Spoilers ahead…
Read the full review on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/chekka-chivantha-vaanam-movie-review-baradwaj-rangan/
In the days leading to the release of Mani Ratnam’ Chekka Chivantha Vaanam (Crimson Red Sky), there was hot speculation that the gangster drama was a reworking of Kalki Krishnamurthy’s historical fiction, Ponniyin Selvan. That turns out to be true, somewhat. The ailing monarch, Sundara Cholan, becomes a don named Senapathi (Prakash Raj), “the most powerful man in the city,” who’s bedridden after an assassination attempt. The open-shirted, hairy-chested machismo of Senapathi’s son, Varadan (Arvind Swamy), brings to mind the hot-tempered Aditya Karikalan. The boatwoman Poonguzhali, who ferried Arulmozhi Varman from Sri Lanka to Tamil Nadu, becomes a Sri Lankan Tamil named Renu (Aishwarya Rajesh) — her first scene has her in a boat. Arulmozhi Varman was Sundara Cholan’s second son, and his equivalent — Thyagu (a stylish Arun Vijay) — is whom Renu/Poonguzhali is married to. (And Sri Lanka becomes Dubai.) And Vandiyathevan, Aditya Karikalan’s friend who has a secret or two up his sleeve, becomes Varadan’s friend, Rasool (Vijay Sethupathi). So on, so forth.
The story, too, is a similar game-of-thrones construct — but with the women (schemers like Nandini, innocents like Kundavai) out of the picture. And instead of who gets to be king, the question becomes who wanted Senapathi out of the picture. (Silambarasan plays Senapathi’s third son, Ethi) It’s a strong setup — but the first half is utterly generic, giving us very little that was not in the trailers. Apart from the four male leads, the characters are quite generic, too. Chitra (Jyothika) is Varadan’s through-thick-and-thin wife. Parvati (Aditi Rao Hydari) is Varadan’s mischievous mistress. The character seems to have been written in to bring about a parallel between father and son (Senapathi was unfaithful, too), but she adds nothing to the movie. Chhaya (Dayana Erappa), who is Ethi’s girlfriend/wife, is essentially a chalk outline, albeit a very fetching one. Senapathi’s wife, Lakshmi (Jayasudha), gets a little more texture — a bit of confusion while waving goodbye to her sons (after she learns something about them), and a Thalapathy-lite moment with Ethi, who feels he never got the mother’s love he deserved. But it’s all swept away in a sea of testosterone.
Continued at the link above.
Copyright ©2018 Film Companion.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Tambi Dude
September 27, 2018
Loved your review.
This is veiled admission that the movie was a stylish kuppai.
ps: I get a feeling that MR will not invite you for the next New Year party he will throw 🙂
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SingaLinga
September 27, 2018
Nenachen … “… oorukke pidichirukke, ivarukku kattaayamaa pidichirukkadhe – “ Just kidding 🙂
feel this is more like a Neengal Kettavai from MR. “You didn’t like all the experiments I did so take this and go enjoy” type of movie perhaps. He at least now gets a good production house for his next movie 😉
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mallikarjun rao
September 27, 2018
Well Said!!! So, I’m not alone here. Indeed, It “feels like a six-hour epic reduced to “highlights” ”
Mani Sir is Something else, He’s all about Drama, Emotion , That Punch in the Gut. “A bullet in a character must give us a punch in the gut. Otherwise, it’s just an action scene, not drama.”..
Let’s just say Mani Sir has made an action film now. Go and Watch it.. It’s racy, adrenaline pumping stuff from LEGEND.
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Anu Warrier
September 27, 2018
BR, it really felt like what disappointed you the most about the film was not knowing what Aditi Rao Hydari was doing in it. 🙂
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Akash Balakrishnan
September 27, 2018
An conflicting marriage of needs and desires, traditional and contemporary ideas/cinema.
