Karthik work on him some more? Do we ever get the feeling that Karthik is playing with fire in the second half? Not once. But we do in the first half — which is why the first half worked for me.
(2) premise had to be solidly set in the first half
See, I’m not saying that the first half CANNOT be so long. Had the second half convinced me — the way it’s obviously convinced you — then the first half would have posed no problem. But I was left wishing that SO much time need not have been devoted to established what a terrible man Sethu is. And more time could have been devoted to Sethu’s transition.
So your farcical-comedy reading still holds — but with more conviction. The issue for me isn’t that Sethu is made a buffoon. It’s *how* he’s made a buffoon, so quickly — like hot water poured on a pack of instant noodles, if you will.
And I agree, this is very much a meta movie.
Oh, and no need to be embarrassed about analysis. Some people *will* laugh and say really stupid things like “even the director wouldn’t have thought all this” — but then those people know nothing, right? 😉
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Aravindan
August 3, 2014
>>And yet, we are readier to forgive Jigarthanda its flaws than we are with other films – and I think it has to with its new-gen vibe>>
Please tell me this is not true. I really don’t want already be NOT liking films with new-gen vibe. இன்னும் கல்யாணம் கூட ஆகல்ல சார். 😛
*SPOILERS*
There was a ridiculous scene at a funeral about a woman switching from crying for the loss to appreciating a new-gen vibe film (ரொம்பக் கோவமா அழுத்திச் சொல்றேன் இத :P) and back to crying. That was *so* meta, I hope unintentionally – how jarring and ridiculous half of the film was.
Almost nothing was borrowed from the “first-half” – the atmosphere, emotions, tone – only the people – and worse, they behaved altogether like someone else. I tried to get over it and buy the comedy, buy the commentary on the ‘system’ (as one review called it), buy the sentiments – ஆனா நடு வீட்ல பொணம் கெடக்க என்ன இதெல்லாம்னு புரியல. Then you try to forget what you expected based on a half of the film and try to like what is presented – but the big shifts in the film are so incidental (as you say “Subbaraj thinks exclusively in terms of twists”) – அந்த நேரத்துல இவனே நடிக்கலாம்னு அவ சொல்லப் போக, லவ் சீன் எடுக்குற நேரமாப் பாத்து அந்தப் பொண்ணு ஷூட்டிங்க பாக்க வர…then love story goes on, an idea like அழுகுணி குமார் is presented (I cringed), you are told how the film crew very ‘cleverly’ fooled Sethu (almost no one seems to talk about this), you are told about the responses, you are asked to take the sentiments presented. And then mom spoke, dead man’s wife and kid spoke, Mani Ratnam’s number was asked. ரொம்ப கஷ்டபட்டுட்டேன்.
Quite disappointing given that I was very excited about the big gangster scenes in the first half. (Again they were just well made scenes, nothing more).
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brangan
August 3, 2014
MANK: It is personal, right? Because when you say “something is convincing,” what you’re really saying is “something is convincing to ME.”
but the reverse – the bad guy becoming good- is not (eg:Godfather 3)
It looks convincing when the director takes care to hide the bad guy’s bad deeds — and the most obvious example in this case is Mani Ratnam, whose anti-hero characters (from “Pagal Nilavu” to “Nayakan” to “Thalapathi” to “Kadal”) are never shown to be really bad. They are always painted with symapthetic strokes — so it’s easy for us to accept their transformation.
But imagine “Nayakan” beginning with Velu — just for kicks — burning a man alive instead of killing him cleanly with a bullet. So we know, at once, that this chap is a really bad guy. And the director has to take much more effort to transform him into a good man. You just can’t flip a switch and turn him good.
do you say the foreign screenwriters have a distinct advantage as they dont have to accommodate this.
Yes, with certain stories I do feel this. Like in “Aayidha Ezhuthu,” the interval was a major hindrance (this is discussed in the book). Ideally, the three stories should have played out in the first half, and the second half should have been about how these three threads came together.
Without an interval, you don’t have to think of a film in terms of “halves”, and you don’t have to save the “big bang” for the midpoint — you can position it wherever you want. All this helps a movie.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Aravindan: There was a ridiculous scene at a funeral about a woman switching from crying for the loss to appreciating a new-gen vibe film
A couple of things at work here. One, the staging is not that great. The acting of that woman was quite TV-level and poor. Had it been staged better, I feel this moment would have been much more impactful.
Actually, I felt there were other such scenes that were not as impactful as I hoped. One was the scene where the cop comes in just after the murder. It was a great set up for black comedy, but the scene didn’t quite get there.
“அந்த நேரத்துல இவனே நடிக்கலாம்னு அவ சொல்லப் போக”
Yeah, this wasn’t well-developed, and IMO< further evidence that Subbaraj thought up this thing only for twist value. Because in the next scene, she's sobbing and apologising… Given the way Karthik has treated way, why not punish him some more? This way, the girl does something ballsy and then immediately feels bad about it — and it's as if Subbaraj felt that any more shades of grey and the audience wouldn't like Kayal anymore.
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 3, 2014
brangan: … almost the minute he learns that Karthik is a filmmaker, he capitulates/changes. This didn’t work for me at all.
Oh, apologies; I now understand what you mean. I have to agree. Kokki Kumar’s transition definitely felt more organic in a way that Sethu’s did not.
*But*, when I was watching the film I completely slurped up the interval twist, oblivious to the fact that Sethu is acting out of character. Now that you mention it, even Spy Henchman’s penchant for being photographed is foreshadowed by showing that he loves to dress up like a film star. He even gets chided by Sethu for that. But there is no hint that Sethu would like his legacy to be known widely etc. So I agree that his shift is abrupt, and that the first half could have been used to massage his character into a shape that would cohere with his behavior in the second half.
Do we ever get the feeling that Karthik is playing with fire in the second half? Not once.
Yes, I was surprised that Sethu tolerated the acting coach so much. He could easily have beat him up (and Karthik too) just like he beat up the producer. Again, when I look back now, this is not quite right, *unless* somewhere Sethu’s love for the theatre was hinted at strongly (the school play anecdote is inadequate, though I can now imagine how it could have been used powerfully and swiftly to supply this hint, especially because it is a moment in which he is opening up).
It’s *how* he’s made a buffoon, so quickly — like hot water poured on a pack of instant noodles, if you will.
Haha. I think I was distracted thinking how awfully clever it is that someone realized that this was only instant noodles–not regular-soak-for-hours-to-soften noodles– and all one needed to do was to pour hot water 🙂
So, I think the reason the film on the whole mostly worked for me was because I wasn’t really conscious of being manipulated to suck up twists. As a result, I guess I just lowered my guard for missed dramatic potential and stilted characterization. Not sure why, but at some point, I stopped expecting any consistency. Entirely subjective.
Some people *will* laugh and say really stupid things like “even the director wouldn’t have thought all this” — but then those people know nothing, right?
🙂 I am reminded of the scene in “Kadhalaa Kadhalaa” in which art students are admiring Kamal Hassan’s தொடைப்பாளி paintings.
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nishanth
August 3, 2014
A dialogue in jigarthanda (that’s a part of most gangster movies) holds the key to brangan’s and others finding sethu turning baffoon inorganic. I don’t think its inorganic because sethu does say that this is one profession which you can leave only when you die. But when he sees a window in cinema to escape his profession, he is ready for buffoonery
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impartialobserver
August 3, 2014
First Pizza, then Jigarthanda, and now all this talk of noodles – we’ve finally found a foodie of a director. And it seems thus far that Karthik Subbaraj has gotten his just desserts.
Hopefully the other batch of new age directors can also have interesting/engaging follow-ups – particularly Thiagarajan Kumararaja. Seriously, how does that guy not have another movie in the works? Can we set up a kickstarter pending a script?
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: Not sure why, but at some point, I stopped expecting any consistency.
Not sure what you mean here. You mean the film worked for you DESPITE being inconsistent (tonally and otherwise)? Or are you saying you liked the film BECAUSE of the jarring tone shifts etc.?
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dpacsaml
August 3, 2014
The guy who played the acting teacher is the same one who played the role of the loser, Kalaya in Aaranya Kaandam. Guru Somasundaram is his name.
You’re welcome!
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 3, 2014
brangan: Both, I think.
*Despite* being inconsistent, because I didn’t notice when I was watching it: inconsistency registered as zaniness. I might be wrong but in retrospect it *seems* to me that the exact point when this began was when Sethu says that he became a don when he was laughed at in a play. That seemed so absurd and so made-up a reason that from then on, I began to expect people in the film to have arbitrary motivations for what they are doing. I can understand if he hates being laughed at as a character trait. But as a motivation? And would an barely contemplative don really reflect so much and know *exactly* why he became a don? Surely, it has to be made up (that’s what I think; I find it hard to believe when I read things like “When I was a seven, I once played with an electronics set and from that day I knew I wanted to become an electronics engineer.” Surely there had to be several other accretive reasons). Would a director who is sufficiently self-conscious to name his protagonist after him and open with a scene in a reality contest make such an amateur slip up? Why has he chosen to make Sethu mouth an unconvincing and incomplete reason when a more obvious choice have been would be to make him say he doesn’t know or any of the hundreds of reasons film dons have said in the past?
You could also say *because* of the jarring shifts. To me it seemed like the director was telling me in the second half “see how I make you enjoy something sloppy, and you will enjoy it because this is the kind of good-enough-stuff that you will enjoy anyway”. Given that I had already superimposed the CM symbolism on Sethu, I found myself enjoying something that was not that well made particularly because it wasn’t well made. Sameoldstories guy even tells Karthik that “you just gotta make something even if it isn’t that that good”, as if telling him that it is good enough if CM’s sensibilities/requirements are satisfied. Karthik goes one step further and makes something that shocks CM initially but he begins to like it when everyone else likes it.
Maybe the film worked for me because of what I perceived as unremitting self-reflection; inconsistencies were fun optical aberrations.
To be honest, all that sounds very tenuous to myself at the moment, and I cannot convince even myself readily that I am not trying to defend the film to death; I am on really tenuous ground here. I am trying to explain why something worked for me viscerally by doing intellectual postmortem (it’s fun to do but scary to write down).
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kums
August 3, 2014
ok, so this is how I interpreted the final change .. Up until the movie releases, Sethu has no idea of changing his career to cinema (though he is fed up with his gangster life so to speak). And the so called ‘zen’ moments are shown (kid touching and mom speaking) are purposefully shown weakly. Note that the second half of the second half (yeah, it.) is about showing the middle finger to tamil cinema making. With these kind of fake zen moments several actors leave their previous career for good and come to act in cinema (with the sole purpose of acting in Maniratnam films 😛 ). In the end they are just as horrible as Sethu is in his acting avatar 🙂
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Roshan
August 3, 2014
The movie was both inconsistent and flawed in some places but like you mentioned in your review, you cannot stop watching. The movie was beautifully shot, wonderfully atmospheric in many scenes. I think Bobby Simha has played a role of a lifetime at this very early stage of his career. His character’s transformation might have not been fully satisfying, but bought it because of the sincerity he has brought to the role.
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nivazr
August 3, 2014
http://nivazdmoviecritic.wordpress.com/2014/08/03/jigarthanda-movie-review/ Hope you like this.. feels bad but this is the way everyone is expecting…so 🙂
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Ravi K
August 3, 2014
Sethu should have been shown as a bit of a braggart earlier in the film, and Karthik should have finally taken advantage of that to get in with Sethu. The film does not establish that Sethu would want to be infamous.
The films flaws were not ultimately fatal for me, and it’s refreshing to see a Tamil film try something like this and succeed in quite a few ways. At least it has stuck in our minds, unlike the films you forget on the way home from the theater.
Some intermission cliffhangers work well, but not often. If the intermission is a necessary evil in our films, filmmakers shouldn’t always try to precede them with some big moment or cliffhanger. Maybe the intermission could come after a smaller moment.
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Vignesh Saptarishi Ramesh
August 3, 2014
Subburaj also made some active allusions to Thalapathi – in addition to the movie title scene and BGM, Sethu marrying the widow of someone he killed was very reminiscent of Rajini and Bhanupriya (the daughter included).
PS – Wonderful review and fabulous deconstruction in the comments!
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: Karthik goes one step further and makes something that shocks CM initially but he begins to like it when everyone else likes it.
I don’t know. Again, I am left with the feeling that the film was anti-compromise. That’s the reason Karthik doesn’t end up making a LAZY film with Sethu — which would have been the easiest thing to do, and which would have saved his life easily — but takes a DIFFICULT decision to make a film that he can justify to his inner artist. (He would not have been able to live with himself had he made that LAZY film with Sethu.)
So what you’re saying would work if:
(1) Karthik has decided to dumb down his film (i.e. make that LAZY film), and therefore…
(2) Subbaraj dumbs down his film (i.e. the outer film reflects the ethos of the film-within-the-film).
But I don’t see that happening.
I am trying to explain why something worked for me viscerally by doing intellectual postmortem
Oh, it’s very difficult, man. Even today, after ALL these years, I have butterflies every time I sit down to write a review 🙂
Of course, it’s made rewarding when I get to expand on unsaid thoughts in the comments section, so thank you for that.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
kums: though he is fed up with his gangster life so to speak
Where do you see this?
showing the middle finger to tamil cinema making
But you can’t just do this out of nowhere, no? When a “Thamizh Padam” does this, then we don’t demand logic/reason because the whole film is like that? That’s the movie we were promised. That’s the movie we got. But when you’re doing this sort of thing midway, you need a reason.
Many things in the film are vague and unexplained.
For instance, the whole thing is one large buildup to the TWIST end — okay, spoilers ahead — where Karthik and Sethu swap places. So two things are happening here. The humanisation of Sethu. The demonisation of Karthik.
At least with Sethu, we get those “zen” moments we talk about? But Karthik? His entire arc — where he begins, where he ends — is baffling.
So “Jigarthanda” is really a triumph for Subbaraj the Director, because his direction is bloody good that he’s made us fall for a film that’s been somewhat undercooked by Subbaraj the Writer.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Vignesh Saptarishi Ramesh: Hence, that link in keys above to “Pizza” 🙂 Our man is clearly a Rajini fan 🙂
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Bart
August 3, 2014
The not-so-organic transformation (you are bang on with words as ever, Brangan) of Bobby aside, there are quite so many others that stand jarringly out in the 2nd half, when thought back. I now truly have started taking in the meta movie concept seriously (Ashutosh and you are having a gr8 dissection).
If Karthik and his friend (karunakaran) were involved in a movie that would make a joker out of the don, were they not sure of the outcome or did they even think through it before on how they would make their escape (especially when these two were cowards to start with)? The film crew also would not be so naïve again.
Lakshmi menon’s comfort feeling when Karthik before leaving says there are 3 more months anyhow for him to make his plans to retrieve her looked very tamil cinematic. But now I think maybe Ashutosh is right – the entire second half was “I am going to make a shoddy film and you will enjoy this even more”. The acting classes to the don and his team ( navarasas reminded me of “Udhayananu Tharam” or the not so well made “Vellithirai” – sourced from “bowfinger” as pointed by someone above) with gibberish that gets deliberately but awkwardly-used in the road confrontation, making the heroine anti for a short period, drinking in almost every scene (especially the hero and not the villain), the nod to Thalapathi by making the don marry a widowed (by himself) wife with one daughter were all done with a deliberate purpose of hitting at the dejavu of recent tamil cinema.
