The reviews for the Tamil film ‘Madras’ suggest that most English-language writers are divorced from a certain kind of reality.
Pa Ranjith’s Madras is the work of a good, thoughtful filmmaker. It’s a supremely well-made film, but not especially well-written. The narrative superstructure is derivative, and Ranjith doesn’t do enough to make his film different. Or so I thought till I posted my review and began to receive comments. The context is this: I saw the film as one of those many films about the nameless, faceless masses that make up the poorer parts of Madras (given this film, it wouldn’t do to call the city Chennai). But where I – and, apparently, almost every other English-language reviewer – saw a generic group of lower-income-group people, commenters have been pointing out instances from the film to make a case that these characters are from a specific community. They’re Dalits.
I reproduce (with some editorial intervention, for clarity) what a commenter called masilan said, because I think it needs to be heard: “Madras is a film which speaks about contemporary Dalit politics in TN. The character Anbu personifies that section of the Dalit youth who wanted to uplift Dalit society by achieving political power whereas the character Kali stands for that section of Dalits who have used the affirmative policies of the Indian constitution and remain aloof about the condition and empowerment of Dalits. What Kali wants/is concerned about is his happiness alone.”
“Conversations between Anbu and Kali are very important as they send out the message to the audience (Dalits in particular) that what is needed to bring a real change in the conditions of this community is political awareness along with education. Only a person with political awareness (Anbu) will be able to fight against the oppression/injustice the society has done to the Dalits… There are enough instances of scenes and dialogues which scream out loudly that this film is all about Dalits and their politics and how they are kept suppressed eternally. This is also about the betrayal of their own men towards their community… In India, Ambedkar is now reduced to being only a Dalit leader and his photo is seen in Anbu’s house… Anbu’s wife is named Mary and Anbu is shown placing a document before the photo of Mother Mary, suggesting they are Dalit Christians (large numbers of Dalits converted to Christianity to escape the oppression of Hinduism)… Kali is shown reading a book on the atrocities committed on Dalits living in Andhra… Even Thirumavalavan’s (leader of a Dalit-based political party) poster finds its way into the movie.” And so forth.
The question he asked me was: “While all this was so clear, why wasn’t there any reference to this in your review?” The answer is simply that I drew a blank. (And I suppose most other reviewers did too.) We saw and responded to a generic story, but missed out the specifics. These specifics don’t change the film, exactly – at least in the larger sense. The narrative problems remain. The story arc is still derivative. The ending still looks gracelessly tacked on. A couple of songs still feel redundant. And even the Dalit pointers don’t seem to have been integrated all that well – for instance, if the point is to send a signal to the audience, wouldn’t it have made more sense to show the well-meaning Anbu (rather than the self-serving Kali) reading that book about atrocities committed on Dalits? But seen through this reading, how much more interesting the characters become. I see Anbu and Kali in a new light. I see Kali’s engagement ceremony in a new light. I even see why this ending needed to be there, whereas earlier I had casually dismissed it as “a disaster, the result of one of those do-gooder impulses that strikes filmmakers on occasion, when they feel they have to not just make a movie but remake a society.”
Hopefully, the director can be persuaded, at some point, to expand on all this, but what struck me, after this discussion, was how we see the things we’ve been conditioned to see. You can learn to appreciate cinema by watching films made by great directors and poring over sites about cinematography and writing and editing – but that can only tell you how the film is made. And while that is very important, it’s still only half the story. The other half is what the film is about, and picking up on that, as Madras proves, depends on a great many cultural and social factors. A reader on Facebook pointed out that my body of work remains incomplete as none of my writing involves either social or political commentary. I agree with one part of this, that I don’t really talk about these aspects – but I disagree that this makes a review “incomplete,” because there are many ways through which one can approach a film, and screenwriting/aesthetics is my prism, just as someone who speaks about the political and social aspects may not necessarily talk about the filmmaking as such. It’s all these people, with all these concerns and all these viewpoints, that will bring about a corpus of writing that comprehensively represents the film. No single review/reviewer can hope to do that. Commenters have to chip in.
The other cultural factor is that most English-language writers (and therefore reviewers) are divorced from a certain kind of ground reality. They are schooled in English, and they take their cues from English sources – by which I mean, for instance, that a “well-read person” from this milieu is more likely to have read Anna Karenina than Silappadikaram. Socially, too, his milieu is similarly chalked out. Most of the kids in school are like him. Most of the people at his white-collar office are like him. Ideally, it would be both – we would have the best of worlds, bits from here and there. But this rarely happens. I am reminded of an anecdote from my book Conversations with Mani Ratnam, when we were talking about Roja and he recalled the time he narrated the story to the producer K Balachander. KB liked the story but didn’t like the title, which reminded him of a brand of paakku thool, crushed betel nut. “I was amazed,” Ratnam said. “I thought the title represented Kashmir because the rose is something beautiful but with thorns… But he said [it’s like paakku thool]. Trust a pure Tamilian to come up with that.” I asked Ratnam, “Don’t you consider yourself a pure Tamilian?” He smiled and said, “Tamil medium-la padichaa dhaan pure Tamilian.” (“You’re a Tamilian only if you’ve studied in a Tamil-medium school.”) He was being somewhat facetious, but then again, maybe not. Sometimes we become so global that we forget the local.
Lights, Camera, Conversation… is a weekly dose of cud-chewing over what Satyajit Ray called Our Films Their Films. 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.
ramitbajaj01
October 10, 2014
Quite thought provoking. I guess this could not only be about being un-local, but also about having moved on to the next stage, being done with the first stage.
For example, I have felt that when a movie talks about passion or achieving dreams or taking identity defining decisions, you hardly dwell on it. Maybe it could be because you have already carved your path, you are sure of your ways of going ahead. But most are not. And why am I sure that that angle needed a mentioning? Because other reviews did. But I agree with you that every review can’t cover all aspects.
BTW, I liked the word *commenter*.
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Rajesh
October 10, 2014
I saw Madras just two days back and there were many things in which I thought it could have been better. Still it is above average as a mainstream film.
I didnt like:
that heroine at all, even many scenes involving her.
Those two songs in the second half
You used the word over melodramatic – even for Pannaiyaarum Padminiyum – which I think will be considered a classic after some years, but you didnt use that word here at all. Especially in the after death scene of Anbu, when even his adult friends were using body language like that of old women from village
Anyways, I am glad for Karthi, to have a good one after some horrible movies. Take out the politics and Naan Sigappu Manithan is a better entertainer for me.
Quite interestingly in this movie, Kali calls Anbu’s son Ronaldo (gladly so), and he himself has Messi on his bike!
.……..was how we see the things we’ve been conditioned to see
very true, Sir, you might want to rewatch Vazhakku 18/…
The other cultural factor is that most English-language writers (and therefore reviewers) are divorced from a certain kind of ground reality.
sorry to say Sir, this is what came to mind after reading your Vazhakku 18/9 and even Paradesi reviews.
Anyways, every reviewer has his own style and write what he wants, the way he saw it.
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Shankar V
October 10, 2014
It is interesting to see the stark difference in how each person sees and interprets the film. And I agree with you – the urban, English-medium educated, sophisticated Madras-ite (snobbish?) cannot appreciate a movie that is based on the Dalit/downtrodden sections of the same city. Because you do not get to know them at all. you just cannot relate to the storyline. You do not know what the characters are all about. You cannot appreciate the idiom.