One way to watch this movie is by imagining it as a message movie. The lyrics of the songs bhoomi bhoomi (wasted as a theme to show up at key moments to evoke something) and sevandhu pochu nenju, the feudal war between brother (possibly a metaphor for fights within a single species), few philosopical dialogues like the one Vijay Sethupathi says – Naanga ellam rathathilaye oori ponavanga(Damn, never did I imagine Mani Ratnam would use words over images), Arvind swami’s monologue, the movie beggining with a voice over about the criminal, ending with justice prevailing. I would have love that message movie had it been cinema like, say, Kannathil Muthamitaal. The biggest issue with the movie is tonal inconsistency. After a solid opening and the introduction of the main conflict of who’s next, the film wastes time through the Chekka Chivantha Herring :p , emotional scenes that burst out of nowhere and unmeaningful deaths. The film suffers a dilemma between cold violence and moral values. Take the set piece where they are chasing the suspects in a brothel firing guns. It promises an uncivilized world while the sound design makes every bullet storm the heart thus suggesting violence is dangerous. And right after the intercut sequence about the sons’ desire to take up their father’s place, we get an emotional scene between Jayasudha and Prakashraj just to jump back to the promise of action.
Or take the interval which ends with Senapathy’s death and resumes back with mazhai kuruvi. Vijay Sethupathi came across as irritating with over casualness when betraying, IMO. And just like you said, the happening in the second half felt like a highlights of a test match. Those portions were dumb, too. With unexplained or un affecting motivations and rip them all actions of the characters. One could argue that Varadan was dumb and hotheaded, but that doesn’t do much good for the film.
The biggest mistake of the movie is by treating the characters with no dignity(right from the trailers) while the screenplay demands empathy for them. And the saddest part is realizing that all these flaws come from the man’s directorial sensiblities to make us feel a certain way. The pattern with posr-iruvar Mani Ratnam is that he communicates his characters to us through their final acts (as opposed to their reactions on their way to the final decision). He lets their power tell u about them rather than digging deep into them.
This time it adds to the flaws of the movie. And…. the cinematography felt like they were on a tight schedule with random or meaningless frames. Atleast the first half had good staging and better rhythm in terms of editing. And what was the fucking narrative need to shoot everything in a closeup using telephoto lenses. I don’t think that monologue would have made impact even if it were set up better for he is an angry asshole at one moment and, minutes later, after an unconvincing journey and a death, he is a philosopher who still wants revenge.
I remember this line from your review of guru – Even if the larger picture doesn’t grab you, you come away dazzled by the characters and their interpersonal dynamics – and that’s the stuff that makes each one of his films, well, a reliance product. I would watch that film any day. But this time around, the socially responsible man overpowered the teller of human stories.
PS : I loved Kaatru veliyidai for the most part and raavanan even more. But those movies were interesting to perform autopsy while the flaws in this are rather intentional to give out a final feel like Dunkirk. I am his fan/ silent student in a very different way. So, don’t term me a hater or a cynic who isn’t open to newness
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meera
September 27, 2018
Oh god now I have to watch it and understand all these missing pieces…
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brangan
September 27, 2018
Tambi Dude: This is veiled admission that the movie was a stylish kuppai.
No, dude. I am saying the film does not work for me. There’s a world of difference between that and “kuppai,” which means trash. This is by no means trash. A lot of thought and work has gone into it (see para about experimentation). To say those calculations did not pan out is not to say the film is trash.
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Akash Balakrishnan
September 27, 2018
Also, the colors, dialogues, natural staging elements and music felt either all over the place or badly utilized with ARR playing at some parts unwantedly and loudly. Loved the individual songs and the havoc bgm(The one that plays when Siva Anath’s character is murdered by Thyagu), tho.
Especially bhoomi bhoomi. The movie felt like a huge thumbs up to love, order and peace. From another perspective, the movie felt like it confused abstraction for story clarity. One can easily draw parallels between kadal’s hilariously sped up magudi magudi sequence and Varathan’s fall. In short, thiose which were pieces of cinema and themes there feel like messages and statements here, IMO
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Reuben
September 27, 2018
My first instincts after watching the trailer more than a month ago was this looks so Un-Maniratnamasque. The instincts were spot on after watching the movie today.
I had a similar feeling about the Neengal Kettavai analogy to CCV. I felt Mani is flipping the bird and saying, ‘here take it’.