Finally he says, if the director has to have his way, he has to be a don himself. He has tried his best to disguise this commentary as much as he could. I am now very interested on what he would be making next and who’s producing it..
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 3, 2014
brangan: Again, I am left with the feeling that the film was anti-compromise.
Right, I was more thinking that the film he made with Sethu was a compromise instead of a complete cave-in. Karthik was forced to do something he didn’t want to; so he put his own stamp on to it to justify the artist in him. Instead of dumbing down he made something engaging, something that was at some level–art.
No compromise would have meant a coherent second half, say in terms of character arcs that were consistent with what was developed/foreshadowed in first half (in which even Spy Henchman’s actions were motivated properly). Caving in would have meant a second half that was banal (amma sentiment, non-violence better than violence etc.). Compromise finally meant a second half that had all the trite elements with a new spin: reluctant banality with copious commentary on why he had to do that.
OK, so with that I’ll stop pursuing this line of argument–I am bludgeoning this so much that I risk starting to believe that this is the only line possible 🙂
Thanks a lot for engaging real patiently!
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kums
August 3, 2014
@brangan :
‘Where do you see this?’
While explaining his life story to kathik on camera at the end he says something – with vetu-kuthu life goes on.. also if you notice the former gangster is shown as just another guy in one of the scenes. Also, that guy who sees the mic in the mp3 player (don’t remember his name) is the son of another gangster, but he himself is not a gangster. He has left that profession and mildly involved with this.
Also – if it not easy to write an gangster movie along the lines of the first half as Karthik (the real director subbaraj i mean) shows in the first half. But he wants to make a change. It is mentioned in several places that almost all gangster movies follow same templete (I am not sure about you, but having seen a lot of gangster movies, my fav genre in face,all languages, I feel it is 95% true).
Imagine a situation where you are know nothing about the movie beforehand and go afresh into the theatre. No posters, trailers etc (like old times). Then you wouldn’t go in expecting to see an out and out gangster movies. In that sense, at this current age, I feel Karthik did a good job by again conning us into believing this is a gangster movie. Hence the disappointment for some (or many ?).
‘At least with Sethu, we get those “zen” moments we talk about? But Karthik? His entire arc — where he begins, where he ends — is baffling. ‘
There is a scene in the interval block where when they come to know sethu knows about the mic, oorni asks karthik what to do now. Karthik replies angrily ‘enaku theriyadhu’ or something like that. He is more of an instinctive person. He goes on with what ides he gets at specific point of times. His zen moment is when the old director comes and talks to him about his career that never took off. I guess the point he makes is you can either be a idealist and end up like the old director (which is not a failure, at least he was true to himself..along the lines of inside llewyn davis maybe) or be an opportunist and do the best you can with all the constraints.
The last scene is written to show in this age in tamil cinema you have to be an opportunist and make things happen. nalu peroda nalladhukaga vanmuria seyardhu 😛
But I agree with you karthik is a brilliant director but as good a writer. Maybe with further viewing you will start liking the movie more than now and I will start finding flaws in the movie 🙂
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kums
August 3, 2014
oops i meant: But I agree with you karthik is a brilliant director but ‘not’ as good a writer.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: No, thank you. Haven’t had this engaged a discussion in a while, and really enjoyed it.
Where I differ from you isn’t on the meta movie part — after all, a lot of my review is about this very meta movie.
But to me, if you’re going to let your film mirror the content of your film, then the starting point should be well-motivated. David Fincher’s “Zodiac” begins to slow down (as a film) when the case itself slows down, due a lack of clues. But everything else is rock solid.
Here I didn’t find that rock-solidness. You are bang on when you say “reluctant banality” but I don’t quite see the earlier part — “all the trite elements with a new spin”. I don’t see the Subbaraj giving to his film the kind of spin that Karthik gives to his film. Put differently — and at least in theory (if not on the evidence of what’s shown in the theatre where Karthik is standing outside) — Karthik’s film is far more interesting than Subbaraj’s second half.
Karthik is salvaging a bad situation and making something campy. But Subbaraj’s film isn’t campy at all. Maybe if — as some commenter suggested above — if we’d gotten a better idea of Karthik’s film, we’d have a better idea of Subbaraj’s.
I’m still not convinced that it’s much more than a “let’s plant a twist here” decision — and because there’s so much good stuff in the film, right from the atmosphere etc., I think these twists are looking like genuinely deconstructive elements. In other words, Subbaraj the Director is so good that he’s convincing us that Subbaraj the Writer is better than he really is 🙂
I guess it depends on how much leeway you’re willing to give the film.
But how nice that we’re at least finding a new Tamil cinema ethos that’s genuinely alternative — mainstream only in name, but bizarrely off-kilter. I really hope this film does well.
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brangan
August 3, 2014
kums: This is not directly about your comments, but it’s always fascinating to me how a viewer decides to “analyse” some films, picking up stray bits of (valid) evidence and building a case, and how the same viewer will dismiss outright another film by a different filmmaker, even if a similar case could be made.
I still don’t see the “wanting to give up gangster-hood” part, but I see where you’re coming from — and that’s the important thing. That you have found evidence within the film that satisfies you as a viewer and also helps you explain away what appears to be an inconsistency. That is what involved, intelligent viewing is all about.
I feel Karthik did a good job by again conning us into believing this is a gangster movie. Hence the disappointment for some (or many ?)
But I don’t think this is the problem. As we’ve discussed earlier, the problem (at least to me) isn’t the genre shift itself as much as *how* this shift happens. Not the content but the form.
PS: I like your term “zen moment”
The last scene is written to show in this age in tamil cinema you have to be an opportunist and make things happen
Now that I saw as a direct consequence of the meta narrative, not as a consequence of the genre shift. Karthik’s transformation is very much in keeping with the first half of the film. Namely, the first and the latter portions of the film (after Sethu discovers he’s been cheated) are internally consistent. The “comedy” segments are where I differ — but yes, I shall watch the film again and begin arguments anew 🙂
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 4, 2014
David Fincher’s “Zodiac” begins to slow down (as a film) when the case itself slows down, due a lack of clues. But everything else is rock solid […] but I don’t quite see the earlier part — “all the trite elements with a new spin” […] But Subbaraj’s film isn’t campy at all.
Ah, right! That was terrifically explained; I understand your point now; thanks! I was focusing exclusively on the fact that the outer film might be mirroring the inner film but failed to notice whether it was doing it in a way that was unequivocal. And so when you say that “I think these twists are looking like genuinely deconstructive elements,” I am tempted to think you’re right.
[…] if we’d gotten a better idea of Karthik’s film, we’d have a better idea of Subbaraj’s.
The idea of naming the protagonist Karthik becomes sublimely delicious when you construct a sentence like that 🙂
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Sugan
August 4, 2014
BR: What an awesome review sir. Though I agree to most of your points, I have a difference of opinion with one particular comment of yours: where you mention about “The humanisation of Sethu. The demonisation of Karthik”
I would argue that Sethu is perhaps not humanized, in the sense that are we sure that he has left his rowdyism? Sure, he’s got a little more “human” by marrying the woman he had widowed and also has a doting kid, but this decision is purely out of guilt. I just don’t think there’s conclusive evidence to say that he has come out of his old rowdy days. He could do that in parallel with his acting career, there are so many actors like that in Tamil industry itself 😛
Reg., the demonisation of Karthik, like you mentioned in your review itself, Karthik is a selfish bastard who uses people to his benefit. So there’s no too much of a transformation as such, he’s just a smart director who knows how to use his available resources (or his constraints to best use). In this case, the (new) resource available with him is Sethu’s men. So why not use them to continue his vision of making movies that HE believes, in this case with Vijay Sethupathi. So there’s no demonization as such.
Finally, (the following is just my theory): The way I look at it, Karthik and Sethu are now a deadly combo: they could use each other to achieve one another’s vision. Karthik uses Sethu’s men to convince people in his vision of movies (and perhaps Subbaraj takes a dig that this is how one could convince people in Tamil industry now), and in return Sethu could use Karthik’s contacts in industry, now that Karthik has delivered a hit in his first film.
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brangan
August 4, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: I was focusing exclusively on the fact that the outer film might be mirroring the inner film but failed to notice whether it was doing it in a way that was unequivocal.
As I keep saying, the “what” in this film is pretty damn good. All my problems are with the “how”.
I agree that, given the general levels of Tamil cinema, this criticism may look like nitpicking — as in, why not just be grateful for the riches, rigvht? But then, every film sets its own bar, and if we are to evaluate this film with the bar it sets for itself (and not the general Tamil-cinema bar), then it does come up wanting in quite a few places.
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brangan
August 4, 2014
Sugan: Well, what I meant was “relative” humanisation. I didn’t mean he’d become all soft and cuddly 🙂 Though he does seem to become more of an idiot as the film goes along, completely losing his edge from the first half — and then suddenly regaining it for a bit at the end — and then losing it again 🙂 But I guess all this comes under the “humanisation” 🙂
And reg. Karthik, yes, he’s an opportunist, a selfish bastard. But the jump from there to what he becomes at the end is drastic, no?
Regarding this development — Is it possible? Of course. Is it plausible, the way the film depicts it, out of nowhere? To me, no. And it comes off looking like a twist for the sake of a twist, rather than an organic development.
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Shankar
August 4, 2014
Baddy, what a fun ride! The whole theater was bustling with laughter….as you say, I hope this film succeeds so more of this kind get made.
I have to agree with a lot that’s been discussed already. I too felt that the first was very detailed but the second half was quite furiously paced. There were far too many things happening quickly that it was difficult to keep pace or felt inconsistent. But the humor in the film helped it over this unevenness. I was quite willing to forgive these faults since I was already enjoying the ride. The mood and detailing, was good, but in my opinion, wasn’t enough to tie it to Madurai. This film could have happened anywhere, except for a few shots in the city, the slang and the title itself. Some of the touches felt quite obvious like the onset of daylight when Karthik gets the advice from the shopkeeper.
As you say, it’s Karthik’s role that is perplexing…hard to believe that he can pull this off. The heroine’s role certainly felt underwritten, Sounder’s wife angle….a lot was happening. All the biggies were quoted…KB, BR, MR…and even a pic of BM. Overall, it was a fun ride…will certainly be worth another watch to note more of the nuances and underlying threads. I was initially concerned if the score would fit a story set in Madurai but to your point, the score certainly felt apt for a noir film, even if it didn’t fit culturally…it was fun. Lots of good things in the film. The film could have been a “would be” classic, but ends up a “may be”!! 🙂
PS: Reading your quote about the unicycle, I was reminded of something similar Kamal said about Raja regarding the music of Hey Ram!
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Sugan
August 4, 2014
BR: I am reminded of a Rajini movie “Ranga”, where Rajini and another person (forgetting his name), are stark opposites in terms of good and bad, initially. Both of them get influenced by each other and switch roles to pursue the philosophy of the other, and somewhere at the end, I think they switch again and then converge.
I know, that has very little connection with what Jigarthanda is or what it is intended to be. But there was such a wonderful chance to show a gradual transition for both characters that would make it seem more organic to us.
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 4, 2014
brangan: […] why not just be grateful for the riches, right? […] But then, every film sets its own bar […]
Right, I completely agree. Any work has to be judged and critiqued based on how well it does what it it sets out to do. One cannot politely refrain from nitpicking Julian Barnes because he is in the same market as Ashwin Sanghi. Given that criticism is primarily about engaged/deep appreciation and evaluation, I guess that anything “negative” or “nitpicking” is not really an offhand dismissal but conscious and meticulous noticing and cataloguing.
I now appreciate your criticism of this film much better and I should definitely say that the discussion has sharpened my eye for such things. Thanks. And oh, I thought further about something you said:
I’m still not convinced that it’s much more than a “let’s plant a twist here” decision — and because there’s so much good stuff in the film, right from the atmosphere etc., I think these twists are looking like genuinely deconstructive elements.
Because we are *inferring* intent and trying to understand What the work is all about, the How becomes supremely important. The What is intuited and the How is evidence for that intuition. So, like in science, one has to critically evaluate based on evidence and not be partial to evidence that supports a pet theory.
So, you were doing the proper rigorous thing: coming from the side of evidence while allowing for a few possibilities of What. I first intuited the What and was more or less satisfied with a decent-enough How 🙂 This exercise reminded me of analyses that Borges does in ‘Professor Borges’ where he superbly tries to guess what Olde English poets must have really meant 🙂
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Sugan
August 4, 2014
BR: A question regarding the genre shift:
Extending your hypothesis that Subbaraj was perhaps thinking ‘let’s bring in a surprise element.. let’s change the genre now’ (and there’s probably no link b/w the inner movie and the 2nd half outer movie): If that’s the case wouldn’t he want to deliver as much surprise element as possible? This means, the outer movie in 2nd half could have continued to be serious (and hence, the inner movie is also shown as shot seriously), but only disclosed later to us that the inner movie was actually shot comically. That’s when Subbaraj can say “Hey guys.. so you thought you were watching a serious movie.. look what you were actually watching”. Just like Pizza, where most of the run time was a thriller, only in the last 10 minutes he says “So you thought you were watching a ghost movie..”. Hope you got the point.
So my question is, why should he make a comical outer movie in 2nd half, if his intention was only to surprise? He’d rather do a serious outer movie and only disclose towards the end of the outer movie that the inner movie was a comical one.
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brangan
August 4, 2014
Shankar: I was initially concerned if the score would fit a story set in Madurai… even if it didn’t fit culturally”
I don’t agree with this at all. Before Raja came in, did anyone think that a European symphonic-style score would “fit culturally” in the Bharathiraja movies? And then that became the norm, right? If you get that picky about “authenticity,” then only Indian instruments played in an Indian style can be used.
BGM is about creating a mood and setting a tone and Santhosh’s score did this beautifully, IMO. Plus, this was the kind of film that could bear the weight of this score. I mean, it wasn’t one of those films where a score was thrust on it.
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brangan
August 4, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: It’s always about the questions.
For instance, in film criticism, the principles are WHAT and WHY. What was my reaction to the film? And why? The former you know while you’re watching the film (I like this; this is not working for me, etc.). The latter you have to come home and work out.
The questions in screenwriting are WHAT and HOW. What is the plot? How is it unfolding? In most movies, the WHAT is pretty obvious, and we only have to deal with the way it all happens, the HOW. But here, the WHAT itself is under scrunity, and so the HOW — as you say — becomes a tool for deciphering the WHAT.
My contention about the film — that it’s all mainly twist-based, rather than something organic — comes about because of the narrative patterns in the closing stretch. There is a lot os stuff that we see up to a point, and then we jump ahead, and then we go back and see what happened at the point where we left off. Usually, a film would have ONE such instance. Say, a man is shot. We jump to a funeral pyre (and we think it’s that man). Then the camera pulls back to reveal the man standding there. And we cut back to the scene of the shooting and see what really happens.
But here, this kept happening constantly.
(1) Karthik asks the producer about his reaction to the film. CUT to another scene. And then, during the premiere of “A Kumar”, we see the producer smiling and cut back to what really happened.
(2) We see Sethu walk into the theatre. Cut to another scene. Then, when Karthik is about to be set on fire (or so we think), we cut back to what really happened.