But I disagree with you on the Silapathigaaram part. I read more from Tamizh literature than English, despite my English-medium background. 🙂
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Venky
October 10, 2014
Like that Facebook commenter, I too have had my share of quiet discontent, having read your reviews for a really long time, whenever you purge out the social/political dimension in your review.As I write this, I am reminded of the vacuum I felt while reading your review of “A Wednesday” movie. I don’t know if your framing of “how” vs “what” is a choice driven by simplicity.In my view, I feel it’s reductive and simplistic. I’d rather frame this as “content” vs “context”. Although screenwriting/aesthetics can be viewed through the “context”lens, when viewed from the “auteur”‘s hat, the social/political milieu defines the true north when it comes to defining the context of a movie, as it determines how these cinematic elements would be in service to the story that’s told in the minds of the viewer. In other words, content is subservient to context here.
Case in point: In your review of “A Wednesday”, you wrote,”..Issues of whether this twist is logical or possible or even responsible, I’ll leave for better minds to discuss. All I’ll say is that, from the point of view of melodramatic effectiveness, it’s a masterstroke that you cannot help embracing and, subsequently, cheering…”.Without touching upon the middle-class angst, which was the essential element driving the escalation of tension, to attribute the tension to the film-making technique, does injustice to the experience of the movie. Just to clarify, these are strong views, weakly held. I’m open to diverse interpretations ( especially around what defines content vs context in a cinematic setting)
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venkatrcs
October 10, 2014
yeah true that…. i have felt that too… if you have studied in an english medium school… which in most cases are.. CBSE schools… one definite aspect i have felt is that in history lessons… you will for sure learn about jalian wala bagh… all the leaders and political struggles of rather northern part of the country… in the history text books that i learned, i am for sure that the history about southern india ends with a few pages of chera chola & pandya kings along with a map that indicates their kingdoms…
honestly in my CBSE history lessons i have never learnt about periyar,kamaraj nor the history of Travancore… or about any independence struggles that happened in my home town. Which afterwards made me think i am supposed to learn the history of the place where i was born.. where my parents and grandparents where born.
But sadly thats how it is…i have seen many parents saying they will put their children in CBSE schools so that they can learn Good English.. and Hindi too..
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Ram Murali
October 10, 2014
“While all this was so clear, why wasn’t there any reference to this in your review?”
–> I think that the world of blogs and commenters make analysis of movies so much richer…you said in an interview that you strive to ‘shape the cinematic lens of a reader’…the good thing is that in this environment where we can all exchange views, one just has to be open-minded to be rewarded with a bunch of “lenses” to shape his/her own views…for instance, the importance that Mani places on casting choices has made me think more about why certain ppl would have been cast for certain roles:
i liked the fact that they cast jayabalan (the antagonist of aadukalam) as the party leader…even though he appears on screen for just a few minutes, his face is menacing enough that the wall gained a character of its own thanks to his imposing image from adukalam…
on the other hand, i didnt think that the casting of the acting tutor in jigarthandaa was very wise…i think a known face would’ve elicited even more laughs in that hilarious segment…
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Karthik
October 10, 2014
I noticed the Tamil reviews after seeing the film and getting disappointed with it. And left a long comment earlier today on a friend’s post where he was generally admonishing people who did not get the dalit context. This.
###
I have an argument here. I read some rave reviews for Madras and caught up with it. I was personally disappointed with it because, as a film, I found it extremely templatized and predticable. The crux was hardly innovative – the delivery was, to some extent. This was one of the few recent Tamil films I have seen where crowds were so beautifully and realistically filmed and used (crowds as in not background crowd, but the community as such that forms the backbone of the film). It really felt like peeking into the housing colony, from a framing pov.
But as a film, I was disappointed because it said what most other films have said – friends, one dies, there’s deception, and there’s revenge in the end (similar to Subramaniapuram, for instance).
If the film’s intent was to explain the dailt and politics’ use of dalits pov, as a ignorant viewer (me), the dalit element completely eluded me. Politics was there, of course, but as much it was there in another similar film. If the director expected that subtext to also come through to people who have no prior knowledge of it, I believe there should have been a more explicit attempt to push people towards it. Not make a preachy film, but at least allude to it a bit more explicitly so that broader audiences may come to know that there is indeed a subtext and a context within which this film is placed. I did not get that context even in the extended intro that the film started with. That intro could be applicable to any other people-set, in any other city, to any other political rivalry that is taking place in that place, and an appropriate wall there.
As for the wall – I thought it was a brilliant symbol of political rivalry and plot point to build the film around. I found it funny that some reviews took it to be a silly plot point, as if a mere wall couldn’t evoke such reactions. By that logic, even temples shouldn’t evoke any reaction because they are just made of stones. It’s what the stone symbolize to a large set of people that matters; similarly, what the wall symbolizes, or was forced to symbolize by selfish politicians to these people that matters. For that, you just need to extrapolate the way politicians use masses and see the wall as yet another manifestation of that usage.
If I have bothered to write so much on the film, I should add that I did not *not like* the movie. It was a good watch, overall. But the predictability and familiarity of the screenplay made me wonder why it got such rave reviews. And if I’m missing the subtext of dalit struggles in the film, I’m not sure if people who know the subtext can ask audiences (lay people) to ‘brush up your TN before you view the film’. That’s like Vishal Bhardwaj asking you to ‘brush up your Kashmir before viewing Haider’, or Mani Ratnam admonishing his viewers, ‘brush up your Bombay riots before watching Bombay’.
The film is a communication. If there’s pre-reading required, then that’s expecting a lot from the viewer. I’m not saying entertainment is the only goal of films, but if you want to educate or make viewers aware of any specific subtext or context that is critical/important enough, I’d assume the director is responsible to weave that into the script. Not too subtly, as it happened in Madras. A bit more ‘Look here’ way so that it addresses as large a segment of population as possible instead of the really-aware few, who no doubt are helping add the context, but is an attempt akin to, ‘Saar saar, naan kodutha answer paper’la oru answer mattum marandhu poitten. Konjam papaera thiruppi kudutha adhayum add panni tharene!’.
But it’s true that reading your posts on this film, a few reviews, I feel like revisiting the film to see what I missed (if at all) in the first round.
###
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Shankar
October 10, 2014
Baddy, firstly, kudos for writing this…not many would come out and say this. What you say is spot on…I feel that this is equally applicable to music too. Where one is from and what they have experienced, the situations they have been in at that point in time, all leads to how they appreciate and relish music as well. Sure, one can talk about counterpoints, harmonies, melodic structure etc. but again that is how the song was put together and I agree, it provides a lot of intellectual pleasure to the discerning ones. But the other aspect of whether the song strikes a chord with a listener is based on the social and cultural factors. For a kid who is growing up now, exposed to a lot more western music, the current trends in Tamil music might be most captivating. That listener may not appreciate the music of the yesteryears or the intricacies in it. Even if it is simple music, ultimately it depends on whether and how it resonates with the listener and that is factored by social and cultural factors besides personal ones.
PS: Interesting side story is that my little son has always gone to sleep in the nights listening to soft melodies from the 70/80s. So, when we are out driving and say an 80s IR song comes on, he immediately protests because he associates that with sleep time. He wants the “Aila and “Ladiyo”! So, I’m patiently waiting for the light bulb to go off someday! 🙂
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vpjaiganesh
October 10, 2014
oh ippo ellaame ratnam reference dhaana?
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Mumbai Ramki
October 10, 2014
Congrats for reflecting the view put forward in a comment and coming up quite insightful review … on your reviews !
Even after reading the social context of the movie , i still couldn’t convince myself the movie is ‘about’ that – it is a backdrop that fits the story , but the same story could have happened in a village in south india without the caste undertones , but a village that is neglected & monetized for political ambitions alone and probabaly nothing would have changed.
