Spoilers ahead…
Bench Talkies, the first anthology of Tamil shorts to receive a theatrical release, was something you sat through with caveats. Okay, it’s not great, but these are amateur filmmakers… Okay, they didn’t have a big-enough budget… Even so, it was hard to get past some of the shorts that strained to be lyrical, profound – even in this abbreviated screen time, they wanted to leave us with a message. Aviyal, the second anthology, is a huge improvement – not just in terms of craft and performances, but also because the filmmakers don’t expect us to watch with caveats. They’re saying: “We’re not amateurs, cutting our teeth on short films. We’re pros, making shorts because we want to make shorts.” And this is the only message, delivered right at the beginning, in Shammeer Sultan’s story of a man who, while waiting for his order of bread omelette in a hotel, begins to talk. Who is he talking to? It’s a wicked twist, and mercifully, one that’s not hammered home. We’re not meant to slap our heads. We’re meant to smile and move on.
Mohit Mehra’s Sruthi Bedham finds a young man in the throes of an existential dilemma: What if your chitti, your mother’s youngest sister, just a year older than you, turned out to be a hottie? After all, if a girl can marry her thaaimaaman, why not this? Every time the young man thinks of his hottie chitti, he smiles, and then he remembers what she is to him – the smile vanishes. This utterly delightful short takes more risks with the romance than I’ve seen in a while. Apart from the incest angle, there’s a noir element too, with shades of blackmail and even a femme fatale who strings a patsy along. I laughed loud on seeing a literal visualisation of that wonderfully Indian phrase, “nose cut.”
If Sruthi Bedham rejuvenates the romance, Kalam, directed by Lokesh Kanakaraj, buffs up the action movie, with a face-off between a gang of pickpockets and a film crew. The chases, the cleanly edited fights are an up-yours to the action clichés we get from Kollywood – there’s not a single gravity-defying move. And the background for the big action set piece? An Ayyappa chant. Kanneer Anjali, by Guru Smaran, tries to do too much, with a mix of horror and family drama woven into a drug-smuggling plot. It drags on a bit. But Alphonse Putharen’s Eli is a stunner. There are big names in this segment (Nivin Pauly, Bobby Simha), but no one is bigger than the plot, which throws in everything from noisy lovemaking to shootouts to tall tales based on myth. It isn’t just coitus that’s interrupted – it’s the narrative too. Eli feels like a nasty little Poe story remade by Tarantino, and I can’t imagine anything like this coming out in Kollywood, ever.
KEY:
- Aviyal = see here
- thaaimaaman = mother’s brother
- chitti = mother’s younger sister
An edited version of this piece can be found here. Copyright ©2016 The Hindu. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
praneshp
March 12, 2016
The big capital B (first alphabet of this piece) is invisible in the black background.
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olemisstarana
March 12, 2016
I feel like someone turned off the lights…?
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olemisstarana
March 12, 2016
In my browser, the first letter of the first word is blank…
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Bunny
March 12, 2016
Wasn’t Rangan’s universe already dark enough?
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anttales
March 12, 2016
I think the themes are not supported in the mobile version of the website. I don’t see any difference.
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udhaysankar
March 12, 2016
Thanks for the review. Going to watch it now. Particularly excited about the Alphonse Puthren short. Isn’t he an exciting filmmaker?, and a very smart one too. Premam was filled with hundreds of cliches and yet the experience was completely new. I have no clue how he achieved that. The long tracking shot with slow-mo, with the ‘kalippu’ song is next up there to the interval sequence of Basha in terms of intensity and hero’s macho glorification. I can’t figure out how the kerala state awards jury found the direction in premam lazy.
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the Cynical Optimist
March 12, 2016
I think you can find ‘Eli’ in YouTube, one of Alphonse Puthiran’s early Tarantinoish shorts.