(3) We see Sethu’s mother call out to him. He pauses and leaves. And later, we cut back to the shot of her drinking water.
This, to me, seems like the work of a filmmaker whose primary aim is to keep the audience off-balance, with twists — in addition to the BIG TWISTS in the story, there are all these TINY TWISTS.
So this technique — this HOW — helped me make a case for my WHAT (i.e. this is primarily a TWIST based film and not much more). Of course, this is enjoyable for what it is, on a scene by scene level, but when we consider the film as an organic whole, this becomes a problem.
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brangan
August 4, 2014
Sugan: I’m saying that the TWIST lies in the fact that the inner movie was shot comically. And this, again, is another instance of what I said in the preceding comment:
We start seeing the film. We cut back to what really happened.
I agree with you. But this “logic” doesn’t apply, I think, because the film begins to lose it in the second half, and especially after the acting coach comes in.
By then, there were three threads in the air – (1) the serious thread from the first half, about Karthik and the gangster, (2) the meta narrative about moviemaking itself (as I wrote in the review), and (3) the new comic thread owing to this filmmaker’s interest in genre shifting.
IMO, these threads didn’t cohere.
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Satish
August 4, 2014
Brangan .. first of all, fantastic review and I am relieved that you enjoyed the movie :).
*** Spoiler alert ***
I want to discuss a couple of things first …but first, I feel the real-life Karthik 😉 through “Jigarthanda”, tells us about his travails in making the movie he had wanted to debut with (Jigarthanda and not Pizza). And, more importantly, the film has so much sarcasm against the current so called “norms” of film-making..some examples (though I would love to give you a complete list):
1. Nalan Kumaraswamy (Soodhu Kavvum Director) plays a small cameo during the reality show at the beginning. In real life, Karthik Subbaraj & Nalan participated in the same season of “nalaya iyakunar”, where Nalan won & Karthik was runner-up
2. The title card is displayed at an interesting spot…right after the award-winning Director calls reel-life Karthik’s short film a “kuppa padam”. So, is Karthik ironically suggesting that “Jigarthanda” will not be liked by the critics?
3. In the follow up scene, reel-life Karthik is at the Producer’s office and we briefly see a poster of “Attakathi” in a blink-and-you-miss spot. In real life, Karthik’s first movie “Pizza” was produced C.V.Kumar (Thirukumaran Entertainment) and so was Nalan’s “Soodhu Kavvum”. So, is Karthik cheekily hinting at the issues he had faced in making his 2 films?
4. The producer coerces reel-life Karthik into making a film the former wants. In real life, Karthik has mentioned that “Jigarthanda” was supposed to be his 1st film, but had to make “Pizza” due to some ‘constraints’ !!
5. During the closing 20 minutes, we see reel-life Karthik’s 1st movie becoming a runaway hit and because of that & the clout of the henchmen, he is on the other side of the table..forcing the actor of his choice to play hero in his 2nd movie. Is this supposed to mirror real-life where Karthik got to make a film of his choice because his 1st movie was a runaway hit & because of the “clout” (or respect) he has accumulated since then? 🙂
The above is the 1st observation I wanted to discuss with you … really look forward to your comments/reply :).
-Satish
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 4, 2014
brangan: My contention about the film — that it’s all mainly twist-based, rather than something organic — comes about because of the narrative patterns in the closing stretch.
I get it now. So based on your examples, would be correct to infer that had there been a parallel between these twists and stuff that happens in ‘A Kumar’, *then* these Hows would support a What that the filmmaker is commenting directly on the filmmaking itself? Given what they are right now, I can see why these amount to merely a series of gimmicky twists.
I guess because the director wanted the fact that ‘A Kumar’ was going to be a parody to be a twist, he didn’t really reveal much about it and spent more time on buffoonery that happened during shooting. Guess during that section and from then on the meta-level commentary–if it existed at all–collapsed.
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Arvind Srinivasan
August 4, 2014
Its hard for me to figure out as to how much I liked the movie and how much I resented the turn it took in the second half. But I certainly had issues. So what would be an apt one liner for this movie- is it about how a fledgling filmaker who atlast succeeds in getting his film onscreen or is it about a true bred gangster who wants to play himself hero in a film. If its the latter, I would have definitely liked it if the premise was set up earlier. The con worked in Pizza (not that I liked it, but I for one was fooled too), but not here I feel. For instance we never feel for the tears shed by Sethu when he sees the audience clapping and hooting for him, nor when his mom speaks to him atlast . The movie on the whole looked like a slightly botched up photoshop work of two photos which could have looked good if viewed individually.
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AlterEgO (@skc89)
August 5, 2014
Excellent review sir,Exactly My thoughts.Very well put.
“”But the two films – the gangster movie and the meta movie – never really cohere. When the film begins, it’s a drama. Then it takes a detour into borderline-absurdist comedy. And it becomes a drama all over again.””
This was the main issue i had with this film.As a stand alone second half.It was great.But overall it just diluted the whole effect created in the first half.
“”Subbaraj thinks exclusively in terms of twists””.
True.Even on twitter his tweets he was stressing to people to avoid revealing the twists of the movie.
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Shankar
August 5, 2014
Baddy, chill…I wasn’t saying what you think I’m saying. Maybe a few more words might have explained it better. I was coming from the view that we, as in general public, may have grown accustomed to expecting a certain type of score for a certain type of movie…like how James Vasanthan scored for Subramaniapuram etc. I’m not saying that is the way it should be scored….just what the expectation might be. You and I might like the score but for the masses…for example, if you asked a random person on the street in Madurai, I am fairly certain the reaction might be “ennada paattu pottirukkan!” 🙂 So, the risk with an eclectic score for this type of film is high but I feel Santosh pulled it off superbly, especially for this movie and the way it has been shot. It may not work always. So, what I was saying is just an observation, not some deeply held Kolgai or something….I didn’t write it clearly enough, my bad. Sandaikku varathe, pa! 🙂
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kres
August 5, 2014
I agree the movie has some flaws..but the pros outweigh the cons significantly. I guess Karthik Subbaraj would know about the flaws of the film, for whatever reasons that were there, more than anyone else and I am sure he will correct them in his subsequent films. Looks like he is pretty good at what he is doing.
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Kutty
August 5, 2014
When the producer throws the CDs at him, those seem to be the movies he pays homage to – Thalapathy, Nayagan etc etc. Karthik explicitly wants to remind us of those great movies. And to further emphasize that there are scenes which are a nod to those movies (Umbrellas + rain, the little kid almost failing to distinguish between the good guy and the bad guy). And then there are heroes/directors that he perhaps wanted to mock and there are references to them too – Siddharth imitating the “I am waiting’ from Thuppaki and Lakshmi Menon ripping the ‘Nee, naan, mazhai and Illayaraja’ line from Nee Thaane En Ponvasantham. This seems to be consistent with the overall dichotomy structure (drama/comedy;real movie/fake movie; good cinema/bad cinema) that he maintains.
The happenings on the screen does not alternate between multiple genres as much as it completely throws the concept of genre away. Just when it seems to tend towards drama, it veers violently towards comedy and then when violence seems to take precedence, it shifts towards a soft romance. Thinking about it, it is actually this (‘http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8bOpkqJAPA’) translated into a big screen . By switching genres so frequently and with no regard for order is Karthik also pointing an accusing finger at us, the audience, for wanting so much from one film?
You have called the happenings incoherent, I would label it as irreverent. It is like he decided to buy a textbook on film making, tore out single pages and then stuck them together in a random manner.
And how come no one has mentioned the legendary J.K.Ritheesh yet? If this movie reminded me of anyone, it was him. On that note, an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry for his smashing debut – ” It is a direct remake of the movie Vegam, which was released in the previous year Previous film Vegam didn’t run well but this film was blockbuster at the box office.”
With so much autobiographical tones, is the last scene just a metaphor for the director gaining muscle? I would believe that it could also be something straight off Vijay Sethupathi’s experiences.
About the change in Sethu’s behaviour, the best part was that the scenes involving the new Sethu was overdone – the drama was over the top, the acting was over the top and so on. Maybe, it is just a commentary on how people should just stick to doing what they are good at (even if it is being a gangster) and the minute they try being someone else, all hell can break lose.
And I am a little disheartened that the theatrics, the music and the choreography of the ‘Pandi naatu’ song has not gotten a honorary mention anywhere. 😦 🙂 . I cannot see that song ageing, ever.
One quick question to you/blog’s audience – the shot of him entering the theatre (heavily backlit and just the contour of his body showing – where has that been taken from? I am pretty sure there is a famous equivalent of that, but not able to place it!
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brangan
August 5, 2014
Satish: Yes, there seems to be something in the fact that the title card comes BETWEEN the judgements of Art and Commerce, but not sure what that something is 🙂
So, is Karthik cheekily hinting at the issues he had faced in making his 2 films?
See, this sort of thing is an insider note, so there’s no way for a general audience to know exactly what’s going on here.
About your question about the end, my take is in my review…
“Subbaraj seems to be saying that the only way to make the movie you really want to make in the present Tamil-cinema scenario — where anyone, apparently, can become a hero and begin calling the shots, and where directors with vision are forced to compromise — is to become some sort of gangster, so that you don’t have to fall at the feet of others; the others will do the falling, at your feet.”
“Jigarthanda is, at some level, a perverse wish-fulfillment fantasy…”
I saw it as essentially that — a wish-fulfillment fantasy.
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brangan
August 5, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: Why do you say the meta level commentary collapsed? If anything, that’s the only thing that’s consistent through the film — these winks and digs at Tamil cinema.
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brangan
August 5, 2014
Arvind Srinivasan: IMO, the con worked in “Pizza” because that was a more organic film. There was one overarching purpose to the narrative — you see something, and then, at the end, you realise you’ve been had.
Here, it’s more like a midway gear-shift. Which is why I’m puzzled about the tweets begging people not to reveal spoilers. I mean, what happened in “Pizza” was genuinely spoilerific stuff. With this one, it doesn’t really matter whether you know about the “twist” or not — at least not to a major extent.
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brangan
August 5, 2014
Shankar: I was un-chilling in that post. I was just stating what I felt. Maybe I should have added a smiley 🙂 Though I do know about your kolgai-s 🙂
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brangan
August 5, 2014
kres: I guess Karthik Subbaraj would know about the flaws… more than anyone else
He’ll probably know the difference between the film he wanted to make and the film he ended up making — I agree that *that* he’ll know best. But about flaws and all, our estimates are as valid as his, because once the film is out it’s no longer his, it’s ours as well — in the sense that he may want us to see the film a particular way, but we may end up seeing it another way and if we subsequently find flaws, then these are valid flaws.
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brangan
August 5, 2014
Kutty: Great comment, and one that I don’t fully agree with.
The happenings on the screen does not alternate between multiple genres as much as it completely throws the concept of genre away.
I’d agree with this if this had happened right from the beginning. Till the midpoint, this is very much a one-genre piece. It’s only later — and for a while — that you can say he “throws the concept of genre away”.
By switching genres so frequently and with no regard for order is Karthik also pointing an accusing finger at us, the audience, for wanting so much from one film?
One, does he really switch genres “so frequently”? It’s only twice, if you really think about it. About the time the acting coach comes in is the first shift. The post-release portions have the second shift.
Two, this sort of thing you could reason out for any badly made film no? You could attribute “authorial intent” to the badness on screen and say, for instance, that “Kanna Laddu Thinna Aasaya” is “pointing an accusing finger at us” for accepting low-grade comedy. I know this is an extreme example, but…
You have called the happenings incoherent
No. I have said that the two narratives — gangster and meta — don’t really cohere, which is a little different from calling the film incoherent.
That shot you talk of, there’s one like that in “Pyaasa”… where the poet is framed in a Christ-like pose and is “resurrected” by the very people who “crucified” him…
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 5, 2014
brangan: If anything, that’s the only thing that’s consistent through the film […]
Yes, but if what’s happening is not direct, self-conscious commentary on what’s happening, these are just tributes/references. In the first half, Subburaj’s film reflected the film Karthik wanted to make (a cogent film about a violent gangster that he wanted to appeal to common man). In the second half we don’t really know if his film reflected the film Karthik had made. I guess beyond the fact that both films propelled forward in unexpected trajectories, we don’t know if the film that got made by Karthik provides commentary on the film that Subburaj made. Initially, I was satisfied with the fact that the eventual treatment of both was unexpected, but now it seems like whatever commentary is left in the second half is spillover from the first.
Not sure if that makes sense.
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Kutty
August 5, 2014
BR : Thinking about it, I guess I perhaps have projected a mood of a scene onto a genre and therefore seen it as a multiple genres. What I mean is that a scene with great tension is immediately followed up by a bunch of comic moments (a mini version of this is perhaps best illustrated by the assassination scene which shall not be detailed – there is a gradual build up of tension, then a partial release, then comedy, more tension (SI arrives), then comedy – all this in a span of 3-4 minutes). So, maybe I was drawn into it so completely that every shift in tone seemed a shift in genre and therefore my comment on shifting genres may be exaggerated. Thanks for pointing it out!
About using the ‘pointing fingers’ bit to defend the director, let me take the ‘Paandi Naatu’ song as an example. Now, the placement of the song in itself reeks of a mass movie template, but then once the song starts the way it is executed is top notch! This was the point I was making. Yes, there are elements of masala movies that he adds, but he adds it with such a sure touch that you get the feeling that he is happy to keep playing the audience.
And what a golden find that Pyaasa scene is! Not sure that is what I had in mind, but then the purpose of the scene, as you describe it, is so suited to the scene in this movie that, if this indeed was an inspired scene, long live such inspiration!
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nivazr
August 5, 2014
Karthik is a talented writer there is no doubt in that, but the screenplay slightly moves away from the main theme and also with the addition of some uninteresting scenes literally brings down the movie from the masterpiece status. Even though Karthik was well known for this his imaginative narrating style this one demands even more in the later part.
I felt it didn’t carry Sethu’s build-up’s given in the first half this where it gets bored and sometimes it’s not comfortable.. He killed the originality of Gigantic Sethu and showed him as someone else in the second half. i don’t know whether he wants to show that a director can do anything with his smartness.
f the movie marched towards the same route in the later half also, there is no doubt that Jigarthanda is undoubtedly the Best Movie in decades of this genre but unfortunately it stops itself within the best attempts in Tamil Cinema.
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Arvind
August 5, 2014
Great review and comments. The movie was enjoyable for the most part. Two things which did not convince me in the movie :
a) Even if we accept that Sethu allows that acting coach to beat him for the sake of making a movie, it did not convince me that those scenes(+ comedy songs etc) could be made into a movie which everyone would enjoy. If they had shown a scene where one of the secret scenes convinced me that audience could enjoy such a movie, I would have easily accepted other sudden twists and turns.
b) Last scene was added to just give a comedy twist to the end I suppose. But by the time I had lost interest in the twists because of point a).
I do not understand what people mean by interval twist. Is it the sequence of events they mean or that Karthik gets caught?
Also can someone explain me how this is (especially) a musical gangster story?All Indian movies are musical right ? 🙂
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Pady Srini
August 5, 2014
This movie might work on a scene by scene basis ( again only a few ) but fails miserably in story/screenplay with completely no focus. And the elaborate setup of scenes for the antagonist really goes nowhere in the big picture. So a mashup of some good and mostly average scenes make this movie ho-hum.
