She Says She Says: The Women in Mani Ratnam&#8217;s&nbsp;Cinema

Good Video. It actually set me thinking if any of his movies pass the Bechdel Test…

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(Original) venkatesh

Wait , this is a different Namitha.

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The Ghost Who Walks

@Venkatesh

I guffawed sitting at my desk in ofc.. Thanks for that..

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Vivek narain

And ‘She’ returns, Ayesha, the immortal queen lives on. a,Hundred Riders may become Haggard, searching her,but she always returns. For ‘She’ is not the evil queen who becomes dust when her 1000 yrs old vanity spell is broken by Phantom or Shaktiman.

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*She watches Narasimham on a loop?! Good gad!

*Isn’t she imitating Sucharita’s talking style?

(First impressions. 🙂 I haven’t watched the whole video yet.)

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meera

Namitha is engaging and lively… I’ll give her that. But couple of qualms (but ofcourse)….

So now smoking is progressive? I would have really loved if Divya’s rejection of a marriage proposal(by simply enjoying the rain) in Mouna Raagam or Taras agreement to a live in was mentioned instead of smoking. These things are not progressive but derogatory, for a man or a woman. It’s this and movies like veere de wedding which glorify cuss words and women drinking In public to signal liberation and and empowerment that makes me cringe. Think woman… think!!!
What is the point of the video? Should MR make female centric cinema or should his cinema focus on women issues? But why? I will enjoy CCV as much as I enjoy Parched… if all the characters are outlined with conviction and there is no misogyny then am all for a blood dripping family drama. In fact am sure a lot us here are big fans of pudhupettai and aruvi.. it is never either or… if the angst is about MR not making female centric movies then it’s simply crying wolf. Why should he?

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Krishikari

@ Reuben It actually set me thinking if any of his movies pass the Bechdel Test…

In Dil Se the two women talk to each other about blowing up the parade and not about men! So ironically a film with a really regressive hero passes.

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Honest Raj

The smoking scene in Agni was meant to show the character in a progressive light? MR-paasathula nammayae minjiduvanga pola!

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Steven Allorian

@Meera — I understand your perspective about smoking as derogatory and not progressive and that will very much the prevailing sentiment. But why not? Why hold women to a different standard than men? Fact is, in Agni all these girls were trying were experimenting – not turn into outright debauchery… It immediately set the tone for the character and Anjali was not your toeing the hero’s line dummy. If women were to be truly free, they would not be judged by these actions that are a pass for a men.

That said, Mani’s portrayal of women were mostly great but at the end of the day, he is a product of his time but better than perhaps every other Tamil movie maker. I think that applies to KBalachander too, who made many women-centric movies but the end were still cliches. And no, I did not watch all of KB’s movies like Kalki, et al.

Started off skeptical but Namitha was good. I saw a lot of hateful commentary on YouTube. Ignore them or better still, de-activate comments.

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women drinking In public to signal liberation and and empowerment that makes me cringe.

Yeah. That. As far as I can remember Agni Natchathiram, Amala’s character was irritating (and I like Amala!). She was the manic pixie dream girl of those times.

I don’t mind a film showing women [or men] smoking and drinking and cussing. If it is a part of their narrative arc. It’s when they shoehorn it to show how ‘modern’ [or how ‘bad’] the character is, that I have an issue. And in this, it was definitely the latter.

I have always had a problem with Mani’s heroines. I think I’ve mentioned that before. And no, it’s not because I want him to make a ‘female-centric’ film. It’s that his heroines are – on paper – ‘strong’ women. But they all fold in the end. Into the same-old, same old.

I still like his films. I like his stories and the way he tells them. He just doesn’t know how to write a woman character (IMO) in the same way he does his male characters. It’s like women are a strange species that he has only read about – his female characters are a very academic look at women; or more strongly, what a man thinks a woman would be like, rather than an actual flesh-and-blood one. They are good on paper but they just don’t come alive with their own agency.

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rsylviana

I love that FC is doing a show that discusses about films from a female POV.

Also , about the bit about Maniratnam doing movies only from the male perspective, wasn’t Mouna Raagam told completely from Divya’s POV ? Its entirely her story right ?

@meera – Amala smoking in Agni natchathiram may not be about liberation but rebellion i.e., from her character’s perspective.

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brangan

Steven Allorian: Fact is, in Agni all these girls were trying were experimenting – not turn into outright debauchery… It immediately set the tone for the character … If women were to be truly free, they would not be judged by these actions that are a pass for a men.

Exactly.

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Kutty

Female POV and no mention of the stalking in both Dil Se and Alaipayuthey? Or about how it barely registers to SRK that Manisha has been traumatized by childhood abuse and he just wants force himself on her? Disappointing.

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Vidya Ramesh

Love that FC is doing this! Namitha is good and the video is an easy watch. But I second Meera on not getting what she wanted to say at the end of it. Bit all over the place. I will definitely watch her again though, she needs to get her thoughts more organised. your viewers are very discerning 🙂

PS : I positively hated Anupama Chopra doing a flash something video. What are you? Not becoming pinkvilla one hopes.