( whereas in movies like virumaandi , paruthi veeran – the backdrop is with the story , u cant transport the story to some other and achieve the same results )
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Nambirajan Vanamamalai
October 10, 2014
Appreciate the fact that you have acknowledged your own constrained point of view. I guess all reviewers have a frame of reference, pov and by the very reason of having it, lack other POVs. Acknowledging it can take your reviews to the next level i believe.
Also is this, constrained personal view, the reason why publications like Ananda Vikadan have a group reviewing it so different people can bring in different view points? Does a group/team review better than a single person reviewing a movie?
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Rohan Nair
October 11, 2014
Will join others in ‘congratulating’ Rangan for admitting where he perhaps came up short.
Karthik’s comment above is interesting: he says it is asking too much of viewers if they have to brush on their history/sociology before coming to a movie. Fair enough. He then cites instances where the film-maker gets around this by giving the audience a crash-course at the beginning of the movie – a short passage of text, such as in Bala’s Paradesi. That is a possibility of course – but it runs two risks: (1) it is far too strong a declaration right at the beginning that the movie is *about* that and only that. (2) it works for historical subjects that do not arouse the same passions in today’s world (e.g. the plight of indentured tea workers in TN as in Paradesi). The dalit issue is far too politically and socially explosive for a film-maker to express such direct intentions of making a movie *about* it.
I don’t see it as a problem if a proportion of viewers do not get the background or subtext of a film and come away with only having watched a love story or an action drama. Their loss – and hey maybe they enjoyed it for just the love story. Then again, as Rangan himself admits, it *is* a problem if this proportion of viewers happens to be all or almost all of the english-language newspaper critics of the film.
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venkatrcs
October 11, 2014
@karthick i dont think thats the aspect of this post it is not about pre reading. Its that there are certain aspects that one section of the society might be negligent to, while others are not.. It would be due to various social,economic and other factors.
-If a person can see all this political backdrop of the film after seeing it, then why others are not? (thats important)
for example in the film haider, a viewer who has little knowledge about the politics and history of kashmir. In the court scene, where against the background of a conversation is a wall on which it is written “go back india”, to such a viewer it may be a random act by a militant or say equivalent to a villian curisng a hero. but someone else might consider it to be an important unbiased representation of kashmir.
Similarly i had the fortune of seeing a post by a north east indian, precisely from mizoram. The post was about her reaction after seeing the movie Mary Kom, and also seeing few north eastern girls being eve-teased right in the same theatre. She writes about how the movie doesnt reflect real issues faced by them and how important the story of mary kom was.She finishes her post by saying many dont understand the problems faced by them..after all how many of you have a north eastern friend?
so coming back to madras , i remember two things that stuck with me as i walked out of the theatre.
one was ranjith has again dealt romance so rightly in his film. There are a lot of youngsters from the kind of neighbourhoods seen in the film and others, who think that if you are attracted to a girl the next thing to do is to stalk her, at all possible times. so does kaali (karthi) does that. But the moment when kalaiarasi tells him and stops it. that is a socially important moment, stalking is not the way to a woman’s heart.
Secondly i couldnt believe how the film ended… after writing a beautiful and hard hitting climax sequence in attakathi.. y such a feel good patch up i felt… now after reading this post may be why not.
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madhu
October 11, 2014
“We see what we have been conditioned to see.”
Really loved the line. It also makes me wonder then what Art really is. Is there really one absolute, comprehensive meaning or does Art belong to each mind that consumes it once the Artist finishes his work? To me, the movie brought back memories of days with friends in the parts of Chennai shown in it. Even I entirely missed the political and social undertones.
Perhaps there are certain subjective standards by which the technical elements of film making can be measured and appreciated. But the subjective stuff–the meaning, symbolism, and parallels–I guess there is no one set of them. Sometimes, we infer things which even the director did not consciously intend.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
ramitbajaj01: For example, I have felt that when a movie talks about passion or achieving dreams or taking identity defining decisions, you hardly dwell on it.
I don’t think it’s that. In “Rock On,” for instance, that’s almost exclusively what I wrote about. But it depends. Just because a point in a movie seems important to you doesn’t mean it should seem important to me. And vice versa. You may feel “why is this guy going on and on about this minor point,” when, to me, this could be the very crux of the film.
Rajesh: “Pannaiyaarum Padminiyum” did seem melodramatic to me. Some points were played at a pitch very alien to the rest of the film, which wasn’t the case with “Madras.” Whatever its problems, it has a consistent tone-and-feel.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
Got this email from a member of the legal fraternity… Sharing with permission.
Bravo! I have a story too…
This was 1995. I would talk to final year college women students about their rights.
In one upmarket college I said you must promise you will not enter into a dowry given marriage. One girl got up and said then we will never get married ma’am. I did not have time to go into the layers of male dominance , denial of self respect and on and on.
Then in 2000 or so I was in Trichy for a domestic violence meet . I was sitting with a college girl and I narrated the Episode and asked her why do girls not see that this is a matter of dignity.
She looked at me for a while.
” ma’am thappaa eduthukka matteengale ?”
” no, tell me”
” we too have urges , no , ma’am ?”
Indeed with our strict moral codes .. What does a girl do ?
And I from my Olympian affluent background had held forth! I thought I was sensitive to needs of women and had been clueless.
It was a lesson in humility .
To quote you ” we see only what we’re conditioned to see ”
End of story.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
Shankar V: “the urban, English-medium educated, sophisticated Madras-ite (snobbish?) cannot appreciate a movie that is based on the Dalit/downtrodden sections of the same city. Because you do not get to know them at all. you just cannot relate to the storyline. You do not know what the characters are all about. You cannot appreciate the idiom.
I have several problems with this comment.
1. I disagree with the word “snobbish.” It suggests “looking down on something,” and that’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m saying “we might not be aware,” which is a very different thing.
2. I disagree with the term “cannot appreciate a movie that is based on the Dalit/downtrodden sections” — appreciation (not just of movies, but of art) comes from a number of things. Primarly, appreciation comes about through:
(i) An understanding of what the film is. (Let’s stick with cinema.) What it is about. What it contains. What its concerns are. And…
(ii) A realisation of the effects the film had on you. Namely, “How did it affect me and why?” So this is where you get into details and say “this particular thing worked for me” and “this didn’t” and so on.
It is possible to “appreciate” a film through (i) and (ii), through (i) alone, through (ii) alone — and all approaches are valid in their own way. For instance, when I pointed out, in my review, that “the screen splits in two to mirror the splitting of a political party into two factions” or “When Anbu and Kaali are joshing about on the football ground, we see this as a series of alternating long shots and mid shots — we get the sense that something larger is at play, and soon enough, there is”, this is a kind of appreciation as well, and it comes under (ii). This cannot and should not be discounted.
3. I disagree with “you just cannot relate to the storyline. You do not know what the characters are all about” – Again, this has nothing to do with the characters themselves but with the emotions they evoke in you as a viewer. I loved “Subramaniyapuram” and “Paruthi Veeran” and “Gangs of Wasseypur” — even if my “experience” with such characters comes solely through the movies of Bharathiraja and so on. This “relating” to characters has to do with how they are fleshed out, how they are written into the larger narrative, etc.
Just because you didn’t like a film that’s about Dalit characters or about Wasseypur gangsters doesn’t mean your response came about due to an inability to “relate” to them. It could also be that the narrative didn’t grab your interest.
But yes, I get your point about “Silapathigaaram” — that was just an example 🙂
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brangan
October 11, 2014
venkatrcs: honestly in my CBSE history lessons i have never learnt about periyar,kamaraj nor the history of Travancore…
I completely agree with your comment, but just wanted to point out something with regard to this particular extract.