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Karthick
August 5, 2014
This is the kind of movie that begs for discussions, analysis, what ifs and what could have beens. We are all analysing it in detail which itself means it is a good movie. Hats off to Karthik for that. Dont we also think along the lines of ‘what if I made this movie?’ ?. I think as we review it, a part of us is thinking along those lines already 🙂 Some things I would have done in this movie…
1. Story starts with the reality show. I wish Nasser was brought at a later point in the story, sees the .A.Kumar movie and a dialoge between him and the hero happens… This would then add little bit more weightage to the fact that ..”this Jigartanda story is also about the difficulties film directors faces in the movie business…or how smart this next gen film makers are.
2. Post interval, I wish Subbaraj alternated the scenes between Jigartanda and A.Kumar may be using different color tones and merged the story together during the climax. The A.Kumar movies story could be very well about making a gangster act in movies, which would have had a circular reference to the story of Jigartanda. (Classic example of ‘the alternating scenes between the movie and the meta-movie is Rang De Basanti’). I was dissappointed at the A.Kumar movie and what was shown there. Yes, like someone here pointed out, it looked like Powerstar movie.
3. The movie could have done better without the heroine. Really…why throw in that love angle when you know it is not going anywhere or not contributing in any way. The idea of casting Sethu in the lead role for A.Kumar could have been Karthiks (hero) idea itself. He could have got this brilliant idea of choosing a new face that too a famous gangster to do the role of the gangster in his film. He himself could have infused the idea in Sethu’s head leading to Sethu kidnapping the producer, and the later scenes of the gangster squad forcing people to buy tickets could have become even more enjoyable. This also would have given us the ‘more greyish’ traits of Karthik (the hero) early and made the last climax scene that much more believable. In essence, the later half of the movie could have been ‘how sethu becomes a normal human and how karthik becomes a gangster of sorts’ in a gradual way.
BR sir – I am enjoying all your reviews. Your reviews are so thorough, well thought out and deep. Your love for good cinema shines right through your review. Keep it coming. I am as much your fan as to good cinema.Just a quick question to you. How many times do you watch a movie before you write its review? For me at least, I am not able to grasp all the details in one sitting.
Thanks.
Karthick (no pun here. Thats my name too 🙂 )
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Sid (@Tweet2Sid)
August 6, 2014
I watched this movie just few hours ago and am not certainly having anything new to add to the discussion here. I enjoyed the movie and I really am happy to see this review has inspired so many comments.
By the way, reports are already saying the film has picked up very well in box office and it’s declared super hit.
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oneWithTheH
August 6, 2014
Pranesh:
I will maybe try your Thursday suggestion but then it’s tough to find company to get to tag along with you on a Thursday. The other thing I’ve realized with watching a new movie on day zero is that if it falls flat I feel let down and feel bad for spending money/time. So I generally wait for atleast a day to catch what people have to say in Twitter/youtube before I decide to go for it. Yes, WOM is critical for me! But yes, the crowd situation has gotten worse since Big Cinemas shut down shop.
I finally caught it though. And I really enjoyed it. Aaranya Kandam, Soodhu Kavvum and this in the last 3 years. Scenes like eating bajji with buddies in the theater kitchen, the walk in the rain with the “thattu” on his head, the assassination attempt and then the final reaction. Man, I could kill for scenes like these. Nothing else matters!
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kums
August 6, 2014
Karthik’s character reminded me of Walter White from Breaking Bad.
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St_Hill
August 6, 2014
I’m going to talk about myself, while pretending to write about the movie. So solpa adjust madi.
Three years ago, I wrote a short story Burn Out Than Fade Away ( http://senthilsblog.blogspot.in/2011/10/burn-out-than-fade-away.html ). It was an attempt at a meta-story about movie making. It had a few layers within it, and like any self respecting person, I loved what I had written. I thought it was my best, and my online circle validated it by giving it 2500+ views – the most for any of my posts.
I’ve really been proud of that story, and I’ve dumped many a future short story idea because my mind said This isn’t as good as that story.
And then, yesterday happened. Jigarthanda happened. A meta movie about movie making. I sat there hooked. I sat there after the movie finished, trying to identify all the layers. Trying to identify all the parts I may have missed. Then your review happened, in the car in the parking lot. I realized more layers. More meanings. More messages.
Then I realized how my limited circle of friends had fooled me into thinking my story was better than it was. I realized how my story was just a baby lizard when compared to Karthik Subbaraj’s Saltwater Crocodile.
Take a bow, Karthik. I’m coming to see it again.
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nona
August 6, 2014
Very underwhelming given all the hype. The character arcs are all inconsistent even within this framework. The tone of the move is all over the place. I doubt this will stand the test of time. Strictly for fanboys.
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Sid: I wouldn’t believe these twitter reports about ‘super hit’. I mean, it could well be one, but try asking a few box office analysts about what the scene is like outside Chennai. Then you may get the right picture.
oneWithTheH: What saar! 🙂
Aaranya Kaandam and Soodhu Kavvum >> Jigarthanda, saar.
nona: I guess I liked it more than you did, but your ‘fanboys’ comment brings to my mind a post-social media phenomenon, on how people decide to love a film and rave about it or hate a film and denounce it completely.
BTW, did you buy the fact that Sethu would break into “gibberish” after dousing Karthik with petrol? I could see the “logic” behind this, but I just did not buy that he would do this at this point. It’s more a screenwriting conceit than something that the character would actually do.
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Arvind: I don’t think there’s an interval twist here. Post interval, maybe…
Karthick: Thank you for the kind words. Please go and leave a similar comment on the Hindu web site, where my review is getting battered… Just kidding 🙂
I watch films just once because I have to watch multiple films on Friday and there’s no time to watch films more than once.
I think it’s good in one way, because you have a gut feel for a film and you walk out with that and write the review.
But yes, watching the film again can be rewarding. Almost EVERY major film by a major director demands multiple viewings. Each time you see “Inglorious Basterds” or “The Master,” for instance, you pick up something new. Because as you become more familiar with the film, as you ease into it (which never happens the first time, as the film is still too new), you start relaxing and looking around for things other than plot and character.
I saw “Jigarthanda” a second time. I walked out with pretty much the same reaction. Extraordinary first half. Very problematic latter portions. But this time I noticed things I’d missed — like the fact that “Pattuvanna rosavaa” plays during the scene where Oorni gives the drink-loving henchman a plate of chicken at the bar (and later gets beaten up). It’s a nice lead up to Sethu’s confession, during the filming of the love scene, that he likes Shankar-Ganesh.
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Anand
August 6, 2014
Rangan, Kums: Acrually the “zen” moment for Karthik is shown in the final reveal, when he is having tea with the acting coach and telling the coach “how do I make a film with these guys?”. And then the shot of Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’ is shown. Now we all know that the story of the Circus was about a clown who was unintentionally funny!
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MANK
August 6, 2014
Brangan,Watched the film yesterday and let me tell you This film has all the pleasures and perils of a postmodernist film. Watching a film after reading your review and before reading are unique experiences in itself. Wouldn’t say one is more better than the latter -The Raktham thrikka therkka dialogue really leaped out to me bringing a chuckle –
So now i got a better picture of the Organic thing that you were talking about and yes, its not so much of a Meta movie thing, but a serious lapse in Characterization & plot development vis a vis the sethu character that i find here.The way the character is constructed and the manner in which simha plays him up to that time is as a ruthless . unforgiving straight arrow- compared with his henchmen who are all noted to have quirky weakness which are exploited for laughs- even with the uneven tone of the film – I cannot believe that he would let the acting teacher slap him and wouldnt retaliate in anyway.His most involuntary action would be to slap him back – if not kill him or knife him at the spot- and i do agree with you that the film suffers in the second half because of this.
It would have been nice to show sethu and the teacher having an altercation in the beginning and then slowly sethu eases into this training process – due to sheer urge of wanting to act as the hero in his own story.But it didnt throw me off the film as much as it seems that it did you. I still kept on enjoying the film as the individual scenes are so hilarious and entertaining. Its only when you get back to the big picture that it seem to bother- and i am not necessarily a big picture guy, i very much enjoy films like Heaven’s Gate , 1900 or Tiruda tiruda for the sheer brilliance of their individual scenes and episodes..
This film reminded me a lot of Gangs of Wasseypur (A clip of which is shown on TV in the scene when Kartik wakes up) – Another Postmodernist epic that keeps winking at hindi film traditions and conventions .That had a much more consistency in structure and characterization even in its unevenness and mixing and matching of genres and tones..In that film The Don ,Tigmanshu dhulia says that he had lived so long because he doesnt watch films- because in every indian’s mind there is a film running in which he is the hero. Supposedly sethu’s desire to act can be traced to this – to be nayakan and thalapathy in his own film. GOW films were dedicated by Anurag Kashyap to the Madurai films made by Sasikumar & co.This Madurai set film seems to be paying the respect back .The ambiance, the style of exposition , the music seems to be inspired from GOW films.
Apart from much of the issues the film has that has already been discussed here, i must say that inspite of his weaknesses -Not being a good writer , an obsession with Twists – Karthik Subbaraj is a filmmaker who is in complete command of his craft . Inspite of its lapses,This film is worth watching and discovering multiple times over.Hopefully his next will be the master piece that his 2 films has teased us to be .
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Kutty
August 6, 2014
MANK : I had used up a lot of comment space in trying to express what I felt about the movie. Apparently, you could do that on my behalf with no stress. **Same peeling**
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brangan
August 6, 2014
MANK: I do agree with you on most points… I did say:
Scene for scene, Jigarthanda is fresh and alive and cracklingly inventive, and there are stupendous stretches of comedy…,
even though I did have problems with the big picture. Where I part ways with you is probably with the po-mo part, at least a bit. Something like GoW is recognisably (and organically) po-mo. This is a bit scattershot, IMO.
But that’s a great point about Kashyap’s dedication.
And why do you say: “Not being a good writer…” I think he’s a pretty decent writer, but obviously a far better director.
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Does anyone remember what the reception to “Aaranya Kaandam” was like? I mean, I know it was well-received. But did it get the kind of orgasmic social-media reception that this film did?
And what about “Soodhu Kavvum”? “Naduvula Konjam…”
Thanks.
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MANK
August 6, 2014
scattershot po-mo, OK Boss 🙂
Hey Btw did you notice the subtle way in which the influences from foreign films play out.
Godfather – threatening of the film producer by the Don to cast the film with the actor of his choice(in this case the don himself), the final scene in which kartick negotiates for his new film with an offer the fellow cannot refuse, heck even the manner his henchmen surround him is like the last scene of GF where they anoint michael the don.
Goodfellas- The Copacabana tracking shot could be the inspiration for that terrific theater kitchen to toilet shot or the introduction shot of Kartick.The sudden murder that happen during dinner and its aftermath
The sergio leone western – the Gun shot propping up the title – in this case the Intermission – out of blood.
. Even the sethu character seems to be a typical sergio leone bandido in the mold of Eli Walach in GBU or Jason robards in OUTITW. All ruthless and cold blooded outside , but childish inside.
i even noticed Wong Kar-Wai. The production company name is Blueberry productions. Is it a nod to My blueberry nights?. The scene in which the whiskey bottle pops out of the bag and kartik catches it in super slomo and the music playing in the BG- seems to be from In the Mood for love. Even the love track that plays out between sidharth and Parvati seems to be from a Wong Kar-wai film.
And why do you say: “Not being a good writer…” I think he’s a pretty decent writer
Oh of course , i said that in relation with his directing abilities. My bad 🙂
Kutty, thats comforting to know. What i wrote was not even 10% of what i felt about the film. I was afraid that everybody would exile me if i unloaded everything that i felt 🙂
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Hariharasudhen
August 6, 2014
Sorry for deviating, but do you think you would have analyzed ‘Sarabham’ a bit more had it not released along with ‘Jigarthanda’?
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brangan
August 6, 2014
MANK: Also, Mani Ratnam. Also, the Kamal-Rajini ethos. (The film playing in the theatre before the assassination attempt is “Ninaithaale Inikkum.” And in one scene, we see a Kamal film poster — forget which one — and Manidhan as the camera pans.)
About that Leone thing, it could also be Leone-by-way-of-Tarantino… I got the latter feeling more than pure Leone… there was a lovely “luridness” in that interval moment.
Yeah, and I too wondered about Blueberry — as that film is the only thing I could think of.
You should write more — you obviously felt a lot here 🙂
Hariharasudhen: Don’t think so. There was nothing in it to talk about, let alone “analyse.”
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Karthick
August 6, 2014
Wow! Am I liking this thread or what! Can someone here tell me if this is the most discussed film in recent times? All things said and done, this guy Karthik Subbaraj has shown us that he has tremendous potential. In this age of next-gen movies that has come out in the last 2 years, Jigartanda seems to stand out a little bit more than others. That itself is an achievement. I have started to wait for his next one already!
BR: We have come a long way from times when movie review was all about explaining the story of the movie with a paragraph about how editing was good, cinematography was good and actors were good and a closing comment that said ‘pazhaya kallu. puthu bottle’ meaning old wine in new bottle or something to that effect. I used to feel so dissapointed reading reviews that did not even scratch the surface. I think writing reviews is an art and I believe that should be the first semester course for aspiring film makers in the film institute 🙂
Karthick.
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Sid (@Tweet2Sid)
August 6, 2014
Oh BR, even I didn’t take that twitter report so seriously. I just wanted to show here how it was reported there. I don’t really know who’s to be believed about BO reports, but word-of-mouth for this film has worked big time as far as I know.
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Also, is this the first Tamil film with Easter Eggs? I have seen wink-nod acknowledgements to other films. I have seen spoofs. But I cannot offhand recall a film that does what foreign films do –which is to pepper the narrative with Easter Eggs, so viewers can have fun spotting them all.
Like… I would have thought the last thing I’d find in such a film is Shakespeare, and yet, there’s that monologue from “Othello” 🙂
Another one: Kayal gives Karthik a love letter. We hear on the soundtrack… not a song composed for this film… but “pesuren pesuren kaadhal mozhi” from “pannaiyaarum padminiyum,” which is the work of a short-film maker whose first feature this is… just like Karthik in themovie … and it has vijay sethupathi as its hero, just like Karthik’s film… 🙂
And what about the red Merc bearing the license plate… “MSV”? Is that a reference to the music director, given that we hear “Namma ooru singaari” over the assassination scene? I mean, it’s too distinct a license plate, right? 🙂
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Kainattu
August 6, 2014
Loved Pizza. Can’t wait to see this. Some reports say it is inspired or copied from ‘ A dirty Carnival ? (Korean). Can Someone confirm ?
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Ravi K
August 6, 2014
What was the song they were playing in the scene where the acting teacher was berating Sethu, calling him a virgin, etc?
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Ravi K: This one (and note Rajini’s neck movements here and how Sethu imitates them 🙂 One of the film’s biggest tears-in-the-eyes ROFL moment was the phrase “virgin rowdy” 🙂 And it wasn’t even the centre of the scene, because we hear it in the background as the scene focuses on Karthik and Kayal 🙂
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oneWithTheH
August 6, 2014
“Aaranya Kaandam and Soodhu Kavvum >> Jigarthanda”
Maybe true interms of the discussions happening here – organic storytelling, characterization, etc. And I definitely agree that the former two have fewer flaws than JT. But honestly Rangan, how often do you get a tamil movie that makes you think so much?