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Vidya Ramesh

Also what about Anjali and kannathil , I loved the women who played mothers with such love. Especially Revathi.

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Kutty: Making a video like this is not easy. For one thing, stalking seems to be a sprawling topic and she may have wanted to reserve for another day.

Maybe the crew felt that the video would be too long. Even journalists/writers have word limits and can’t let themselves go for pages and pages. If she had created a 2 hour video people would not have even bothered with watching a couple of minutes.

“disappointing” is a terrible thing to say about someone who is testing waters in something very new to her.

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Vidya Ramesh: I often regret it that Anjali isn’t spoken about that much when Maniratnam movies are discussed. It maybe a very simple movie when compared to the more complex themes in most of his movies. But it has always been my most favourite.

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Voldemort

She looks and speaks like Sucharita Tyagi. Is she her sister or something?
And oh, that “I changed my clothes because … Tamil cinema” was hilarious.

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Anu Warrier: Regarding the “what a man thinks a woman would be like, rather than an actual flesh-and-blood one”

I never felt so about most Maniratnam movies. The women in Mouna Raagam or Roja or Bombay or Thalapathy may act in a way I’d not. But not in a way that I can’t imagine another woman acting. Not even Amala in AN.

But I felt that strongly in OKK. When a group of 7 girls go to another city and find one of them is missing on the return trip, the other 6 girls don’t think “I wonder what Taara is upto, ha ha. Not even attending calls. Suspicious, but funny. Probably having a bit of strange naughty fun in a strange naughty city. Let’s forget about our friend until she turns up on her own. We can then tease her about her unexplained absence”.

That maybe how men think when one of them is missing. But not women. Not even women in “Sex in the city” are THAT nonchalant about a friend going missing a couple of days.

Writers do flesh out their main female characters believably. But the lines given to the nameless female friend characters should make sense.

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Varsha

Steven Allorian, Meera: I understand the validity in both of your points. Here’s my thought: First off, as a woman who has done exactly what the Amala character does in the movie, I personally didn’t perceive the scene as suggesting smoking to be progressive for women when I saw it the first time(still do!). I just identified myself with the act, enjoyed the scene and moved on. But not everyone takes it so lightly, and your comments are, IMO, only the latest in a long line of arguments that happen whenever such movie scenes are the topic of discussion. Some people feel smoking and drinking are very bad placeholders for showcasing uniform standards for both sexes, while others ask “why not?!”. I feel it is simply a matter of opinion. As long as no one gets into the habit of smoking or excessive drinking in the name of progressiveness, there seems to be nothing much to argue, I guess.

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MANK

Amala’s character was in tune with the kind of film Agni was. Its a light masala film, with things happening more on the surface ,rather than anything deep. you also had that separate comedy track with Janakaraj, which is a rarity of Mani’s films . You dont find characters like that in a serious film like Thalapathi

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MANK

which is a rarity in Mani’s films, His films hardly have even subplots, leave alone seperate comedy tracks

In recent times, he has stopped having well defined characters (male or female) in his films. there are more rough sketches in tune with his grander design of creating pure cinema. on top of that he casts actors who are not talented enough to bring these sketches to life. except for Vikram in Raavanan, all have struggled to give life to his characters

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Vivek narain

@Rahini david, it’s ‘Sex and the City’. During my 5 year stint at mandelaeffect.com it was one of the top ME topics. I had promped ‘Sri Lanka’ topic which incidentally became the best and most convincing of all MEs.

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jaga_jaga

waiting for CCV’s women to pop up in some review! You have the strongest Mani Ratnam ladies in CCV!

Spoiler Alert:

CCV is as feminist a movie as Eraivi is! But without all the amateur pretensions involved with this Subbaraj guy. The women of CCV blew me apart! It was a fantastic portrayal. More to write about CCV itself. But that will be in a thread dedicated to CCV.

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meera

Varsha: I have no problems with the scene per say… it was done with the intent to do outline a character which is followed up with Amala sneaking into prabhus room later on..I have problems with tagging these actions “progressive”…
I think if Namitha wanted to make a video that said these female characters are not satisfying in such and such a way then fine… but it seemed like she made the video coz CCV is releasing and let’s do something about feminism and MR… that is not done!! At least for BR readers..
oh btw at the risk of opening Pandora’s box I was quite fine with Alaipayuthey.. in fact I don’t think he stalked her at all… he was interested.. so he wanted to “locate” her… and she seemed to lead him on too… even when she says to stop following her and he responds with a hi… shakthi walks away with a grin not a frown…

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Rahini, I’m not saying there aren’t women who would be like that. It’s just that, in every. single. movie. his women end up being… oh, I don’t know, ‘revert to type’ is the best I can come up. I don’t know how best to explain it – but I’ve finished watching every single Mani Rathnam movie with that strange feeling of dissatisfaction – don’t get me wrong; I have liked his films. I watch a Mani Rathnam film based solely on his name. But there has always been a niggling sense of something missing.