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Kaaviyathalagani
March 12, 2016
Eli was on youtube for a long, long time – I think it was a Nalaya Iyakunar entry, before they took it down for Aviyal. “Vatti Raja” from Neram is in an alternate reality here! The bit with the alcohol, that shotgun ending – don’t fuck with me while fucking! (If I remember right) Cue guffaws and wolf whistles
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sanjana
March 12, 2016
Mouth watering. Next some film named Pongal it is was not alreay made. We are running out of titles.
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Amit Joki
March 12, 2016
What do you guys mean when you refer to Tarantinoish? I haven’t seen any of his films as yet, so can someone explain what that refers to in layman’s terms?
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udhaysankar
March 12, 2016
Amit Joki: The use of a lot of quirky details. Conversations that are expository, too real to be for cinema. The editing style, exaggerated violence on-screen,frequent use of text to highlight characters, use of numbered chapters to narrate, fresh and outlandish music to set mood, Etc.
For instance, in premam as the trio of george and his friends enter the college and see their rival gang sitting by the tree, each of their names pop-up on screen, a small flashback of each one of them getting beaten by george and his friends is narrated.
Similarly in ‘Inglorious Bastards’, as Friedrick Zoller introduces the Joseph Goebell’s french interpreter, there is a small flashback of Joseph having sex with her for few seconds.
In Gangs of Wasseypur, the funny names like ‘Definite’ and ‘Perpendicular’ and the way their characters are introduced, is similar to those introductions of villains in ‘Kill Bill’.
The use of chapters in ‘Black Friday’.(This technique is overused a lot that it is a cliche in itself).
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Amit Joki
March 13, 2016
Udhaysankar: Thanks a lot. I tried a lot to go through these mentioned movies to get a thought but I have seen none that you mentioned. And tried looking for it in YouTube, but 2G a vechitu naa padra paadu irukke.
But will look out for those characteristics. The least I can relate to Tarantinoish movie was Neram I guess, where in the last song, texts were used as you said.
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udhaysankar
March 13, 2016
Amit: Also refer the introduction-scene of ‘Hugo Stiglitz’ in Inglorious Basterds. Very similar to the introduction of ‘Perpendicular’ in GOW-1.
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MANK
March 13, 2016
udhaysankar, not to forget the hundreds of pop cultural references and nods to older films and characters.lots of meta and post modernism. GOW again the great eg. the basic structure of the film where the son taking revenge for his father’s murder is itself borrowed from hundreds of hindi masala films. you can see the references all throughout the film – kasam paida karnewale ki, teri meherbaniyaan, the bachchan films ,. Kashyap just take them all apart and put it together in his own style just like Tarantino does with Sphagetti westerns and blaxploitationals.. it is there in premam too, where every random discussion breaks into referencing of movies,actors even Bob marley.
Amit Joki, there is a recent malayalam film called Double Barrel which is the height of Tarantinoism. it didnt do well, but it is a very interesting film with Prithviraj and Arya.
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Amit Joki
March 13, 2016
Thank you guys. Will watch over those scenes in YouTube.
Is there any other such styles that you guys could provide me with information?
Like Nolanism, Finchism, Scorcesism, as such? Like other distinct brand of film making?
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Kid
March 13, 2016
MANK: I have to say this, I found it a very difficult task to sit through Double Barrel even on home-viewing (a rare case with me as far as Malayalam films are concerned..though I avoid watching Dileep and Kunchako Boban’s films like how one would avoid plague). And I say this as someone who has liked each of the director’s earlier films (especially Amen which to my mind is one of the high points of modern Malayalam cinema). I found it completely flat from scene one. Not a single character rang true (what was Swathi Reddy doing in that very odd hairdo/wig) and the film just didn’t have any sense of time or place. But I could have still looked past all of this had it provided me even little by the way of entertainment. Nothing of that sort happened. I think Fahadh (who, for my money, is the best young Indian star-actor) sensed that there was something amiss at script level itself and that’s why left the project (he was supposed to do Arya’s part). The fact this film was such an unmitigated failure on so many levels was shocking to me because the director’s Amen is the best Indian example of being visibly influenced from Tarantino (some of the humour, the quirky tone) and Wes Anderson (the whimsy) and yet coming up with a unmistakable “Malayalam” film. And oh, how memorable were the characters of Fahadh, Indrajith and Swathi Reddy were.