In terms of sheer impact all these films fall in the same bucket for me. The level of discussion and debate around all these films are tremendous and they entice you to repeat-viewings.
Personally, I would rate JT a notch higher.
With AK I had absolutely zero expectations and so there was no reason it was not going to impress.
SK definitely had some expectations because of Vijay Sethupathi(and his NKPK) but even then I was not much into twitter word-of-mouths last year. That’s why JT is even more satisfying. It managed to keep me riveted even with all sky-high expectations it had created.
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MANK
August 6, 2014
Brangan , absolutely. i am still coming to grips with all of my feelings :-), its been a long time since a film – and that too a tamil film- made me feel this way.I am atleast grateful for that.It has renewed my faith in tamil films – not just in the matter of good films , bad films, all film ind. make both- but actually an out of the box film- from an Auteur who knows his craft -which sparks discussions and make you think . And for maintaining that faith, its preferable to skip the Lingasamy-suriya masterpiece coming out next week- unless the doctor recommends otherwise 🙂
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kums
August 6, 2014
@ Kainattu – that is an absurd comment from people who don’t understand both movies 🙂 having seen both I can assure it is far away from that. Its like saying all boy loves a girl movies are copies of one another 🙂
Adding on to influences that all people mention: the mask scene ‘maybe’ inspired from the hindi movie Ghanchakkar (2013). It was used in a hilarious way in that movie. Here, it is used in a totally different and brilliant way.
For me AK is the mother of all tamil movies (well at least in the last 20 years). SK and JT would rate them a notch below.
BR – I am loving this discussion thread. Karthik Subbaraj is certainly a director who can go places. I hope you get to show this thread to him (if he is not already reading this thread) and make him respond to the comments. Or some kind of live chat stuff would be great too.
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MANK
August 6, 2014
Brangan, the Kamal -Rajni ethos is right on. Even the characterization of 2 leads seems to based on them . The artistic director representing the class and rowdy representing the mass seems to have been modeled on kamal and rajni. No wonder its the rajni dialogues and songs that sethu goes after – The annamalai dialogue scene is a scream 🙂
– May be if this was made in the late 70’s by K. Balachander , then Kamal and rajni would have suited these roles to a T.- A kind of variation on the Ventriloquist – sadist duo they played in Avargal.,which makes me wonder if any of the reigning stars of today could have played these 2 roles – surya and vikram like in pithamagan?. But then it would have forced the director to make compromises perhaps?
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MANK
August 6, 2014
Brangan, one word about the bizarre Real-reel aspect of this film – In the light of the recent public spat between siddarth\ subbaraj with the producer of the film – It seems that just like in the film , subbaraj seems to have pulled a real life con on the producer of the film itself . it feels as if he promised the producer a blood splattered gangster pic and delivered a comedy about the making of a movie about blood splattering gangster – or atleast something very different from what he promised the producer in the first place Ala Kartik in the film.
The reaction of the producer – postponing the film’s release- could be akin to the reaction to the producer in the film berating Kartik initially after seeing his film, of course he later cuts back after the premiere of the film and shows the real reaction of the producer who is actually expressing profound joy at what he has seen.Hopefully the real producer will also follow suit after the seeing the BO reaction to this film.This would be a pleasant – and hopefully the final – twist in this film’s saga for the director who seems to be obsessed with twists 🙂
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brangan
August 6, 2014
Not a bad thread, I guess, to put up this link to an interview of me…
http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/?p=7224
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Sudharsan
August 6, 2014
Loved the comments more than the review piece.. A very healthy discussion.. Gave me immense pleasure reading through this.
MANK: Adding to your references to English movies, I could see a Dirty Harry when the sidedicks switch from our “Aruva” to Pistol on the advice of “Oorani”.
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kainattu
August 6, 2014
Thanks kums..was a bit annoyed with these reports. The discussion here makes the waitIng period more painful
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 6, 2014
That was a super insightful interview.
(3) The need to be seen as witty etc. so that your snark gets widely retweeted… Sometimes this makes analysis impossible.
That’s so true. That’s why I read your review first (and in most cases only read your review). You go for deft phrasing of your opinion with conscientious justification. Even when you say, in Manja Pai’s review, something like “Why not get into the business of manufacturing, say, striped, baggy underwear? (There’s clearly a huge rural market for it.) Why venture into art?” you are not going for snark but are simply redirecting the film’s cynicism onto itself.
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Pranesh
August 7, 2014
oneWithTheH: True. I like watching films alone (yeah, I’m weird), and can afford to spare the 3 hours and 10 bucks. But that means I watched movies like Nayandi, Thirumana Enum Nikkah, Jilla etc without any warning 🙂 Not one redeeming scene in any of these movies.
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Karthick
August 7, 2014
BR: Thank you for posting link to your interview. I am re-reading ‘Conversations with Mani Ratnam’ now. Dont know why but I think we are just entering into a new era in Tamil films and the future Mani Ratnams of it.
Karthick.
ps: Having said that, I firmly believe Mani saar’s best film is yet to come.
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Anoop
August 7, 2014
Wondering as someone pointed here , if Naren was playing the real life producer CV Kumar. We do see the poster of Attakathi at his office which CV Kumar produced, plus he also is the one who gave breaks to Karthik Subburaj and Nalan kumarasamy with Pizza and SK respectively.
The ” naan shankar ganesh fan” line was hilarious. Someone had to call time on the unending illayaraja homages in every other movie.
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Srinivas R
August 7, 2014
BR – To your question about Soodhu Kavvum , Aranya Kandam and NKPK. NKPK and Soodhu Kavvum were well recieved and were BO success in terms of return on investment, but Aranya Kandam literally disappeared without much hype , a bit like Onayum Aatukutiyum ( only in terms of how the movie was recieved)- rave reviews but a box office disaster.
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GK
August 7, 2014
Like a meta-movie within a movie, I’m, these days, eagerly looking for Ashutosh’s review within BR’s review. Brilliant deconstruction of ‘common man’. I don’t think any one would have cracked this the way Ashutosh did.
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Prasanna M R
August 7, 2014
@BRangan: There is no question as to the waves created by the first half of this film. As for the second half, think I’ll take sides with the few arguments from above of “look now, I’m going to make another sleazy movie which you’re going to enjoy too.”
Since we all seem to love to draw comparisons I can cite here a nice little Serbian language film called Underground (1995 palm d’or winner). It’s a hugely political film involving Yugoslav wars but if read outside of the political context it works perfectly well for a foreign viewer such as us. Here’s why I’m drawing parallels with it: Like Jigarthanda, it took a drastic turn towards the second half of the film. It consciously *preferred* to be crazy about the theories it invented. (Not going into details) When we are first informed us of the twist, we realize it’s purely insane (here it equals the part when Sethu himself decides to star). But what happened? It stayed true to the twists and turns that it took on the way till the end. Oh and of course there’s a meta-film in it too.
Post interval, Jigarthanda too makes a conscious decision to *be* an utterly preposterous comedy and almost had us to believe in it. So I don’t think a movie as good as Jigarthanda can be reduced to a ‘twist based film’ just because it operates on a few. Not without flaws indeed but it may have something to do with the How you were talking about but by then I think it had already made the point. Even if it wasn’t intended the way we interpret it to be, it does look pretty well like a veiled attack on both the current industry scenario and the movie-going public.
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MANK
August 7, 2014
Brangan, that was a very insightful interview. Your take on the concept of criticism and current film criticism in india was refreshing to read.I particularly liked this
If a critic should shape anything at all, it’s the cinematic lens of the reader, helping him or her see films in a more engaged manner and rejecting the notion of directorial authorship in favour of personal readings.
This has been the most influential aspect for me in reading your reviews- till then i always used to look at the movies as the exclusive property of the filmmakers.- Being a strong believer in auteur theory -Eventhough , i have not completely abandoned the thought – but bit by bit i am coming around to the fact that the film is as much a property of us (viewers) as much as it is theirs and whatever interpretations you bring to it, isnt wrong in any way.
Also your favorite films list was wide ranging. I understand everything , But AI- Ugh!-Thats one spielberg film , i find hard to sit through, otherwise i even liked 1941.
P,S, Kudos to those thoughts on Mani Rathnam- Do you or anybody here know what is Mani’s next fiilm?.Its been a while since Kadal. I have only been hearing rumors and more rumors- telugu\tamil bilingual, spy thriller etc….
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Venkat
August 7, 2014
Do you get hangover from “Jigarthanda”??! I got one. A very bad one indeed.
It is 4 days since I saw the film and it is not off my mind yet. I am constantly googling for new reviews and comments. And all my conversations with friends are around the film only. An unforgettable movie experience for me.
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brangan
August 7, 2014
Ashutosh Mohan: Thank you for saying that. IMO, that’s the most important thing: “conscientious justification.” You HAVE to justify your stand with evidence from the movie.
MANK: “whatever interpretations you bring to it, isnt wrong in any way”
But with evidence 🙂 And if it’s a really strong film, if the film has real *density*, then it CAN stand any number of readings — even if none of these were thought of by the creator.
About the wide-ranging, bit… Hahaha. But every movie nut is going to like things from all over the place, right? 🙂
Srinivas R: Thanks. Speaking of OAK, its flop is one of the saddest things. Also makes me wonder:
Both OAK and Jigarthanda lend themselves to readings. In both, you have to really think. Both are very strong directorial works. Both are non-family films, edgy films, auteurist films, ambitious films. And yet, one was rejected, the other one accepted.
So it makes me wonder if we’re ready to accept only “good” films that are also high on entertainment quotient — and by that, I mean, films that make us laugh.
In other words, had Jigarthanda’s second half been like the first half, would it still have seen such a response? I mean, those of us who love cinema would still embrace it. I’m talking about the others….
So when someone says things like “the Tamil film audience has truly arrived” (someone actually said this to me), I’m thinking “I’m not quite sure about that…”
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Srinivas R
August 7, 2014
BR – The difference between OAK and Jigarthanda ,apart from entertainment is the fact that OAK was poorly marketed. The offbeat songs from Jigarthanda ( esp. Kannama and Pandi Naatu Kodi) were already popular before the movie’s release and the lead actor and director have been talking abt the movie in social media. It also helped that other big movie , VIP, was already 3 weeks past its release and this movie had no direct competition.
Movies like OAK cannot affort the near invisibility in which it was released. Apart from a one page write-up in “Ananda Vikatan” abt a moth before the movie’s release , there was no buzz about the movie. OAK was released at the same time as Raja Rani , which for all it’s faults had a much bigger buzz. It was an unfair competition in terms of *visibility* of the film to prospective audience.
I do agree that *entertainment* is a key aspect for NKPK and Soodhu Kavvum’s success.
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brangan
August 7, 2014
Srinivas R: I agree. The formula today seems to be : marketing + entertainment.
I’d be very interested in seeing if a Tamil filmmaker with a good marketing sense and social-media buzz-creating awareness can make a hit out of a “serious” film.
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MANK
August 7, 2014
Jigarthanda Total Box Office Collections – Rs 6.20 Crores Approximately in 6 days
http://www.inreporter.com/jigarthanda-first-week-box-office-collection-report-6-days/
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MANK
August 7, 2014
So it makes me wonder if we’re ready to accept only “good” films that are also high on entertainment quotient — and by that, I mean, films that make us laugh.
Brangan, its not just here. Compare the B.O.of P.T. Anderson’s and Tarantino’s films. QT’s last 2 movies have grossed in excess of half a billion dollars individually at the box office . While P.T’s 2 movies together didnt make 100 mil.-Both of them make highly idiosyncratic, auteurish, multi layered works.- Why?, because QT’s films are more entertaining & accessible than PTAs films – definitely make us laugh more anyway.You have to watch PTA’s films atleast 5 times to understand what the hell it is all about. 🙂 .
I’d be very interested in seeing if a Tamil filmmaker with a good marketing sense and social-media buzz-creating awareness can make a hit out of a “serious” film.
Brangan, that will have to be Kamalahaasan- nobody’s got a better marketing sense than Kamal in TN.He knows how to use all forms of media to give a tremendous boost to his film , very much like Aamir Khan.Even 15 years ago- with no social media – the kind of hype he whipped up about a serious drama like Hey Ram was tremendous. Its a pity that the film flopped.Wonder in todays rabid social media atmosphere – whether he could have turned that into a hit and a social media phenomenon?.
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Cinemakkaran
August 7, 2014
[i] But then this is the problem with the whole interval concept. When you write your screenplay with this in mind, you know you HAVE to have a big bang around interval point — and the biggest bang in the story is Sethu finding out. So that HAS to be the halfway point. And then you realise that your main movie is beginning in the second half [/i]
—————————————————————————————
“Did he make what he started out to make? “I wanted to make a racy film that moved at breakneck speed, but what I have ended up making is a slow, classic build-up to the climax,” he grins. “Most of the film starts off only in the second half. At the interval block, the filmmaker or a character will tell you the story begins only now. It’s like saying you will be paid only from the third month of joining work. Oh, then I will join work from the third month. The idea was to cut to the chase.” – Thiagarajan Kumararaja in his interview to Sudhish Kamath
http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/a-new-chapter/article1158882.ece
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 7, 2014
GK: thanks! but, I hope I wasn’t coming off as pitting another review (I wouldn’t troll BR’s blog with my reviews 🙂 ). Was just responding to something and it became a discussion (over the course of which I understood several fallacies in my argument). Not competent to do any reviewing. I have no meta-reviewing skill either–but seems like it is a bit easier to fake that :).
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ram murali
August 7, 2014
really nice interview…ur book on mani ratnam has indeed helped shape how i view cinema…elements like when to place a song (the karthik flashback explanation was terrific), how to use cinematic tropes other than dialogue (the “unfinished” apt in alaipayuthey comes to mind) were all very thought provoking…slightly off topic but am asking since u mentioned this in the interview – u mentioned mann vaasanai as one of ur best…i remember reading a while ago that u felt mann vaasanai to be superior to muthal mariyaadhai since u didn’t particularly care for the “strained poetic” quality in the latter…does it again point to ur desire to see things “sprout organically” like u mentioned in ur review of soodhu kavvum and even here in JT (and several other reviews)…is it the case that u felt bharathiraja, the director, was really coming to the fore in MM whereas in MV, he was letting the story – in all its rustic glory – unfold more naturally? speaking of MM, my favorite “poetic” scene is the one where sivaji and radha try to catch fish…raja’s score is incredible…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwZUaljdGX4 (watch at the 53 min point)
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Prakash
August 7, 2014
@rangan
Fascinating film, but IMO, definitely not in the league of Aaranya Kaandam…that one simply had better screen-writing. More than 3 years have passed since its release and I still don’t think a more brilliant script has come the way of tamil cinema, the new-gen wave notwithstanding. Though Onaayum Aattukuttiyum would rank a close second.
Also, Santhosh Narayan, good though he is, is no match to YSR in bgm of aaranya kaandam.
A couple of thoughts.
1)The more things change, the more they stay the same… So we still have to endure forced(and under-written) “heroine” characters to bring in the “family crowd” who only like “normal” films. Plus the amma sentiment plus the child sentiment(all cosmetically spiced up in a “twist” format…I felt like yelling…”yow idhukellaam yenya flash-forward…”) Reminded me of Director(?) Hari’s penchant to abuse the zoom and fast-forward buttons in scenes involving cars/jeeps to show “nalla paaru…padam vegama pogudhu”.