One: There are national figures — whose contributions are seen to have affected the nation — that everyone reads about, and then there are the local figures (seen to have affected things at the state level). Ideally, it should be the responsibility of the state to impart this knowledge — just like Marathi is made compulsory in Mumbai schools (at least it used to be), lessons about Shivaji and Tilak should also be compulsory. This isn’t the case here in TN.
Two: Even if *we* learn about Periyar etc. here, the serious-minded viewer from Delhi who watches “Madras” isn’t going to get all of it. And we aren’t going to get the “specifics” of what life is like even in contemporary Delhi, or, as the other commenter pointed out, what it’s like for a North Eastern viewer to see “Mary Kom,” while we just look at the general arc of the movie. So there are ALWAYS going to be gaps in knowledge.
Three: I’ve felt this for a while, but it apppears that knowledge about certain communities and their politics is somehow considered more “authentic,” and you are seen a more “authentic” and “rooted” Tamilian if you speak about this. So if I speak out about the inaccurate detailing of the Tam-Brahm milieu — for example — in a movie, is it somehow less “authentic”? This is a Tamil milieu too, right? So am I not being true to my “Tamilian roots” if I have this knowledge? But when you go online, you get the feeling that “realism” and “rootedness” and “authenticity” have all got to do with the lower-income sections of society (and I’m being vague here, I know, for you can be upper caste but lower income group as well…) Given that Tamilians have gone from the veshti to jeans and bermudas, and from bare chests to T-shirts, should the definition of what “being Tamil” is also be expanded to included the globalised Tamilian as well as the localised one? Something to think about.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
Ram Murali: I think that the world of blogs and commenters make analysis of movies so much richer
Absolutely. Earlier, the critic used to sit on a pedestal and his view was the oracle’s word. You may have discussed this with your friend or at office, but now it’s possible to respond to the critic in a way that the *world* gets to hear your POV. So the critic is no longer the final word. His responsibilty has changed. He is now the initiator of the conversation, which then goes on to have a richer, fuller life through the contributions of many commenters.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
Another comment via email… from a writer, this time, and a dissenting view on my column… sharing with permission:
Read your piece on “Madras” with great interest.
It reminds me of a piece written by an Iranian scholar Reza Aslan about religion and culture, with special reference to the way that Islam is being interpreted, or not, as the case may be, depending on who is telling the story. He makes the point, simplistic as it sounds, that religion is defined by culture and not the other way round.
If I’ve read you correctly, you are saying the same thing, that being a Dalit makes it possible to look at “Madras” differently and possibly even “correctly”. Does this not imply then, that Dalit films are meant to be viewed primarily only by a person attuned to Dalit sensibilities? Surely this is a specious argument if one believes that any form of art, films, books, even religious beliefs should be able to transcend such narrow categories of minority interests? That what we call fundamentalism is the danger here and it can extend to those who would say, “Only Tamils can understand this term” or “Only women can feel the pain of childbirth”, “Only Brahmins can appreciate Bharata Natyam” etc.
Yes, we are the English speaking elite and it’s true elites by definition are an endangered minority who will use any means to keep the proles down. Let’s extend the argument and say, that it is equally the job of the proles to shout, out-wit, destroy the despicable elites and send them packing to the USA, where they will stop being the elite. This conflict is what creates great art in my view, not giving in and saying “There, there, you’e a good dalit doggy, I love the way your bark!”
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brangan
October 11, 2014
Karthik: If the director expected that subtext to also come through to people who have no prior knowledge of it…
I agree with this, and not just with this film. Aspects like “Kashmir” and “Bombay” are widely covered so even if we don’t know the specifics (i.e. even if we are the kind who only casually looks at newspaper headlines), there exists an entry point.
But think of this from the filmmaker’s POV. We are already talking about a touchy issue, a much more “politicised” (and much more “marginal”) issue than Kashmir or Bombay. There are a lot of people who won’t even read an article because it’s about Dalits — while they may still read something about Kashmir or Bombay. The filmmaker may be thinking that by making this “a Dalit film,” he may be driving away some sections of audiences — and not just in Chennai but in other TN centres as well.
But I agree with your estimation of the overall film… “the predictability and familiarity of the screenplay made me wonder why it got such rave reviews.”
Shankar: Yes, and the music analogy lends itself to what I’m saying. To take a loose analogy, you may know Carnatic and Western Classical music, but you may not know what a blue note is — and may miss this while someone into jazz/blues may “get” this and wonder why you aren’t talking about it.
Actually, this brings me back to the whole point about reviews being treated as recommendations (which we’ve talked about quite a bit in this blog). I have never understood this. A review can be analysis, sure. It can be entertainment — something you read. But how can you take it as a recommendation when so many factors could be different between you and the reviewer? And then you get all worked up if the recommendation turns out “wrong”. I just don’t get it 🙂
Nambirajan Vanamamalai: I don’t think many people chipping in to write a single review is a great idea. I think it’s much better when a single POV is debated later, in comments (as in blogs). Because what makes a piece of writing strong and individual is a clear POV (which you can agree or disagree with) and the more people you bring in, the more diluted this POV is going to be.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
venkatrcs: after all how many of you have a north eastern friend?
This is a very important, and one that keeps us in our “bubbles,” with only a casual understanding of what happens outside. Go to any school — whether the most expensive or the corporation school. You’ll find there’s no mixing at all. So the elite school kid has his views formed by the elite teachers and elite students. The corporation school kid has views formed by corporation school teachers and students.
Of course there are efforts to mix the two — as in the Teach for India programme — but that’s not really expansive and it’s hard to say how much “learning” about the “other” is achieved through this.
One could say the solution is to read a lot about things that are not from “our world” — but that again, very few manage to do.
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brangan
October 11, 2014
madhu: Is there really one absolute, comprehensive meaning or does Art belong to each mind that consumes it once the Artist finishes his work?
But the subjective stuff — the meaning, symbolism, and parallels — I guess there is no one set of them.
Sometimes, we infer things which even the director did not consciously intend.
Er, you’re new to this blog aren’t you? 😀
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Arun
October 11, 2014
–If I’ve read you correctly, you are saying the same thing, that being a Dalit makes it possible to look at “Madras” differently and possibly even “correctly”. Does this not imply then, that Dalit films are meant to be viewed primarily only by a person attuned to Dalit sensibilities?–
I think he missed the point. To appreciate the detailing/ the politics in the movie, being aware of it is necessary. I think nobody is saying only dalits can appreciate “dalit films”. May be the only thing he got out of the article was “Tamil medium la padicha thaan pure tamilan”.
I don’t have to be a Jew(or be from the Hollywood) to understand Schindler’s List. But if I haven’t heard/read anything about the holocaust, how am I going to understand the intensity of the scene where the women are under a shower and they think they are in the gas chamber?
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Rahini David
October 11, 2014
This is proving to be the best thread in recent times.
And Madhu, you are going to love it here.