Thinking back, since the movie starts with Rasool’s voice over, this whole movie is Rasool’s report on Operaion Red Sky and hence you might not find character building in a police report.
That’s Mani’s deceit for a screenplay like CCV.
But I agree, it didn’t work for me as well.
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apala
September 27, 2018
BR, besides Ponniyin Selvan, connections as you described here, it seems to be similar in plot to a Korean film “New World” – released few years ago.
Well, like you said, this may be Mani showing the middle finger to the audience! But still it would be better than the crap-fest coming through from the stars of tamil cinema – I think and hope! Will see it later in the week.
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vogon
September 27, 2018
Where I saw it, few scenes from the trailer didn’t make it to screen. I thought Aditi Rao had a bigger role in the trailer than in the movie.
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Anil
September 27, 2018
Agree in total with your Review. After watching CCV I carry home the Red landscape (Climax Scene) & some Visual Shots and intriguing BGM like Bhoomi.. Bhoomi. Wish I could carry Mani Sir’s characters and emotions in my head. His conversations still had that unique trademark, though intensity & charm factor is a bit fading away. Actors carried this ‘A Mani Ratnam Film’.
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Rahini David
September 27, 2018
This review was soooo satisfying. Sometimes I wish these big name directors made movies more often so that we get these reviews.
And yes, BR is in so much gaandu that he didn’t get enough Aditi moments.
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Heisenberg
September 27, 2018
It’s hard to believe the man who has written so many memorable little side characters in Tamil cinema, has written a whole movie filled with characters we just don’t care about. The formative relationship between brothers is not well established and it’s inconsistent.
Why do these characters do things in half measure? While Aravindswami and Jyothika enjoy a video call of seeing the brothers getting thrashed, then suddenly she tries to stop him when he sets out to finish them (enjoys thrashing but don’t wanna kill them?) Each one wants the throne and wants to hurt other? Would limit only to thrash but not eliminate the other totally, because of some lingering brotherly love?
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Heisenberg
September 27, 2018
The movie was filled with some ridiculous moments and dialogues. Arun vijay gives a motivational speech and takes the thugs on his side. Seriously?
This ultra modern tamil ponnu in Serbia mouths things like abasagunam? not to mention things like “Iraivan thandha varame”
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Dracarys
September 27, 2018
It looks like you were more pissed of Aditi Rao Hydari in a forgettable role as was her in Padmaavat than the whole mass movie!😂
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Heisenberg
September 27, 2018
Lastly about A.R.Rahman. He has filled the whole movie with Boomi boomi song..Doesn’t work like theme song at all.
Easily this is his worst contribution to Mani Ratnam film. What’s that thing with releasing songs one by one till the last day, like last minute assignment submission by college students.
It’s high time he stops his experiments with different sounds and constructing songs piece by piece like lego. Hope he rediscovers the soul of his music and gives some numbers that are easy on ears and stay in mind.
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Abejith Sr
September 27, 2018
Mr. Baradwaj
You write a lot ..a lot..a lot ..a lot..a lot…about cinema.. Do you think tamil people are Idiots..? Do you think no body had seen Godfather-1 before..? Do you think no body know who is Francis Ford Coppola..? Do you think no none of the tamil people knows who is Brando ? Do you think all tamil people are distilled idiots..? no body knows Al pacino..?
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Tambi Dude
September 27, 2018
BR: “does not work for me” is your politically correct, pissing-off-no-one style of telling you did not like the movie. I take that it is your occupational hazard.
As for Kuppai, does that matter once you do not like a movie.
I loved the sentence “other times, the energetic staging …. there is very little reason for the scene to exist”. Ha.
I have been saying this for long. He is a poor story teller. He should have been in the ad business where such MBA gimmicks work.
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Tambi Dude
September 27, 2018
BTW a technical quip. Out here in USA, at my work place, Filmcompanion is blocked. Anyone else having this issue.
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Sahir.