2) The standards of acting from many of these new-gen actors are fairly remarkable by indian cinema standards, though that remains to be proven in pathos-heavy roles.
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nivazr
August 7, 2014
BRangan sir, do you really think watching a movie like Jigarthanda once and giving a review is really correct, does movies like these require a second time watch?? Coz I don’t really remember most of the scenes while writing something about it but while reading the comments from others here I was able to recollect the scenes I missed while writing..
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kums
August 7, 2014
So some serious films that were hits (Not blockbusters) are: Thegidi and Pizza and previously aadukalam (if you can count it as serious). But none were blockbusters. It is a shame OAT din do well at the box office. But Myskinn was literally a lone wolf with that film – maybe with a bit more marketing who knows what might have happened.
(On that note, I am really looking forward to Lucia in tamil from cv kumar – Sidharth is the hero. If that movie becomes a blockbuster in tamil, we can say we have started to accept good movies. Sidharth being in JT might actually help that movie)
ps: I forgot Heyram in my previous post. It ranks right up there 🙂 I like Kamal the director more than kamal the actor sometimes.
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kums
August 8, 2014
For some reasons, the whole movie reminded me of this one scene from AK: from 24:57 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3RqgN3-Kac
‘ore kalula moonu manga’
…
‘apo andha moonavadhu manga’
‘adhu neenga dhan saar’
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Ashwath Ram
August 8, 2014
@BRangan: My two cents to the brilliant discussion happening here
1. Many people seem to have a problem with the transition from a raw gangster flick in the first half to a dark parody laced with satirical duality in the second, saying that the transition is not seamless. But why should every change/ transition be seamless? Can it not be drastic? Is it because we are used to slow building up of sequences and characters that lead to an engaging/ impact climax? If Subbaraj was indeed trying to create a new genre of film by mixing arthouse and mainstream, maybe *this* is the way to go about it?
2. Another recurring comment that I see is “.. could not feel for the characters”. Maybe, Mr. Subbaraj did not want us to empathize/ invest with the characters or their arcs, thus making them very superficial on screen like any other scene in Jigarthanda.
3. The demonization of Karthik did not happen overnight. It was an ongoing process. (Remember Jigarthanda starts with a story that happened “few months back” and then cuts to present day. Given the time he spent researching on Sethu, making Aa. Kumar, probably, the time-frame between the two episodes is close to a year). Furthermore, his character always exudes confidence (or over confidence) as seen in the reality show episode, where he is non-chalant rather than nervous- walking at his own pace to the stage, not saying anything when questioned by the host) and while trying to get close to Sethu. He was cautious but also enjoyed flirting with danger. Remember the scene in the producer’s office, a news clip is shown of a brutal murder in Madurai. His friend sheds some words of sympathy but Karthik remains unflinched- with the only aim of getting the nod from the producer. His character arc starts from there.
The ‘meta’morphosis ( see what I did here? :P) of Karthik was very layered and latent, running throughout the movie. While capturing the life of Sethu from the horse’s mouth, he is engrossed with the story, imagining of his *possible* film with Vijay Sethupathi, in the lead. He is not disturbed by the anecdotes, but lives the moments (you have mentioned many such instances in your review) and it ultimately leads to Karthik having one solitary goal- to take revenge on Sethu as shown by the dialogues- “*tha! avana edhavadhu pannanum da!…” “.. *tha yaara avan?!”
Karthik is smart. He decides to spring into action only after the movie is released. He doesn’t like hiding. In the final confrontation with Sethu, he doesn’t choose to run to the police station and hand over the evidence he realized he possessed, but was ready to fight him with a gun. A ‘typical’ movie would probably insert a pulsating a chase here.
After the entire ‘pour kerosene’ and ‘gibberish’ episode, Karthik doesn’t just walk away, but points the gun at Sethu. He didn’t just stop there- (he could have just unloaded the gun and threw it at Sethu). Instead, he decides to shoot, three times. A statement. It was not Sethu who gave “uyir pichchai” to Karthik, but the other way. Still, he walks away with the most ungrateful and lazy ”thanks”. The entire interaction just affirms the transfer of power and character.
As @Anand said, “Actually the “zen” moment for Karthik is shown in the final reveal, when he is having tea with the acting coach and telling the coach “how do I make a film with these guys?”. And then the shot of Chaplin’s ‘The Circus’ is shown. Now we all know that the story of the Circus was about a clown who was unintentionally funny”. Surprised, you missed that!
The long acting lesson montages were very much needed because, Karthik initially starts making *his* gangster movie with Sethu and then when the acting master tells- “ivangalukku nadippu varaadhu” and that is exactly the moment he gets an idea from Chaplin’s ‘Circus’ and decides to start making Azhuguni Kumar instead of Assault Kumar. So the scenes with the acting coach seems justified, despite appearing quite bland when compared to the rest of the film.
4. Few small tribute-gems I noticed apart from the ones mentioned so far were the Gangs of Wasseypur scene on TV, the Rock ‘n’ Rolla theme playing in the back during one of the early scenes at Oorni’s house, the opening credits of Aa Kumar (AK) being strikingly similar to the trailer of Aaranya Kaandam (AK!).
5. Finally, the way I completely interpret the meta movie is slightly different. We have seen movies dealing with gangsters fall into two templates- the rise and fall of a gangster and the other, where he becomes a changed man. Movies inspire. To few people, movies are more than just entertainment and it has come out with strong messages in the past that few people have taken seriously. JT, takes it one step further and has tried to show, not one particular film impacting a rowdy, like Sethu, but the whole medium of cinema- pooled with the fame, respect etc. that comes with it, changing him. He wants to be famous, well acknowledged and respected. ” Vaazhndha, semmaya vaazhndaan nu vaazhanum!”.
At the funeral of a fellow gangster, the son of the deceased says something on the lines of ” oruthan kooda saavu kku varala. Naama dhan makkal namma vecha bayatha mariyaadhai nu nenachuttom. Adhella illa. Seththa ippo ellarum santhoshama nimmadhiya iruppanga!”. This is followed up with the handshake from the kid and the respect and fame at the gates, with people flocking to meet him. Not to mention, Sethu’s mother starting to talk to him after 12 years, which is a big thing to him as he mentions it with a heavy heart while narrating it initially, albeit trying to not make it sound a big deal, but his voice and body language showed that he was affected, and tried to hide it.
6. I loved the way the last 5 minutes was filmed. Exquisite filmmaking. With Karthik walking like a king with the rowdies and Sethu being ‘shot at’ in a movie – both juxtaposed on screen aided by the out of the world ‘JIGAR (heart)’ track composed by Santhosh Narayanan. Interesting to note how the graph of this song’s tempo is similar to that of “yaar yaar sivam” and both, in a way, stresses on attaining contentment from redemption. The film ends with Sethu falling prey to bullets- showing that his character assassination in the movie is complete! (Another meta, I suppose!)
I have watched it only once in the theater, because being a student in a college town in America, ride to cities to watch a film is an unwanted expense. Will probably watch it again legally, via Tentcotta or something. Kudos to everyone dissecting the movie, especially Ashutosh and MANK. Loving the discussion, so far! Probably after Vazhakku En 18/9, this is the movie that has resulted in such a long discussion, I suppose. 😉
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Cinemakkaran
August 8, 2014
@BRangan
Sir, I think most meta moment in the movie was the older assistant director telling Karthik his story. He tried to become an assistant for 5 years and then assisted for 10 years before even trying to make that first film and couldn’t make it. But our generation ( that of Karthik) can’t wait for that long. 1-2 short films and Bam , You want to make your feature film (give or take assisting in 1-2 films). Also possible that we can’t wait for years to make movies of different genre that halfway through the movie you decides to shift genre.
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cornerd (@cornerd)
August 8, 2014
you watch the film. Read this blog and the follow up comments. Spend a few hrs discussing it with your friends. It’s so easy to get carried away with the health of Tamil film industry. Then you see such videos to bring you down to earth. (Kozhandhanare konjinarannu kaeten takes the cake. Deep respect for Karthik to offer that blank reaction for that question)
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Ashutosh Mohan (@notashutosh)
August 8, 2014
Watched the film a second time. The following seemed interesting:
1. When Karthik and Oorni descry Soundar revealing Sethu’s assassination plan to Sekar, Oorni says ‘What a twist? Why make a movie on Sethu? This guy is smarter than Sethu himself; you should make a film on this guy.’ This could be taken as foreshadowing. This dialogue also sums up the essential dramatic structure of the outer film.
2. In the first scene when Simha enters the theatre, there is a sign next to the door that says something like ‘No thoroughfare. Enter theatre through backdoor.’ The camera is behind Simha. When we see this scene for a second time near the end, the camera faces Simha and we see things from the opposite perspective. Not sure what this means.
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MANK
August 8, 2014
Aswath Ram, i didnt have a problem with empathizing with Kartik’s character. His character arc was clear to me. Its sethu’s character that i have tremendous problems with – and i have written in detail Reg. an earlier comment of Brangan – Kartik being a selfish bastard. I think that was a little unfair. Whatever selfishness he has ,its for his art and not for himself. Whatever he is – its that he is a typical filmmaker and good one at that . He fits in the description of what John Ford said that – a Director ought be a little bit of a bastard.
Yeah and he’s really courageous. He is not oblivious to his fate- of what would happen to him for making a fool of a gangster- but he goes ahead nonetheless .Bcoz , His love for the art of films precedes the love that he has for his own life and no matter what happens he will make the film only he wants to make. He will do justice to his artform even that means death- so there is no reason to accuse him of any personal selfishness See that sheer glee that passes through his face when he countdowns at the beginning of his film – and when the title of AKumar expands.He shows his fists at Sethu’s picture.Its only after the exhilaration -of the release and the applause- of the film that he proceeds to think about his own future and safety.So this film could be looked on as a love letter to the art of cinema itself and thats what strikes me more than all the meta def. thrown around.
Reg: the final scene- Kartik walking away like a king intercut with sethu going down . Its very much like -The King is Dead, Long live the (New) King. thats a definite statement on transfer of power not only in the case their characters, But also symbolizes the power shifting from the actor to the director- which is every film director’s dream especially in the Tamil film industry. i am sure i have seen that – sethu going down in a hail of bullets in super slo mo -at the end of some other film, cant remember which one . there is a similar scene in Inglorious Basterds but i have seen a more definite one somewhere.
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brangan
August 8, 2014
ram murali: I guess it is a bit of the whole “organic” thing. See, we don’t have to use that word. I’m just saying that things should happen in a movie in a way that makes us feel that such a thing is inevitable. Plus, I didn’t care too much for Bharathiraja’s lingering on all those “poetic moments” between Sivaji and Radha. Kinda felt strained and artificial to me.
Prakash: I actually thought the heroine character worked up to a point. That revenge thing was fantastic. But then, yeah, I didn’t like her coming to Karthik and apologising and then waiting again for him as he’s leaving for Chennai (and his reaction, considering his “let’s be friends” stand was even odder).
About that “zoom” thing you talk about, I just think it’s because too much was happening too soon. We don’t feel this in the first half because things move at the pace they should, and so the happenings appear organic. But in the second half, there’s literally a plot dump towards the closing stretch — that’s why the end portions look so hurried and not very well done.
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brangan
August 8, 2014
nivazr: Boss, each time you see a well-made film, you’ll see new things. So, in theory, you’ll never be able to write a “complete” review for any film. Once is good enough. That’s why the comments section exists, to take off where the review ends…
kums: I don’t mean films like “Thegidi,” which I liked, but that’s quite a lightweight film. It is what it is. I mean something that people can get together and dissect and take multiple readings of…
Ashwath Ram: I have already addressed the “feel for characters” in my reply to Bart above.
The demonization of Karthik did not happen overnight. It was an ongoing process. (Remember Jigarthanda starts with a story that happened “few months back” and then cuts to present day
See this is where the difference between “logical logic” and “emotional logic” kicks in. Everything’s in place. Everything’s explained. The “logical logic” is in place. And yet, even though we *know* the transformation didn’t happen overnight, we *feel* that it did. (At least some of us feel this way.)
It’s not enough to put a title card saying “many years passed.” We should *feel* this passing in the film… And some of us did not feel it.
As I’ve said earlier, the problems in the latter half aren’t WHAT problems. They’re HOW problems. Not what happens, but how it all happens.
the whole medium of cinema- pooled with the fame, respect etc. that comes with it, changing him. He wants to be famous, well acknowledged and respected. ” Vaazhndha, semmaya vaazhndaan nu vaazhanum!
Agreed, but where’s the meta-ness in this? It’s all on the surface. Kayal pretty much says this in the well, and we hear this again during the funeral scene. So it’s very clear that Sethu’s mind is being changed by what cinema can help him do/achieve… Nothing very meta here as far as I can see.
cornerd (@cornerd): Absolutely. A bunch of net-savvy (and foreign-film savvy) city guys going gaga over a film means little, really, in terms of a “changing cinematic culture.”
Cinemakkaran: Again, why is this a meta moment? It’s a dialogue scene where everything is laid out for us. Where’s the metaness in this case?
MANK: When I called Karthik, a selfish bastard, I meant what you said — i.e. the only thing that matters to him is his art. (I’ve explained this in more detail in the review.) While writing the review, I actually thought of including the “dress the double” anecdote about David Lean on the sets of “Lawrence of Arabia” — which is kinda like your John Ford quote 🙂
According to me, there is ONLY ONE REAL LOVE SCENE in the movie, and it doesn’t involve Kayal at all — it involves Mani Annan. During the poojai, Karthik gives the clapper board to Mani Annan — who’s standing in the back, in the crowd; Karthik looks for him and pulls him out of the crowd — and asks him to give the clap for the first shot of his film.
And this comes after the scene where Mani Annan tells him that he’s a failed filmmaker. So Karthik *is* capable of senti feelings — but only to people who know what art is. Compare the deeply loving way with which he treats Mani Annan in this scene with the way he interacts with Kayal throughout — and you’ll see he’s capable of love… Just not with some random idli seller.
He doesn’t even care about his family — what will happen to them after the film’s release. Though this is extreme, it shows where his love really lies.
This is what I’m talking about in the meta portions of my review… “at some level, a perverse wish-fulfillment fantasy, and its narrative arc traces the progression of the making of a movie” (i.e. a director’s wish for power over actors, plus the *process* of movie-making itself).
And this *is* really meta, for none of this is spelt out… It’s for us to infer…
But also symbolizes the power shifting from the actor to the director
I agree. This is what I meant when I said… “Subbaraj seems to be saying that the only way to make the movie you really want to make in the present Tamil-cinema scenario — where anyone, apparently, can become a hero and begin calling the shots, and where directors with vision are forced to compromise – is to become some sort of gangster…”
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Rahul
August 8, 2014
Did anyone come across a version with subtitles? I did see a trailer with English subs .
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MANK
August 8, 2014
“dress the double” anecdote about David Lean on the sets of “Lawrence of Arabia”
oops, Brangan , thats from Doctor Zhivago not L of A. – That scene where the old lady with the child is running after the train and omar sharif pulls her in. She went under the train and broke her leg and had to be hospitalised.. Hence David Lean’s statement.