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venkatrcs
October 11, 2014
yes, regarding the authenticity of the film, sometimes i feel that this question mainly arises among the viewers of a specific type of movie..
as example, if we take the film pizza..i hard time thinking whether a couple could live like that in real life scenario… i meant the economics..In the film micheal seems to be able to afford the living for two and also a decently spacious apartment, which happens to have a balcony…in the city… yet he only has two pair of uniform.. how much does a pizza delivery guy gets paid… there is something not very convincing about this… but this doesnt come of to be much important in the aspect of the movie… and similarly if i recall your review of vishwaroopam you addressed few tamil-brahmin aspects..which again i felt not too important in the films context.
that is not the case with films like banglore days, madras or mary kom. These movies seem to share a similar thing..a geographical banking.. or a picture. Banglore days showcases the cultural aspects of urbanization… while madras loudly states that it is the story of people living in vysarpadi.Similarly, we all know the boxer may kom… the word takes us to her , through her image the part of the country where she hails from. So when a film tends to have a geographical banking, then i think a tendency occurs in the viewer to relate the happenings in the movie to the real world location. this leads to a question of authenticity.. which inturn leads to differing socio-political opinions as seen and as you have rightly said there are always going to be gaps in knowledge. So whenever a film tends to have a geographical picture related to it.. then i think.. the question of authenticity becomes a bit more important..(the controversy regarding slumdog millionaire)
And about the question of which is more authentic… if a film showcases a girl in chennai dating guys on tinder, or a girl in arranged marriage or a dowry marriage (btw that post was quite revealing…not sure if that is the word to be used) they are all authentic..as they are genuine happenings in the real world around us.
I think the authenticity is to be measured to how genuine a thing is rather than which section of the society it represents.
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venkatrcs
October 11, 2014
@baradwajrangan yeah… yes there is this filter bubble thing too…. that happens to many in the internet medium.
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Nitya
October 11, 2014
I think the bigger point here is why a (re)viewer who writes in English, lives in Besant Nagar etc. is not aware of these contexts. Not picking on you specifically, of course. One would think that with all the hype made over Madras Day in recent times (mostly by folks south of the invisible border) there would be a lot more knowledge sharing about the history and sociology of various parts of the city, but that is not to be. There is a definite gap in the understanding of ‘local’, ‘less mainstream’ history. I doubt if your average school-going kid would have heard of Rettaimalai Srinivasan, Nesamani or Iyotheedasar (I did not until a couple of years back myself). The trouble with calling this a ‘Dalit’ movie, or starting with a voiceover tagging it so is that it ‘others’ it in quite an obvious way; there would have then been no such discussion as we are having now. There were enough clues in the movie to understand the milieu – the question is, is the viewer clued in enough into his or her OWN social setting to pick those up? If not what does that say about the viewer/society itself? I think that this is a very intelligent way to present the politics of the story.
One’s own history and experiences are the lenses through which one views any movie, sure. But that lens also affects how a movie is made. And we see that all the time in the depiction of Brahmins in Tamil cinema (who are sociologically perhaps as much of an ‘other’ as Dalits, except with a change in social status). So we have the trope of the sandwich-eating Tamanna (Kalloori), the madisar-clad women peppering Bala’s films (who wears them all the time these days?), the mornjaadam-eating school teacher (Katradhu Tamil), the blinkered Brahmin (Cuckoo) , the menstruating-girl-in-a-kennel (Angadi Theru) or most recently, the absolutely appalling Srini Mama caricature (Jeeva). I could go on, but these are, I would like to think, mostly due to a lack of understanding of a social group that is seen from the outside for most part. A dash of Periyarist brahmana-dwesham helps, of course. The really perceptive question of who is a Tamil at the end – there is a whole lot of Tamil speakers who would not give anyone wearing a poonal or the women in their families admission into the Tamil club. That’s politics too.
The larger point is, thanks to these politics, we get not very faithful depictions of how your average Tamil brahmin. Which is why we are thankful for a Mani Ratnam’s Divya or a movie like Kalyana Samayal Saadham.
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Nitya
October 11, 2014
Regarding ‘snobbish’… I think the fact that your average Brahmin viewer cannot pick up these politics is itself seen as something snooty and elitist. For the average Brahmin, everyone else is a ‘non-Brahmin’ (and that attitude has its own problems). I doubt if the average city-dwelling Brahmin is socially cued in to tell the subtle social differences between a Pallar, a Parayar and an Arunthathiyar, and that may not at all be because they don’t care, but because they simply have no clue. What can be explained by stupidity is attributed to malice. And that gives rise to the blinkered Brahmin stereotype.
By whom? By people clued into these politics, because they are involved and have a stake in those politics. It is no secret that the reason Dalit politics is not mainstream is that there are a bunch of castes – not Brahmins, but others – with a better standing in society who would rather have the Dalits stay downtrodden for cultural and political reasons. But that is an angle seldom shown in our cinema, because the political repercussions would not be easy to handle. One could start by asking why the Thevar heroine in ‘Kaadhal’ is not shown sleeping with the SC hero. Any indication of such an event would have meant riots in Madurai and Ramanathapuram. To use a cliche, these movies do hold up a mirror to society. What we see in the mirror is what we are conditioned to see.
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venkatesh
October 11, 2014
Now this is why i hate living outside India , this did not get released here and i dont know what you guys are all talking about.
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ramitbajaj01
October 11, 2014
Hey Rock On was way back in 2008. And I guess last year or last to last year you were posting about your thoughts on changing your profession. And I think only after this that you made your peace. So in recent movies, I was not seeing much of this angle. Maybe my observation is wrong. But my point was if we have made peace with something then we tend to ignore it.
Another example. My sister surprised me when she said that one of the good things in Mardaani was that Shivani was forced to use cuss words or rough language at job, because of her profession, but within her home, she was all sweet. Now I had not noticed this change of behaviour within and outside home. It was more like a given for me that people would behave nicely at home and that people dealing with goons would use cuss words at job. But perhaps, for my sister, talking nicely is a priority, that we must be consciously aware of, and not just a taken for granted thing. So perhaps, she was taken aback when Shivani, being a girl, spoke roughly at job. Hence the observation that she was nice at home.
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Madan
October 11, 2014
Go to any school — whether the most expensive or the corporation school. You’ll find there’s no mixing at all.
– If this is really the case today, it’s a serious issue. It wasn’t like that when I was in school and that’s just over a decade back! In my school, there were some ‘spoilt brats’ whose parents already owned two cars (a very, very big deal, then) and some guys who lived in chawls or other such humble tenements. I think looking back that grounding was great for me because I am equally comfortable speaking in polished English (I hope!) and typical Mumbai Hindi and equally comfortable speaking to people from different strata of society. I have never ever felt ashamed of using crude Mumbai Hindi lingo (contrary to the anti-Brahmin stereotype, that is) as long as I addressed it to the appropriate audience.
At another level, I am not too surprised by what you say because I can see where even my family, self included, has drifted into a bubble. Remember those local, moving fairs hosted on any available open grounds? Well, they’re still there but I wonder how many middle class people still visit them. I know that we haven’t in a very long time. Yet when we moved into the Vashi suburb, where we still live, in 2001, we used to go there each year and enjoyed the rides. Now, somehow a feeling has subconsciously crept in that it’s not MY kind of thing and it has to do with the crowds. I think middle class lives have become a lot more sheltered in the last few years and this will, rightly or otherwise, probably further fuel the stereotype of yuppie middle class Brahmins being unable to understand lower caste cues.
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Shankar
October 12, 2014
“And then you get all worked up if the recommendation turns out “wrong”.”
Baddy, I have a theory about this. So when someone like you says either positive or negative things about a movie (based on how it affected you), it does get looked upon as the oracle’s word, whether you like it or not. You are a brand (seri, seri, rombha parakkathe! 🙂 ) and your platform is much bigger and popular than the average commenter. So, when a commenter’s view of the movie doesn’t meet yours, your opinions could almost be looked upon as a threat….ithu unmai aayidichuna? So, the defense mechanism is to get worked up and rubbish the reviewer….because the commenter knows fully well that he or she is still just firing blanks compared to the platform you have. Is this fear, insecurity, jealousy…..I don’t know. But yes, people do get all worked up. At the end, all I have to say is…it’s a film, nobody died! 🙂
PS: Remember the dude (who shall not be named) who was banned from this space? I always felt if some of his shenanigans were driven by the above mentioned reasons!