September 27, 2018
Anu Warrier, I was also disappointed with ARH. After her work in Kaatru Veliyidai, what did she see in this role? Come to think of it, what was Mani Ratnam thinking with this role? All she has to do is run around in short dresses and nightgowns (to contrast with the dressed-in-sarees wife?) in her flat, which, frankly, is straight out of O Kadhal Kanmani.
Anil, that climax was indeed satisfying. Its production design tied in with the red in the title, and I loved the way the last zoom-out shot seemed to show us how insignificant these men’s squabbles were in the larger scheme of things.
I think Heisenberg touched on this too — what are those songs doing in the film? I didn’t register any except Bhoomi Bhoomi (because it kept playing) and Mazhai Kuruvi (because I’d heard it before). That scene with Thyagu and Renu in jail — did it really need a song to be playing as they conversed?
I make it seem like I disliked the film; I didn’t. I quite enjoyed it; in fact, in contrast to Mr Rangan, I thought the first half was quite good. It was in the second half that I began to ask questions like “What are the women doing?” “How is Jyothika OK with her husband’s infidelity?” “Why were there no scenes establishing the family’s interpersonal relationship (would’ve helped sell Arvind Swamy’s breakdown scene better, as well as the climax)?” “Why, Aditi?”
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Krish
September 27, 2018
Great review. To be honest I am a bit surprised that you have been this unforgiving about a MR film. The points you raise about lack of character development and the underwhelming climax and reveal about Rasool were all spot on. Atleast with Varadhan and Ethi, we get some glimpses of a backstory, but I wasn’t sure how to read Thyagu as a person.
I liked MR’s experimentation with how the songs were cut up and used. Parts of Bhoomi and Sevanthupochu were utilized very aptly at many places, with the lyrics complementing the narrative. In that sense mazhai kuruvi song didn’t fit into the motif.
I think overall, MR has delivered a product that appeals to a wider audience (I guess more prose than poetry like you nicely put it). I personally walked out much more satisfied compared to Kaatru Veliyidai.
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Prasanna
September 28, 2018
@brangan was Thiruda Thiruda MR’s neengal kettavai or even Thalapathy. I felt MR made a Rajini movie with Mani touch. While Mohan Lal acted in out an out MR movie…
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Anuja Chandramouli
September 28, 2018
Spoiler alert:
Since this is a Mani Ratnam film, I lowered my expectations considerably and walked into the theatre. Even so, CCV was a bitter disappointment. But Tambi Dude, I wouldn’t call it ‘stylish kuppai’ though that would most certainly apply to ‘his recent stabs at poetry’. I found his return to ‘hardboiled prose’ refreshing and yet this material could have been so much more rather than teeth – gnashingly frustrating.
STR’s stupendous performance was something else but it is too bad his character like all the others without exception was so half – baked. I mean Ethi knew which brother was responsible for the death of his wife (don’t you hate that Gautam Vasudev Menon touch where dudes marry at inopportune moments just to give some emotional heft to the subsequent scene where the wife dies in a particular violent manner?) but decides to ally with him in order to go after the other brother so that we can have a crappy reveal in the climax. In which world does that make sense? And MR is supposed to be a smart filmmaker!
I was actually happy when the Jo character died. Which gangster worth his salt takes his wife to a knife fight (never mind that the idiot insisted) without knowing that the douchebags he associates with would bring guns? Ye Gads and little fishes!! As for Thyagu, I am not a genius gangsta type, but I certainly wouldn’t use all my bullets to kill a man when one would suffice especially when I am in a car with two murderous brutes, then stick my neck out through a sun roof at that! Gah!!
That Mani Ratnam makes me so mad! Still it was smart of him to leave VJS as the last man standing, though that was some contrived, smelly BS. The audience I watched it with seemed happy that Makkal Selvan had outsmarted the dimbulbs galore without breaking into a sweat. Now we will have to endure more of his painful experiments. And I am so going to watch if STR is in it. Help!!
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R Gowtham
September 28, 2018
There’s so much to hate in this movie. Even more so if you are fond of Mani Ratnam.
The film is in constant movement between a few locations. People keep driving to and from places all the time (though sometimes it isn’t shown). Merely watching that made me tired.
And so many obvious, mainstream choices!