Also Brangan, there seems to be a confusion among various commenters here about what constitutes a meta movie. It looks like – the blind men touching different parts of an elephant scenario – in your interview. Perhaps that needs to be cleared up first. 🙂
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brangan
August 8, 2014
MANK: Of course, I meant “Doctor Zhivago”. I was just testing you. You know that right? 😛
Yeah, I think we need to explain what “meta” is first 🙂
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metanarrative
Especially the part about “Replacing grand, universal narratives with small, local narratives”
It’s not a complete explanation, but at least it’s a start…
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AlterEgO (@skc89)
August 8, 2014
OMG. I could only get half of what has been discussed here from my first viewing of the movie. Need to Watch it again. This time its gonna be fun relating it with the comments here. A terrific dissection and discussion after a long time here. 🙂
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MANK
August 8, 2014
Hey,Hey Brangan sir. I know , I know :-P. And Didnt you do that to make sure your readers\commenters were well read about cinema?. You bet sir!, you bet! 😛 😛
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kums
August 8, 2014
@br – I agree. thats why had mentioned ‘if it could be considered serious’. Maybe given the state of tamil cinema, they could be called ‘honorary’ serious cinema 🙂 (btw ur other articel exactly echoed my sentiments about Suriya)
Also ‘katradhu tamizh’ was discussed a bit if I am not wrong. Now if it was analyzed/dissected or just criticized – I am not sure though 🙂
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kums
August 8, 2014
In this huge discussion thread, no where was ‘length of the film’ mentioned as a negative. (JT runs close to 3 hrs with one actual full length song). This shows karthik’s direction skills (also how much filled-with-fat the other >2 1/2 hr films are) more importantly hope it makes other film makers realize that length is not a big issue if they give good content.
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MANK
August 8, 2014
Kums, a couple of more additions to your list would be Anbe sivam and Virumandi.
The first a commercial failure and the latter a success.AS was a less serious\much more entertaining film than Hey Ram , but yet it flopped – may be bcoz it was generally a sombre film that arrived at the height of Dhool – saamy fever.But kamal learnt his lessons from the failures of these 2 off beat films and rebound with Virumandi, which was on the surface a very mass film with a massey character he essayed, so that all his experimentation with the form of the medium could be accommodated.and boy it worked!.
But after that what happened to Kamal?. The decade after that has been a lost decade for him. Wasting so much time in making Dashavatharam – Horrible to say the least or Vishwaroopam-Ordinary (definitely by his standards anyway). He should have been at the forefront of the new wave revolution in tamil cinema.Is it bcoz , he has also been afflicted by the surya syndrome that Brangan talks about in the other piece.? .But he’s never been the one to bow to BO diktats. What you said about Kamal earlier is true to a point- not just as a director but also as a writer\producer (Read Ghost director 🙂 ). Take apoorva sahodarangal,guna, mahanadi,Tevar makan,Anbe sivam- no matter whose name is up there as the director , it is one man’s vision thats on the screen and thats Kamal’s.
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Prakash
August 8, 2014
@rangan
Well, yes..that revenge bit was a nice innovation but it still felt tacked on to me, and somehow the whole Kayal character seemed like an afterthought which was lazily and shoddily elaborated during later drafts of the script…Lakshmi Menon’s Elder-Sister-next-door looks and laboured acting didn’t help matters either.
Reg. the final portions, apart from those minor grouses that I already mentioned, I found them decent enough. The last 5-10 minutes were pure poetry-in-motion from a stand-alone POV…frames cut dexterously moving like silk, The rousing BGM in complete harmony with the visuals… Everything felt right, atleast viscerally. And as the truckloads of juicy nuggets dug out by the likes of Ashwath Ram and Ashutosh here show, the sub-text and pixel-level detailing have also been praise-worthy.
Could it have been better is an easy question for me. Just take Kayal out of the picture and try to shape the transformations of Sethu and Karthik with better detail and conviction…Kayal(and the choice of Lakshmi Menon) felt very meta to me…an ugly compromise with the producer and audiences.
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Shankar
August 8, 2014
@Rahul, I saw the film with subtitles.
@Baddy, Now that Rahul mentioned it, I have to say this…the subtitles had more than what the dialogues intended, almost like someone told the subtitle guy “Naduvalla konjam maane thenae pottukko”! 🙂 The subtitles were full of extra swear words…mf, f, b….nothing was spared! 🙂 Ithu meta va anti-meta va? 🙂
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bkir
August 9, 2014
@shankar – thats a tribute to Arunya Kaandam 🙂
I happend to see AK in the US. There was no cuts (or mute) and it had subtitles. The subtitles had some ‘nalu anju extra bitu sethu potuko’ which was so much fun than the original dialogues. Saw the movie twice- the second one exclusively following the subtitles(like watching a foreign lang film).
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KP
August 9, 2014
The director referenced is Bala.
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Maru
August 9, 2014
I finally managed to catch the film at our local Indian movie theater and it’s still playing in it’s second week which must mean it’s doing well. That pleases me!
Terrific review, Brangan. I eyeballed it for length and figured that such a long review made it an interesting and worthwhile watch. It’s a metric that’s served me well with your reviews when I want to avoid spoilers. 😉 Then I came back and read thru the whole thing properly. What a hopping discussion – very fun reading, some great comments.My fave part was the back and forth between Brangan and Ashutosh.
@Ashutosh you had me convinced even if it didn’t quite work on Brangan (but I suspect I also liked the film a whole lot more than he did)! 😛
So much has already been said and said so well that I’m not sure that I have anything new to add. Yes, the post interval twist was abrupt and came out of nowhere. But that bothered me less than the emotional transformation at the end and the switcheroo in roles.It seemed like a bit of a betrayal of the characters. The final scene with Karthik in Vijay Sethupathy’s office – dreadful! The film began with a bang and ended with a whimper. Sometimes that “meta” thing results in being too clever by half.
All said and done, I found so much in the movie to enjoy and appreciate – in both halves. So many of the comic scenes in the second half had me whooping with laughter. So notwithstanding the letdown of a finale, this was a smashing film.
I guess that makes the whole “conscientious justification” process a bit suspect to me – the business of intellectualizing a visceral reaction (as I think Ashutosh put it). It’s easy for me to find evidence to reason thru gaps when I come out of a film satisfied and I suspect the same flaws in a film that doesn’t please me would seem harder to defend. Which isn’t to say there isn’t value in trying to articulate why one feels the way one does – exhibit A: this discussion thread! Thanks all 😀
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pres
August 10, 2014
In the first petrol-oothi-erikara scene, the colour of the petrol is yellowish (actual petrol like colour). In the final scene with Sidharth, the colour is white (well almost white). Is that just water ? Which might mean Sethu made up his mind not to kill Karthik, before actually meeting him? Or is it just a glaring mistake (which I doubt).
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Pady Srini
August 10, 2014
” But why should every change/ transition be seamless? Can it not be drastic? Is it because we are used to slow building up of sequences and characters that lead to an engaging/ impact climax? ”
Convince me ( the viewer ). Which the director has failed. I have seen many movies where one scene just by execution, convinced me to accept an otherwise very remotely possible transition.
Movies are about convincing the audience. Otherwise most “good” movies also will not work.
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ramitbajaj01
August 10, 2014
@shankar- May I know where you watched the movie with subtitles? Actually I watched it in Pune, and there were no subtitles.
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brangan
August 10, 2014
kums: no where was ‘length of the film’ mentioned as a negative.
I did mention it in the review, as… well, maybe not a “negative,” but yes, I did not think this needed to be a 170-min film.
MANK: I’ve also wondered why an actor of the stature of Kamal doesn’t do the odd film for a lark — you know, one of those quirly guest-role things that could be fun for him (because he’s not carrying the film), plus raise the profile of the film… you know, maybe an elder-statesman type role like the one De Niro played in “Goodfellas” or like the Hyman Roth character in “Godfather II.” I’m sure young new-gen filmmakers would write deadly roles for him if he said yes.
Prakash: You say: The last 5-10 minutes were pure poetry-in-motion…
And Maru says: The final scene with Karthik in Vijay Sethupathy’s office – dreadful!
I love it! 🙂
KP: Reg. Bala, which reference are you talking about?
Maru: See, this is what I’m saying. You say: “The film began with a bang and ended with a whimper. And yet, you’ve clearly enjoyed the film. Some people just don’t get that you can come away with an overall positive impression about a film even if you have minor/major problems with parts of it.
I’ve gotten quite a few “So you did not like Jigarthanda, huh?” type remarks, and I’m like… “What the…” 🙂 With some people, it’s either love or hate — no room for anything in between 🙂
pres: Saar, neenga yengiyo poyitteenga!
Pady Srini: Exactly. That’s what I said earlier: “But it’s not ORGANIC. (And how do we know something is organically done in a film? When we are CONVINCED by it. And here I was not convinced.)”
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MANK
August 10, 2014
you know, one of those quirly guest-role things that could be fun for him.plus raise the profile of the film
Yes, And he used to do it in the 90’s . He was great in Sati leelavati. And he even did films like nammavar – not a great film- , or Kuruthipunal – terrific – ensemble pieces on a lower scale and canvas, that wasnt the most high profile , budget busting movie of the year – which is what he seems to be after today. Well keeping fingers crossed for Uthama vIllain
Some people just don’t get that you can come away with an overall positive impression about a film even if you have minor/major problems with parts of it.
Precisely. There are very few films that i have across as 100% satisfactory – A Godfather there, A mughal – e -Azam here and so on. Otherwise even in the greatest of films , you can find any number of flaws. That does not mean you dont like them and appreciate them for their virtues..
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Prakash
August 10, 2014
@rangan
That’s the beauty of it… At a sub-conscious level, I also realized that the Vijay Sethupathi scene was a sort of homage to mass tamil cinema and not merely an inversion of characters between Karthik and Sethu. The kind of cinema that you once called “feet-first-hands-next”(or something similar anyway) cinema, and the entire tone of that Siddharth-Vijay Sethupathi Scene managed to carry that feel. As for the other inversion scene, where Sethu gets sprayed by bullets, Subbaraj had cleverly left the whole thing in suspense…There was a teaser dialog in the beginning that suggested that Karthik had got at him, albeit belatedly, and hints about a plausible “encounter” murder were also thrown in to make the final twist gratifying. So when the reveal takes place, audiences were still not entirely sure of Sethu’s fate, and this, I believe was one of the better-conceived and integrated twists of this twister of a movie.
Add all this to the splendid camera-work and cuts and a gripping score and I could hardly fail to find it engrossing, if only in isolation.
I look back and feel that, the few imperfections and inconsistencies notwithstanding, I enjoyed Jigarthanda a lot more than, say, Soodhu Kavvum, which had fewer “flaws”, but felt a tad bland in comparison.
A small afterthought:
Did you, or any of the others who might read this comment, notice some small tips-of-the-hat to Pudhupettai. I did in at least two scenes.
The guy playing the small-time rowdy “Anbu Sir” in Pudhupettai is referenced in an almost similar cameo here in the flashback with Vijay Sethupathi. Even his lines echoed Pudhupettai. Simply loved it!
Second, just before “Ding Dong” starts to play(boy, what a terrific song at a terrific juncture), when the bullets start to burst from an unseen gun in the car fired by Sethu who is hurting with stab injuries to his abdomen…Replace the car with a bit of fog and the scene is almost eerily similar to Pudhupettai’s climax showdown with Dhanush fighting enemy henchmen.
To be honest, I can’t recall so many easter eggs ever being packed into a film that is already so f**king entertaining. And I have not even seen the film more than once!
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Pady Srini
August 10, 2014
“Some people just don’t get that you can come away with an overall positive impression about a film even if you have minor/major problems with parts of it.”
Cmon. We are not discussing bad movies here. This movie could have been something. And I agree with MARU. The director has obviously spent a lot of time thinking about the last scene. And there was no indication of the hero turning into this. Same transition issue for hero and villian.
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Maru
August 10, 2014
@brangan: “With some people, it’s either love or hate — no room for anything in between”
I hear ya, it must be frustrating particularly with the reviews for the newspaper. But then in many ways the movie audience in India has been schooled by the movies they watch and the critics they encounter who a)tend to spell things out in capital letters and b) end up directing – “Go Watch” or “Stay away” as if this is about imperatives instead of one person’s subjective opinion. But the folks who read this blog and follow some of the discussions do in fact know where you’re coming from. I for one had no trouble figuring you liked Jigarthanda – quite a bit- even if you didn’t think it was in the same class as some other movies in the same space. 😉
Sorry to go off topic, but when a discussion thread gets to the 150 comments stage, I figure it’s ok to digress. 😀 Did you get to watch/plan to watch The 100 foot Journey? The NY Times’ AO Scott shredded the film, which was unsurprising given the schmaltzy preview I’d seen but then he dismissed ARR’s work as a “transnational airport music score” which raised my hackles. In the very next instant I had to smile ruefully at my own prickliness. It’s not as if the ARR portfolio doesn’t have its share of turkeys but when a high brow Western critic is so summarily dismissive of his effort, apparently it still stings me! 😀 I was curious about what you thought of the movie and particularly it’s score!
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Arun
August 11, 2014
@MANK: Kamal did that kind of a role in some Malayalam movie. In Tamil he has done such roles mostly for his own productions. Sathi Leelavathi, Kuruthipunal were from RaajKamal films. Nammavar was written by him. He has always been reluctant to do such roles for others.
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Shankar
August 11, 2014
@ramitbajaj01, I watched the film here in Boston. As far as I can remember, in the past 5 years or so, all the movies release with subtitles here. With Reliance buying into movie chains here, we now have releases with regular show times, not just special shows as in the past. For example, Anjaan is releasing next Thursday with 4 shows a day at a nearby multiplex.
@Maru, just came back from watching the journey. Sadly, I have to agree with the critic here. The score was as stereotypical as it can get, loud and interfering when it could have something else and quite bland in scenes when it could have been magical (score wise). Instead we have repeated scenes of shehnai and sitar playing quite forgettably and on cue. The film itself was quite bland but there were opportunities where the score could have shone *Spoiler Alert* for instance when Hassan discovers French cooking or scenes when food is being tasted, I was waiting for the score to convey magic…as I watched the film, all I could think was given so many superb scores in Indian films by ARR, this effort seemed perplexing to me. I sometimes think in many cases, he is not sure if he should go all out with a score that plays on Indian sensibilities or if he should tone it down for Western audiences…just the feeling I got after watching this film. This one seemed neither here nor there.
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brangan
August 11, 2014
Maru: No, haven’t seen it, and not planning to either. Film looks quite bland, no? And I agree with Shankar — Rahman’s scores can be notoriously hit or miss.
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MANK
August 11, 2014
Arun:In Tamil he has done such roles mostly for his own productions.
Thats true. But he has stopped doing that even with his own productions. Earlier he is to support other filmmakers\actors through his banner like Shankar or Lingaswamy is doing now.Dont know whether the failure of Hey Ram dejected him so much and made him really bitter. He mentions the failure of the film in almost every interview.Then there was the Marudunayagam and marmayogi fiascos.Also he went through a costly and bitter divorce – losing Sarika and perhaps a lot of his assets in the process.. Sarika was not just a wife , but was a great artistic collaborator as well who seemed to have been a great sounding board for him.Rajkamal films , that used to be such an active and dynamic prod. house when she was around has hardly made 2 films in the last decade.