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@Vidya, I went and watched AN yesterday again. I stand corrected. I don’t think MR wanted to show it as ‘progressive’. It was a scene to define Amala’s character.

Meera – I get what you’re saying. Having watched that scene again, and getting the impression that ‘progressive’ was not what Mani was aiming for – having Namitha call it that is irksome. I think she’s just finding her feet. Hopefully, she will move on from trying to be Sucharita’s clone because that manner of talking is highly irritating. 🙂 Plus, she was all over the place. I assume a few sessions in, she’ll find her own groove.

I also agree about Alaipayuthey – I didn’t see it as stalking at all.

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Varsha

Meera: Yup! Not the scene per se(not always, though!), but the discussions that surround them. Someone reads too much into such a scene and then all hell breaks loose! Namita started it here, not you. One could do the same with Alaipayuthey and stalking too!

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Dor

Rahini, I really liked your comment about the missing friend in OKK.

Much as I love KB, I have the same problem with his “feminist” movies. It is about what a woman would do from a man’s perspective. If you are a woman, you would never dream of doing this. For example, in both kalki and Sindhu bhairavi, “liberated” women make babies and gift them loftily to “ infertile” women (because, gasp, your life is so incomplete without motherhood right?). There is no question of choice or consent. Wtf? ?

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Dor: Sindhu Bairavi made a little more sense to me as I just assume that Sindhu would have just been ok with bringing up the child as a single parent if JKB and Bairavi did not want to accept this ‘offer’.

And also, I can understand that Bairavi would accept this offer. She takes good care of children in the neighborhood. Not sure if it was Delhi Ganesh’s child or Janakaraj’s child or someone else, but I vaguely recall her playing with some child. It being her biological child may not be her priority. After all, she does come across as a woman who would consider adoption if conception fails. It is a presumptuous/pompous/self-important decision which reeked of ‘look-at-me-solve-your-problems-for-you’. I don’t like that climax. But I can see what he was going for.

But Kalki? My Goodness. “You abused 2 of your wives, stranger? Let me prove to you that I can abuse you” is not even distantly believable. Even if a woman has zero reverence towards her own body and womb, she still would not consider the scheme. It was almost as if she had a baby for recreational purposes.

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Dor: It is about what a woman would do from a man’s perspective.

Spot on! That was what I was trying to get at apropos my comment about Mani Rathnam’s heroines earlier, albeit unsuccessfully. MR’s heroines are also written from the male gaze. I never get the feeling they are flesh-and-blood women!

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Anuja Chandramouli

Rahini, loved your comments! And Anjali is an absolute fave of mine. I think the film is criminally underrated. Raghuvaran’s performance was a master class in exemplary histrionics. But I was mad as heck at that character though. Imagine if your husband decides to tell you that your daughter is dead when she isn’t and you find out only when time is running out! I would have cheerfully strangled the bugger!! Classic MR…

Anu, I agree with you about Amala’s manic pixie persona and her one ezhi, rendu ezhi nonsense. Nirosha’s character was ridiculous too.

Meera, I totally agree with you. Women have been drinking and smoking in public or private since the dawn of time, and I don’t get why it is suddenly considered progressive.

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phaneendra201

I think namitha didn’t say just smoking is progressive. The background music wasn’t judging her act. And in that sense it is progressive.

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Madan

I second rsylviana here; Mouna Ragam was entirely from Divya’s perspective. As for most of his films being narrated from the male perspective, it was most likely just box office imperative. If you depend on the male stars for your films to run, then you have to construct male narratives around them too. Another director who made a film told from the female perspective early in his career only to mostly move to male oriented films (and with greater commercial success) was Mahesh Bhatt. Maybe the inference being drawn here is because Mani’s recent films haven’t done so well at the BO, the male perspective is inherent to his filmmaking and not only about commercial gains. Maybe, I won’t rule that out, but Mani also hasn’t said that he is not interested in BO returns. That he is failing is another matter. Just as Ghai had a long string of stinkers at the BO starting with Trimurti (briefly interrupted by Taal) but resuming again with Yaadein, Kisna etc. I mean, Ghai didn’t turn all arthouse just because his films weren’t doing well, right?

Interestingly enough, even in Hollywood, the one time Scorcese went out of type and made a not necessarily female oriented film but one with strong female characters – Age of Innocence – it bombed. Peace sells but who’s buying, something like that.

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Honest Raj

Madan: I don’t think he ever wanted to “position” himself as a men/women-centric filmmaker. Also, I’m not sure about BO success being his top priority when he started out – most of his earlier films were financed by his brother. But even in such a case, the commercial success of Mouna Raagam (it made more BO than Nayagan) must have prompted him to make more women-centric films, no?

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Madan