That being said I am still looking forward to the director’s next with Mammootty (who is really doing some interesting stuff this year…White with Huma Qureshi, the Tamil film Peranbu directed by Ram).
Amit Joki: A very good recent example of Tarantino influenced film is Jil Jung Juk (though it might be more in the vein of Guy Ritchie). The film is pretty decent.
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udhaysankar
March 13, 2016
Mank: yeah, I completely skipped it. The use of pop culture references in regular doses. That small meta-like talk about cinema by the characters. Aaranya kaandam had lots of pop-culture references. If I had to pick the most tarantinoesque film in Tamil Cinema, it would be aaranya kaandam. Jil Jung juk, Moodarkoodam, Jigarthanda have considerable influences too.
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Kid
March 13, 2016
A short film I recently saw and enjoyed very much was Sriram Raghavan’s “The Eight Column Affair” (Rajkumar Hirani edited this btw). Truly ambitious effort considering this was his graduation film at FTII.
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udhaysankar
March 13, 2016
Amit :I read a thread about interstellar and Nolan in this blog which was pretty good. There are two to three threads in this blog that completely dissect Nolan and analyse him.
There’s this book ‘Conversations with Scorsese’, that was really good. Read the reviews of Roger Ebert on Scorsese’s films. The commenter Gradwolf has a blog, ‘the seventh art’, which has multiple links to a number of good blogs.
Regarding Finch, I don’t know much. But, there was this YouTube video by ‘Every Frame is a painting’ on his craft which was fascinating.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
March 13, 2016
Like Nolanism, Finchism, Scorcesism, as such? Like other distinct brand of film making?
Amit Joki: Menonism! No, I’m not talking about Rajiv Menon. 🙂
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udhaysankar
March 13, 2016
Sorry, my bad. The ‘the seventh art’ belongs to JAFB.
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Kid
March 13, 2016
BR:
“They’re saying: “We’re not amateurs, cutting our teeth on short films. We’re pros, making shorts because we want to make shorts.”-
The first name (in Indian context) which came to my mind when I read this line was Satyajit Ray. “Two”, “Pikoo”…these are as good as short films (or for that matter, Indian films) get.
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Kid
March 13, 2016
I think in Indian context, the first time an “ism”, a discernible directorial style could be observed (and the auteur could be loosely applied) would be for Mehboob Khan. Can’t think of anyone before him.
Oh and considering we are discussing Tarantino’s influences in Tamil/Indian cinema, the first occasion where the classic Hollywood gangster tropes married to Buster Keaton-style slapstick comedy finds an Indian equivalent is in this 1976 Kundan Shah (yes, the one who made Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron) directed short called Bonga. For anyone interested, here is the link where one could watch the film-
http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/519/Bonga
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MANK
March 13, 2016
Kid, thats why I called it interesting rather great or good. Yes it wasn’t very entertaining and it dragged in parts, but I thought it was an interesting experiment to make such a crazy eccentric film on such a scale. That’s one of the problems with making such wildly experimental films. If you don’t pull them off 100 percent, then it falls flat. He got it right with Amen which also would have gone either way
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vinjk
March 16, 2016
was swathy reddy’s character in double barrel a nod to uma thurman’s character in pulp fiction? at least her looks felt similar
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Bala
May 19, 2016
Just saw this movie yesterday and the male lead of “Shruthi Bedham” is fantastic isn’t he ? Probably doesn’t have the looks (or maybe background) to make it big but he was utterly convincing in his potrayal.
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