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S. Mohan Raj
August 11, 2014
Wow ! So much happening here. Congrats to B Rangan. I have always loved your reivews. Never knew that this blog existed.
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Sanjay Kumar
August 12, 2014
saw the movie yesterday and true to the comments here, it was a fantastic movie and should get awards in various categories both here and abroad…Karthick subburaj has a rare cinematic brilliance that needs to be encouraged wholeheartedly…the scene of the movie release and the accompanying cuts reminded me of the flash cut scenes of Godfather before reaching the climax…of course here it was much more subdued since the climax of that moment is farcical…the transition issue of Sethu was not felt so much by me, considering what fame could do to persons’ character…an allurement for an narcissistic “oru mathiriyana” psycho character…
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Maru
August 12, 2014
@Brangan: Thanks! I’m not planning to watch either – the preview was way too schmaltzy for me. Also, just managed to watch Highway on DVD – we didn’t get a theatrical release in my town- and I’m still reeling from the impact of the film which I loved and ARR’s score which seemed perfect. I also hugely enjoyed going back to read your review and the discussion on it. After all this time it didn’t make any sense to post about it there.
@Shankar: Thanks for your impressions on the score. I like AO Scott’s style and read his reviews regularly, but there’s something about Western critics’ views of desi dance and music traditions in our movies that always makes me a bit wary. But maybe this one was on the money! 😀
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apala
August 13, 2014
BRangan,
Wonderful review and highly involved brilliant debates – enjoyed every bit of it. Wow, how much more I need to educate myself on being a good audience………..thanks to all.
Well, for me the movie worked well because of lot of great moments and of-course had to overlook few issues, never minded them (length being one!).
Karthik served European cuisine mixed with Chettinadu cuisine (1st and 2nd half) – both were cooked wonderfully, tasted deliciously and presentation was excellent but it just does not jell together all that well in my humble opinion.
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Lucky Guy
August 16, 2014
Jigarthanda is a disappointing and dishonest movie. A twist is not an organic way of thinking of a story. There is no twist in any story. A twist must be a change or event that happens in the routine of a “character” that is well characterized.
Generally a Story moves and screenplay is picked up as precious important moments of that story. The story or a content is lacking totally in this movie. There were focus issues in the cinematography. The movie tone has changed between the trailercut and movie.. The movie was as if taken in a box… Where the hell is the madurai. Show me Madurai.. Short film makers!!
Please stop mentioning this film as world class. Moreover please watch dirty carnival and one has to agree on all the “inspirations”.
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Raghu Nandan
August 19, 2014
jigarthanda had both good and bad parts to it. the second half arguably is a let down considering the first half.
the reason i think is that coming from a short film background – If you have to capture audience within a 5-10 min film you just hype up a character to extra ordinary levels and suddenly drop the character to a laughing stock. Now when you see this formula applied in a 3 hour film it doesnt do very well.
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Shankar Arunachalam
September 1, 2014
@BR, this is a lovely discussion. I was especially piqued with the meta angle that you and Ashutosh spent time in detail. I thought I would add a slightly different viewpoint here, but more in sync with what Ashutosh said. To summarize in a single word, ‘Adaptation’ – the 2002 Charlie Kaufman movie. I have tried to elaborate more in a blog post: https://medium.com/uncertain-indian/jigirthanda-the-real-slim-shady-509bb4e3d7bc
In case you aren’t keen on going through that full post, the gist of the matter is that the second half of the movie with all the uncharacteristic buffoonery and the cliched ending with mother sentiment, child sentiment etc. is your Donald Kaufman script, whereas the first half of the movie is your sincere Charlie Kaufman script, with the script switching scene being the one where Palani advises Karthik to go for the compromise.
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Jetlagged
September 2, 2014
From your review of cloud atlas
“What might it be like to cross the Niagara on an oil-slicked tightrope, on a unicycle, blindfolded, with hands tied behind the back? You need look no further than David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which is surely one of the most dazzling literary stunts of this millennium.”
hmmm…the blind folding and hands tied behind is missing here…..konduvandhurlam….
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Jetlagged
September 2, 2014
Of course….only with respect to the writing……
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Ranganathan
September 7, 2014
Enjoyed the review as well as the discussion. I FINALLY caught with the movie this weekend and really enjoyed it like every one else.
Apart from the Meta-ness of narration, Particularly interesting (smaller) theme in the movie for me was similarities between the characters of Karthik(Aspiring director who wants to make a gangster movie with message of nonviolence and peace) and Sethu(The Heartless Psycho gangster killer who initially is spied upon by Karthik for movie research and later casts himself the hero of the movie by threatening Karthik.)
1) Sethu ultimately wants to be recognized as someone who lived grandly and is willing to do anything to achieve that kind of respect ‘Semmaya Vaazhanum – adukkaga enna vena pannalam yaara venunaalum kollalam’.
I guess it is implied that Karthik wants also to be recognized as a great director – I guess he identifies himself more with the Award winning director(Mukesh??) even though he rejected Karthik’s efforts as garbage. And like Sethu he is ruthless in gaming those around him (even causing the loss of their life)to achieve his goal. In that sense both of them are Jigar Thanda – Cold Hearted
2) Only person who Sethu seem to respect is the elderly ex don(forgot his name) who used to be like Sethu before taking a hit during assassination effort which made him poor of health robbing him of his status and position. Sethu seem to genuinely care for him and respects his words of advise(thru his son)
Similarly, As Brangan observed before, only moment of love shown by Karthik is to ex director aspirant(palani) who due to his obstinate nature lost the chance to realize the dream. Karthik respects him and make him clap for first shot
3) The life changing moment in Sethu is also caused by his role model the ex don who makes Sethu understand after his death (thro his son!) that Sethu’s loyalists and minions are influenced more by fear than respect.In that scene I think more than reaction of wife of dead don, Sethu is shaken by the utter uneventful nature of his rolemodel’s death and lack of fan fare in the funeral.(one can imagine what this would’ve done to his grand ambition – Semmaya Vaazhanum)
Similary, game changer for Karthik was advise from Palani to grab the whatever opportunity with both hands instead of getting washed up like him. Both of them needed to be advised by kind of older version of themselves to change their courses.
4) I see the role reversal at the end more as end of an era and beginning of another – Seasoned gangster after long stint of bending people to his finds his position untenable while young single minded director gets the taste of adi udavara maadiri and starts following it. In that sense Karthik is just younger version of Sethu albeit in a different field.
The second half does look like a ‘perverse wish-fulfillment fantasy’ in BRangan’s words where director would get absolute obedience from actors and others involved and thus able to create movie true to his vision without ‘compromise’. But looking back I’m not sure whether the theme of compromise is shown as a positive or negative influence on creation
1) Karthik took Palani’s advise to compromise and against all odds was able to produce a commercial success out of a mess. This could suggest that Compromise is necessary to create.
But he doesn’t seem to take the lesson of compromise from the success in his next venture. Perhaps A Kumar is not a critical success(may be in fictional world Brangan Panned it :p)? Perhaps in his mind being true to his vision is more important than commercial success?
2) Perhaps the successful A Kumar movie produced is a reference to umpteen trashy ‘comedy’ films replete with sarakku songs etc. that directors are forced to produce these days. In that regard compromise is a bane and director has to have absolute obedience from cast and crew to be true to his vision. Which is what Karthik sets out to do in the next venture.
3) Another view is Perhaps unbending directors (like the award winning juror in initial scene) who doesn’t compromise are bit like gangster Sethu themselves. They terrorize Producers and Public alike and are unwilling to listen to an alternate viewpoint. They have inflated opinions on their ideas as well as talent and demand absolute compliance from everyone – anyone who dares to disagree are branded fools.
Also I feel the complete second Half is a commentary on the ‘Power Star’ phenomenon. I guess Power star’s story is of a political person in his 50s who was not satisfied by what he was doing and is bitten by Star Bug and Ventured into acting and Producing. He might’ve wanted to become a ‘Gethu’ mass Star but soon found that people rather laughed at his antics but he still became popular for that. He realized the phenomenon and started riding it. – This is essentially the story of Sethu as well – A big Don who hated being laughed at but then found he liked that when lakhs of people follow him even if it is for unintended and humiliating reasons!
Well I have lots of other things to share as well, but I think I am joining this party very late. I rather fear people might already be tired of discussing JigarThanda. But I do like to hear from you guys on my views.
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brangan
September 7, 2014
Adding a link to Sudhish’s piece, which talks about the “Pyaasa” thingee discussed above.
http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/cinema-columns/paying-anurag-kashyap-back/article6386213.ece
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MANK
September 8, 2014
i am glad that I got that Anurag kashyap pay back thing right. As well as all those Sergio leone , Scorsese….. influences.. The pyaasa influence thing is really incredible. Hard to believe that they never seen that film
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brangan
September 8, 2014
MANK: Well, it doesn’t really matter if the director insists it’s not “Pyaasa.” There is a strong enough resemblance to make a case, if you so want — and that’s what really matters, right? 😉
I mean, may the director hasn’t seen “Pyaasa,” but maybe the cinematographer has, and maybe he lit this shot this way… Filmmaking is too complex an undertaking to be attributed to just the director… Even if you subscribe to the auteur theory, which I do.
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subashshekar
September 12, 2014
It was the best movie I watched in recent times. Now that thats out of the way..
My only crib is that he set himself up for delivering the best gangster movie seen in recent times but decided not to build on it. While the first half was insanely awesome, the second was just mostly insane. In the end it really just left me wondering whether I liked the movie or not, amazing as it was.
There is one another crib. While the genre-shift worked in Pizza, here it left a slightly shaky trail and while he already had us to suspend our belief for the first half gangster movie, he wanted us to suspend it again for a less enjoyable alternative. And if it was only to draw comparisons to the tough world filmmakers are in, its overindulgence to expect the general audience to empathize. I would also love to see filmmakers like Subburaj to pay a little more attention to potholes / logic. 1) sethu who kills a journalist who wrote about him actually confesses to his entire murder history on camera 2) and forgets about it 3) karthik also forgets about it and only later remembers this and though he confesses to this slipping his mind , its hard to buy 4) sethu’s inexplicable desire to star in a movie and make a goof out of himself in front of his gang killed one of the greatest character arcs ever 4) i m pushing it here but even the a.kumar movie becoming a super hit which in real word, at best would be youtube most watched video.
The unicycle reference is cool. But there was no oil or niagara falls til midway and he was doing a pretty decent act anyways, I would rather have seen him zoom past to the other size than have a shaky ride for the remainder half.
#i wasn’t one of those people who thought gravity was an amazing experience
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cornerd (@cornerd)
October 2, 2014
I know this is a serious case of #mytakku, but anyway…Is it really a case of Nayagan Kamal turning into a Vasoolraja Kamal? Isn’t the absurdity always lurking around even when showing Sethu in all his gory glory? The very first scene of his is that of murdering the journalist. Even there, after pouring the petrol, they are looking for a lighter/matchbox. When they aren’t able to find one, someone goes back to the gun, then the lighter works. That Sekar’s spy character is seen asking for a chance to do a sambavam in the heat of the moment there. The central theme of Sethu’s character, that no one dare laugh at him, is established here, but with a touch of absurdity – that the journalist used a caricature instead of his photo bothers him. Also on second viewing, the symmetry is quite obvious – that the one who absolutely hates being laughed at is going to be dealt precisely that. The scene where they kill the guy in the living room while Sethu is eating: Is that a typical gangster movie scene? The absurdity is written all over the scene. Except for the elaborate sketch and execution of that spy character, Sethu never really comes across as the quintessential gangster. Also at that interval point, where he stops short of killing them: Doesn’t that establish his attitude to movies? If he wasn’t so thrilled by movies and the idea of his life being made as a movie, would he not have killed them then and there? And I think that’s where the pivot of the symmetry is. It’s at this point that either we buy it or we don’t (In that case, the movie ends right there). Even before he decides to act, the attitude change is obvious. Now, Karthik dominates the equation between the two. There is no menace in him anymore at least in the eyes of Karthik. He’s all coy in front of the camera narrating his life. He does whatever Karthik wants him to. Of course the change in tone is jarring once he decides to act and the shooting begins. But even here, there is some consistency. Sethu is seen speaking gibberish with his men, not just in the climax. He takes all the insult and disrespect from the acting coach but beats him to pulp at the end of it all. It’s all a bit of exaggerated absurdity (Rowdy-a irukardha vida, rowdy-a nadikardhu dhanda kashtam) but the idea that he’ll submit himself to all this is consistent with the fact he was totally enthralled with the idea of his life as a movie and him as the lead. I just wish the movie had ended with Karthik dropping the gun in their final face off – with the turn around of both characters complete. Or maybe the extended finish was to complete the meta symmetry of a movie set out to be uber cool ending in a series of cliches.
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brangan
October 2, 2014
cornerd: Thank you for another interesting comment on the thread that will apparently never die 🙂
I look at the film a little differently. What you call “absurd” early on, I look at as “black comedy.” And gangsters like these are seen aplenty in, say, the Ritchie/Tarantino movies. Even “Goodfellas” has many black-comedy moments with the Joe Pesci character. This is not what I call “absurd”.
For me “absurd” is a filmmaking/literary genre where a deliberate level of foolishness/bizarreness is achieved. What’s here isn’t absurd (in the first half) and when it gets to be so (in the second), there was a problem for me.
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Rajesh
October 17, 2014
You are all so lucky to live in Madras and watch movies like Jigarthanda, Kadha Thirakkadha, Burma etc on the very first week of release in a cinema house.
I had to wait so long to watch Jigarthanda and am going to watch it again. Glad for Tamil cinema.
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Kolaverify
November 22, 2014
Please view these secrets of Jigarthanda.. And let me know your comments Sir
http://kolaverification.com/2014/10/07/hidden-world-of-jigarthanda/
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Prasad
April 27, 2015
There is some other aspect which probabaly was not discussed in this thread. Karthik SubbUraj ability to bring in unconventional thoughts and certain Madness and quirky nature to his Songs.And there is an intrinic humour also built in the songs which really needs to be appreciated.ManiRathinam, Shankar had their own style and Subburaj for sure is brought a new style in the quirky picturization of songs .
“Kannama ” Song lyrics, the way it is picturized is humorous “Have never seen a strong intro song like “Ding dong” in recent times and. “Pandi Nattu Kodiyil ” is too good without any obscene lyrics even though it’s a Kuthhu Pattu.
His style reminds me a Anurag Kashyap especially in picturization of songs. Just to quote one example below from Gangs of Wasseypur. This song is even refereed in Jigarthanda. actually one needs lateral thinking and to picturize a songs like this with a intrinsic humour
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Shreyasi Ghosh (@gshreyasi)
June 13, 2016
I watched Jigarthanda yesterday. And one scene which somehow I can’t stop thinking about was when Karthi runs away and Oorni is feeling sad and remembering how he was promised the role of the 2nd hero. And then he opens his eyes to see Karthi back, surrounded by the goons. And Oorni says: “Macha, you left during the movie’s title card and you are back before the movie hero’s introduction”
I found it one of the killer-est, funniest dialogues in the movie. Despite watching it with subtitles. I’d have whistled if I watched it in a theater and I could whistle.
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Ananth
November 1, 2023
Sequel is releasing in 10 days. Is this the least hyped people are for a KS movie?
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