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T_G
October 12, 2014
“sometimes we become so global that we forget the local”
You live in a place that is part of ‘developing world’. This is by design.
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Tejas
October 12, 2014
“Sometimes we become so global that we forget the local.”
Rangan ,this is point well made..
When i first Joined an Engineering college in Bangalore 12 years back first thing that stuck me was everyone was more or less talking /discussing so much about English movies/songs/writers..that i suddenly felt like an outsider..and what was more surprising was that majority of them had no idea about Kannada Writers (Even the best ones)..I felt in majority of people the tendency to speak more about English movies/songs/writers was driven more by peer pressure ,i,e trying to be part of the elite group or the danger of seen as an outcast who does not know about English movies/writers/songs.rather than genuine love for them.
My point is when we grow up in an environment where speaking about our own writers/movies is looked down upon (especially true in Karnataka) then there is a very small chance of us wanting to love or know more about our Culture ..which takes us further away from our roots..
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Sadhana
October 12, 2014
I totally agree with Maniratnam’s comment about pure tamilians. It’s the same everywhere in India. Today’s so called well read adults know about Wodehouse, Dickens, Tolstoy . But hardly anything about VM Basheer, BGL Swamy, SL Bhairappa, Pottekkat,(I know only about kannada and malayalam writers.) and regrettably, many of them are not even interested.
We are foreigners in our own land.
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Rohan Nair
October 12, 2014
@Nithya: Interesting points there. Just hope this thread doesn’t become subverted into another Brahmin discussion. There have been enough of those, not enough of the others’. I am glad these others are being discussed here, finally.
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Just Another Film Buff
October 12, 2014
I haven’t seen the film, but if Dalit politics is central to it, any critic who takes the film on its own terms (as opposed to the type of critic for whom the film is a pretext – including academics and theory-based commentators) must broach the subject if his/her review is to be of value. (Whether a review SHOULD engage itself politically, that is a larger, messier debate (for which the Bordwell-Zizek spat is ample material.)) It is not the burden of the filmmaker to underline things.
Talking about knowing the context of other cultures, I think we conflating various degrees of context knowledge. Yes, the Holocaust is a context to be known for SCHINDLER’S LIST, but no non-native audience can be expected to know the finer difference between, say, the experiences of Polish Jews and German Jews. No one will deny that, despite this lack of contextual knowledge that might refine viewing experience, that the film cannot be enjoyed. We watch any film with contextual knowledge; when it is not available, we fall back on transcultural universals to make sense of the actions portrayed to construct a totality. We keep alternating between fact and metaphor, doing cultural Gestalts, if you will. That is why any war film, though so geographically specific, can be seen and appreciated anywhere else.
It’s also a bit surprising that there is hardly any mention of the problems of representation itself in the article/comments (sorry if I missed), as though the film is just a window onto the specific milieu, a reality waiting to be just filmed. While a filmmaker might pick up well on certain aspects of the milieu (youth politics, for instance), he might turn out dud on other aspects (say, the representation of women). It would be utmost naive to say that only a person intimately familiar with life in Bombay slums will appreciate SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. There is an abstraction and simplification of reality in every level of film production/reception. Film will always be asymptotic to reality. We can only see reality through others’ eyes. (This is not nihilism, only an epistemic fact.) Even the most intelligent and perceptive filmmaker often can’t go beyond portraying “Muslim people doing Muslim things”.
Yes, everyone has his/her own limitations and it is important to acknowledge them. But why the need to beat yourself over how far removed you are from Hard Reality (who isn’t, we all are caught up in a web of privileges and discrimination)? That’s almost as bad as bleeding-heart liberal Americans keeping tab of how privileged they are. That’s self-pity and hatred masquerading as global consciousness.
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brangan
October 12, 2014
Just Another Film Buff: why the need to beat yourself over how far removed you are from Hard Reality…
If this is a reference to me, then that’s not where I was going. The tone of the article isn’t “oh my god, I am such a bad person and I should slit my wrist right now” but “hmm… how strange that this didn’t occur to me and other critics at all”…
As I have said in the comments above, I am comfortable with the fact that a review can never be “comprehensive” and I bring to the film what I bring to it, meaning that I can’t see the film through your eyes just as you can’t see the film through mine. These POVs are the things that make art analysis fascinating.
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Just Another Film Buff
October 12, 2014
No, not you in specifically. That was a general comment (partly keeping in mind the many reverential responses to HAIDER too).
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brangan
October 12, 2014
Just Another Film Buff: So what did you think of “Haider”?
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Just Another Film Buff
October 12, 2014
I liked it a lot. Though I had problems with some of the passages and turns, especially with the Arshi character, I thought it was built very well.
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Rohan Nair
October 13, 2014
“over how far removed you are”
Aren’t films (or books) the starting point for us becoming more engaged with the things they talk about? If I have watched a film or read a book about the Holocaust, a subject I didn’t know much about before, then that film is the starting point of an exploration, probably through further films, books, conversations with friends, travel (depending on geographical constraints), etc etc.
So this ‘far removed’, rather than being something static, defined as-if-at birth by one’s upper-middle class circumstances, becomes something far more changing. I started off in my english-educated cocoon but I have discovered a lot more about the world outside now compared to then – and my explorations were sometimes triggered by the movies I saw.
So to come back to the direct subject of this thread, it is not sad that english-speaking film critics were not able to understand a world depicted in a film they saw because they were too far removed from his zones of familiarity, but it would be sad if, six months or a year or two after the realisation, their zones of familiarity have stayed exactly the same.
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zaazooz
October 13, 2014
Hopefully now you know why i called you “curd rice critic” 5 years back.
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zaazooz
October 13, 2014
But i like your honesty. A rare trait in today’s journalists/ critics. May be in future you will give room for things beyond your spectrum when you write.
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Just Another Film Buff
October 13, 2014
@Rohan: True, that keeps changing. That is definitely one of the very purposes of art.
But one can never be “out of a bubble”, so to speak.
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Srinivas R
October 13, 2014
“Aren’t films (or books) the starting point for us becoming more engaged with the things they talk about?”
– completely agree. My own interest in the Sri Lankan strife was piqued by Santosh Sivan’s “Terrorist”( even though the movie itself was generic in nature). It’s after watching the movie did I get around to reading some books about the subject and gained some background of the troubled history.
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Sriram
October 13, 2014
BR, another view.
http://goo.gl/1joIqE
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brangan
October 13, 2014
Someone forwarded this one too (it’s controversial):
http://savukku11.blogspot.in/2014/10/blog-post_11.html
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brangan
October 13, 2014
Sriram: Okay, this (from that review) made me laugh 🙂
எல்லோரும் படத்தில் வரும் புத்தர் சிலை, அம்பேத்கர் படம், அம்பேத்கர் நூல் போன்றவற்றைச் சொல்லி அதன் குறியீடுகளை வியக்கிறார்கள். நாமும் நம் பங்குக்குக் கொளுத்தி வைப்போம். படத்தில் வராத படங்கள் இல்லை. ரஜினி படம், சாய் பாபா படம், கிறித்துவ கதாபாத்திரங்கள், ஹிந்து சாமியார்கள் என என்னவெல்லாமோ வருகின்றன. அம்பேத்கர் படம் வருகிறது. புத்தர் சிலை வருகிறது. சே குவேராவின் படம்கூட வருகிறது. வராத ஒரே ஒரு படம் ஈவெராவின் படம் மட்டுமே.
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Srinivas R
October 13, 2014
Nitya – I liked both your comments but this part is sorta bothering me.
“depiction of Brahmins in Tamil cinema (who are sociologically perhaps as much of an ‘other’ as Dalits, except with a change in social status) ” . Brahmins may be the “other” but you cannot compare their alienation ( if that’s the word ) with that of Dalits right? There is a big difference between being priveleged and “the other” and being oppressed and “the other”
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Sriram
October 13, 2014
rofl
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Sriram
October 13, 2014
“இவற்றோடு பிட் பட நாயகிகள் கடைசிக் காட்சியில் கற்பின் மகிமைபற்றிப் பேசுவதுபோல் படம் முழுவதும் வெட்டும் குத்துமாகத் திரியும் கதாநாயகன் கடைசி கால் நிமிடத்தில் கல்வியின் மகிமையைப் பற்றிப் பேசுவது எனத் தெளிவாகவே செயல்பட்டிருக்கிறார்.” http://www.tamilpaper.net/?p=9047
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Sriram
October 13, 2014
I endorse only the above lines and not the entire article.
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Shankar V
October 13, 2014
BR
I saw your reply to my post.
I did not intend to call you snobbish – far from it. I was just mentioning that many English-medium educated folks in Madras (நுணி நாக்கு ஆங்கிலம் பேசும்) do look down upon a certain class of Tamil films. And that could also be reflected in many English magazine reviews.
On the question of relating to the characters – you can relate to Subramanyapuram where the story is about friendship and betrayal. There is no subtext around caste lines here. The issue here is relating to the tussle between two dalit groups – one which has benefitted from affirmative actions and other benefits and is now trying to put itself a class over the other group that has not. This tussle is not easy to relate to unless you have known such people before, been close to them and can understand their social milieu. I mentioned about the idiom here. It is an idiom that you would not know unless you are one of them or been very close to them. You do not get that opportunity in a South Madras setting.
Another example of what I mean by being able to “relate to.” If you make a movie like Mudhal Mariyadhai with AR Rahman creating the music, it will be a disaster. Because Rahman cannot relate to that background. It is not Rahman’s fault. He was born and brought up at Madras. He cannot do what a Raja can do with folk.
I hope this clarifies what I tried to mean through my earlier comment.
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donna
October 13, 2014
This is such a stimulating discussion. We are unable to rent Tamil DVDs here and this website is one of my main sources for deciding if I should buy a particular DVD. Being a fan of Tamil movies is a lot of work, so much remains misunderstood due to the fact that I am an American. That is why I enjoy this site so very much. Not only the reviews but the comments are so very helpful. Sometimes I know I really want to see a movie and will not hesitate to buy the DVD as soon as it is available with subtitles. (IF it is available with subtitles!) A sincere nandri to all of you here, you are so helpful, I learn so much and understand so much more. (I would like to add that I have read four different versions of Silappadikaram but have not read Anna Karenina, just seen the Greta Garbo movie)
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Nitya
October 14, 2014
//Brahmins may be the “other” but you cannot compare their alienation ( if that’s the word ) with that of Dalits right? There is a big difference between being priveleged and “the other” and being oppressed and “the other”//
Srinivas R – oh no, I certainly did not mean to imply that Brahmins are oppressed or anything. Far from that. When I say ‘other’ I mean only in terms of how the average director in Tamil cinema sees a Brahmin character. Your average director is probably not a Brahmin or a Dalit. He would most likely belong to one of the other ‘upwardly mobile’ castes in Tamil Nadu, and most likely be from south TN, maybe from a town like Virudhunagar with very few Brahmins and the few that there are would keep to themselves. He would have probably studied in a Tamil medium school, very likely schooled in a Periyarist tradition. He might be involved in the Tamil literary world, some sections of which are vehemently anti-Brahmin. He might thus view Brahmins as usurpers, followers of rigid, mindless tradition, not socially responsible etc. And I believe that this is an impression that is created not from direct experience but mostly from hearsay, books, movies and stereotypes. This results in the cartoonish portrayals of Brahmins that we see on screen.
To an extent I think that is equally true of how Dalits were portrayed too so far (if they were portrayed at all) – as ‘others’, based on stereotypes. By this, I do not mean to equate the social experiences of Dalits and Brahmins in any way whatsoever – just making the point that what is portrayed depends on the worldview of who is doing the portraying.
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Srinivas R
October 14, 2014
“what is portrayed depends on the worldview of who is doing the portraying.”
– Very nicely summed up. Thanks
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Nitya
October 15, 2014
BR, do take a look at this. Very different take on this debate. http://www.luckylookonline.com/2014/10/blog-post_14.html
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sachita
October 16, 2014
I was just about to post the same link that Nitya had posted.
Not sure if madras has changed so much in the past 8/10 yrs i have been there. It might explain why so many people missed where the film comes from.
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vivek
October 16, 2014
Fantastic article. Just caught Madras yesterday, after reading your review and comments- and interestingly enough, I did not feel that the “caste” angle really affected the story- if you replace say dalit with any other caste, the story and the narrative would still be the same- maybe come cultural references would have changed, but this is too generic a movie to be labeled a “dalit” movie- my folks had caught it a few days back and had recommended it, and I told them that it was a movie on dalit politics and they were also surprised(like you) as they had not picked on the cues- but that only reinforces my point- the movie just gives us cues which we have to pick up and doesn’t address the dalit condition . Sometimes I think, a filmmaker cannot get too specific or he will alienate the audience – how many of us would have enjoyed or if not understood then movie if it was neck deep in the dalit culture, is anybody’s guess. Food for thought – how many non-brahmins(let alone ones from palakkad) could fully appreciate Kamal’s dialogues as Kameswaran ?
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hari
October 16, 2014
Thanks for the link Nitya… I mostly attest to what it says …
And oh yeah your comment was very well articulated …
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Raghu
October 16, 2014
//Tamil medium-la padichaa dhaan pure Tamilian//
Sir, still can’t agree with mani sir. To understand your place you don’t need to learn in Tamil Medium. The trouble is with our so-called education system, where school,parents & kids themselves are aloof to learn in their language. There are many Illustrious Sri lankan Tamils/Non-Chennai Tamils educated in English Medium schools & still grounded in their roots & history
I enjoyed your write-up. Chennai-Bread tamilians must stop pretending to be a Anglophones.
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Rohan Nair
October 17, 2014
Looks like Rangan’s colleague at the Hindu, Udhav Naig, wasn’t one of those who missed the references. An interview with Pa.Ranjith discussing the Dalit world of the film:
http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/in-conversation-with-ranjith-director-of-madras/article6507715.ece?homepage=true
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Balasubramanian
October 17, 2014
Read an article in The Hindu about the Dalit politics and the movie. The director sounded almost happy like a lot of bloggers about the lack of understanding by the English speaking media. Though there is some element of truth in this, I didnt find any tamil media picking up the idea. I do not know if it was not discussed because of some political correctness or simple lack of understanding. This was same ffor movies like Adukalam, where the rivalry between the Police inspector and the Protoganist could be better appreciated if we get the caste subtexts.. However Mr Rangan was so gracious when he said it in very clear terms- I drew a blank.
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Sanjay Kumar K
October 17, 2014
// I don’t know how a film critic can say that ‘I don’t understand Ambedkarite politics or know about the life of people living in North Chennai’. There was nothing hidden for the critic to interpret it. It was for everyone to see.//
and from that interview this is what he had expressed
http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/in-conversation-with-ranjith-director-of-madras/article6507715.ece?homepage=true
i am beginning to assume a reference to surname “Subramanian” works you up in films like VIP because you see a brahmincal person as antagonist…that should be sensitivity meter with high ultra sensitive sensor for you…
But your review earlier was so sanitised and antiseptic that you were not able to see this in your face dalit politics! as i had commented on your wall, such apolitical commentary is more dangerous and insidious …and i hold my ground that it is incomplete
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brangan
October 17, 2014
Sanjay Kumar K: i am beginning to assume a reference to surname “Subramanian” works you up in films like VIP because you see a brahmincal person as antagonist…
A couple of things here:
(1) I wasn’t “worked up” by that surname. The line in the review is… “a bland Amitesh, bearing the inevitably Brahminical name of Arun Subramaniam”
— this is just observation. I’m just saying that he bears this name, not “how dare he bear this name.”
In the universe of this film, the upper-class elite *is* seen as the other, and the easiest branding of this elite is to use a Brahminical name. Hence the use of the word “inevitable.”
(2) About “you see a brahmincal person as antagonist..” – bloody hell, this guy WAS the antagonist and it wasn’t just me who saw it. Everyone did 🙂
(3) I am genuinely puzzled by this contention: “I don’t know how a film critic can say that ‘I don’t understand Ambedkarite politics…”
There are a lot of people who have just a vague idea about things, and films are a way of educating them to make these vague ideas more concrete. Surely everyone cannot be well-read about everything. If I see, say, “Jodhaa Akbar,” or “Veera Pandiya Kattabomman,” I see it as a lay viewer. I don’t have the historical knowledge that a historian has, to say that “this is right” and “that is wrong” and “this is what this scene refers to.” Some things WILL fly beneath the radar, and it’s through discussions like these that we all get to learn more.
Also, I insist that this is not a pure political film that CAN be read only through this Ambedkarite lens. Yes, there are very interesting things that come from viewing the characters through that lens, but the director doesn’t do nearly enough to push forward his contention that this is a film “about Dalit politics.” Just because you show a book here or have a message at the end doesn’t mean that you’ve elevated a fairly routine revenge saga into an “important political movie.” This is more of a “Subramaniyapuram”-type film where the characters happen to be Dalits. That’s a big difference.
To give an example, “Arangetram” is not a film about “the Brahmin plight.” It is a melodrama where the characters happen to be Brahmins.
“Thevar Magan”, on the other hand, is a film that unites the background of its characters with its narrative and its themes. And I am sure we can name a few more such films.
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Sanjay Kumar K
October 17, 2014
ok let me see if this makes sense for you…this was a long post that Pa Ranjith had written post “Naan Mahaan Alla” release and his disillusionment with the characterisations
http://karundhel.com/2011/01/naanmahanalla-discussion.html
, viz., the villain whose entire family is depicted as murderous gang…even without telling us anything about that person, director made it amply clear what is his socio economic profile is like he studying in arts and science college (75% enrolment is by dalits), his locality-north madras, his family trade-fishing…if you ask any person about the details what that person’s background will be, it will sure that all will identify him as dalit…the characterisations are all the more blunt in linguswamy, ravikumar or hari’s movies when they depict a villanous character…
the kind of stereotypical characterisation that the oppressed have been shown is much more than an odd “villainous” brahmin characterisation in tamil films…
who on account of his enormous social capital will never face the kind of discrimination that a dalit will face, despite the latter’s economic prosperity ( to reiterate with facts, in India inter caste marriages are abysmally low around 11% and in TN 2.5% which clearly indicates how important caste identity is for Indians)
Nobody will be ignorant about the people inhabiting “kalayana samayal sadham” where none of the characters uttered the word iyer ever. But how come all the viewers were able to identify? but not people in Madras although all the symbolism associated with dalit struggles were thrown more explicitly and not being subtle at all?
in one of your previous comments you had stated why “regional” leaders are limited to their geography whereas “national” leaders impact has been more evenly spread geographically…this is some sort of majoritarian worldview that you are ascribing to…
and interestingly shivaji and tilak are “leaders” of Maharashtra for you when more progressive leaders coming from that region even bigger than Gandhi were ambedkar and jyotiroa phule (it is criminal that his wife’s birthday who opened the first college for women coming from an oppressed community is not celebrated as teacher’s day, while birthday of Radhakrishnan who had a more traditionalist and regressive worldview is celebrated as one)…i think the historical narrative is driven by an agenda and politics and not about an individual leader’s contribution or his geographical location
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Madan
October 18, 2014
But the other aspect of whether the song strikes a chord with a listener is based on the social and cultural factors.
– Late to respond to this but would like to express my disagreement with this. Having appreciated music of cultures that I do not belong to, I don’t think this has to be true. It depends on whether one listens to music for music’s sake or one sees music as only an extension of one’s lifestyle. The harmonies and melodic structure aren’t just aspects for intellectual masturbation (excuse the turn of phrase). They are the nuts and bolts of a piece of music. Some of us just hear the tones and notes right off while some find it difficult to pierce the superficial genre-based template of a composition. Hence, if it is a template they are not already fond of, chances are they won’t like it. Just as how some people have to know beforehand if they are going to have South Indian or Punjabi or Chinese for dinner while some just experiment and connect to their senses. I would put myself in the second category for both music and food. I am more instinctive while for others it may be a bit more of a conscious exercise.
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brangan
October 19, 2014
In today’s Cinema Plus: An interview with Pa Ranjith about the many layers of “Madras”… http://www.thehindu.com/features/cinema/pa-ranjith-the-director-of-madras-delineates-the-many-layers-of-his-film-in-a-conversation-with-sudhir-srinivasan/article6512088.ece
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vijay
October 20, 2014
Ah, what a twist of events. From a blog whose comments space was always used to discuss about how BR had a lot to say with his “overanalysis ” of an undeserving film and BR defending his approach,here comes a film where the title of the review explicitly infers that the film has “little to say” and yet the director had a lot to say going by his interview. BR, I say, your blog has come a full circle. 🙂
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brangan
October 20, 2014
vijay: Hahaha. As a long-time reader and as one who raised such objections to all those Bala and Selva and Mani posts, I can see how this must have gladdened you 😀
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ram
October 20, 2014
I wouldn’t blame you for not picking up the dalit references.But then, i never saw you giving any respect to any village or non cosmopolitan movies.Except if the movie was by kamal or maniratnam.But kamal , mani village movies are shallower and told from a city man’s perspective. It is very easy to pick up devar magar but you would never be able to pick up “Madha Yaanai Kootam” or “Then merkku paruva katru”.Those movies have hundreds of references to its back drop for which we have to work, to understand.My question is shouldn’t the reviewer spend some time in understanding the space.before you answer that cannot be done for every movie.I can point out that when you look for every nook and corner in kamal mani movies for symbolism and motiffs this can also be done.
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brangan
October 20, 2014
ram: i never saw you giving any respect to any village or non cosmopolitan movies.
If you have the time, do search my blog for discussions about “Paruthi Veeran,” “Pasanga”, “Thavamai Thavamirundu”, “Subramaniyapuram”, the Bharathiraja oeuvre, etc.
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Srinivas R
October 20, 2014
@Nitya – Thanbks for the link , I agree with most of what is written there
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Aravind
October 21, 2014
This time have to disagree with BR. It seemed quite obvious right from the title track “uzhaikkum janame ulagai jeyithidum orunaal” to the “naamam” on both Kannan and his father and also Kannan refusing to ask Ravi to sit eventhough his son signals him to sit amongst them. The end did seem rushed and half baked but the narrative did have enough hints to show the class/caste difference.
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Anuja
October 26, 2014
Someday BR and his followers should meet up somewhere and have a good old fashioned yelling match about our diametrically opposing views on the films we all love so much 🙂
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