The voiceover to begin with. The hell a lot of drone shots that aren’t consistent with the rest of the film. And red herrings like the one were Aishwarya Rajesh is shown angry when the men of the family are on the lift. Seriously?
Very few scenes gave me the feeling that they were shot by Santhosh Sivan. The mirror scene in the beginning which was so beautiful I thought was going to be used to introduce a main character. The scene you mentioned as ‘cool shot’ was really cool. In the scene where Simbu question who benefits the most out of this attempt to kill his father while Arun Vijay undresses his mother’s wound was shot and edited well. I liked the shot that followed a triumphant Arun Vijay to the terrace.
I loved that little contrast of emotions between the scene where Prakash Raj says it’s the fondest son who backstabs and the scene where that son complains that he was caged without love.
However, these positives fade in the mess of all the characters and events that swoosh past you.
At best it was a somewhat well-made Hari movie. The songs did not work for me at all. The score was too in-the-face.
I hope Mani Ratnam makes enough money from this to make films that don’t need to feel so rushed.
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Cholan Raje
September 28, 2018
@Heisenberg I can’t agree with this entirely. The songs in this film are as disconnected and messy as the film looks like itself. Mazhai Kuruvi is a solid 90’s melody, but then we go to the sounds-better-on-paper-than-it-does-on-YouTube synth-classical of Bhoomi Bhoomi. Kalla Kalavani is okay, Sevandu Pochu Nenju sounds more like something out of a Girl’s Night Out than it does an action film, and Hayati…uh…um…yeah.
But it is always wrong to say a composer shouldn’t experiment. Take a look at Harris Jayaraj. He gels with the masses because he manages to stick with the trends, and prioritizes catchiness/tradition with every song. That’s what makes him the most redundant composer of our times.
What you should do is take a look at composers, that (I’m gonna piss off a lot of people here but fuck it) are much BETTER at experimenting nowadays, like Yuvan (when he’s not giving out a half-assed autotuned album) and Santhosh Narayanan. They work with flugelhorns, trumpets, flutes, who the hell knows what, and manage to make their songs completely different in sound, WHILE ALSO CATERING TO THE TONE OF THE FILM.
ARR is going in the right direction, but his albums don’t flow. They don’t gel with the film the way they should. In 24, you have some Terminator shit like Kaalam Yen Kaadhali going on, and then you hear “Naaaan un azhaginile” and think you’re listening to a 90’s romance film.
Albums like Nenjam Marappathillai (Selvaraghavan’s film, an underrated classic of an album) and the recent Vada Chennai are examples of what film music should be. The former is a classy beauty ranging from rich Western orchestral themes to retro hip hop, while the latter is an earthy mix of gaanas and jazzy SaNa melodies.
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Cholan Raje
September 28, 2018
@Heisenberg I can’t agree with this entirely. The songs in this film are as disconnected and messy as the film looks like itself. Mazhai Kuruvi is a solid 90’s melody, but then we go to the sounds-better-on-paper-than-it-does-on-YouTube synth-classical of Bhoomi Bhoomi. Kalla Kalavani is okay, Sevandu Pochu Nenju sounds more like something out of a Girl’s Night Out than it does an action film, and Hayati…uh…um…yeah.
But it is always wrong to say a composer shouldn’t experiment. Take a look at Harris Jayaraj. He gels with the masses because he manages to stick with the trends, and prioritizes catchiness/tradition with every song. That’s what makes him the most redundant composer of our times.
What you should do is take a look at composers, that (I’m gonna piss off a lot of people here but fuck it) are much BETTER at experimenting nowadays, like Yuvan (when he’s not giving out a half-assed autotuned album) and Santhosh Narayanan. They work with flugelhorns, trumpets, flutes, who the hell knows what, and manage to make their songs completely different in sound, WHILE ALSO CATERING TO THE TONE OF THE FILM.
ARR is going in the right direction, but his albums don’t flow. They don’t gel with the film the way they should. In 24, you have some Terminator shit like Kaalam Yen Kaadhali going on, and then you hear “Naaaan un azhaginile” and think you’re listening to a 90’s romance film.
Albums like Nenjam Marappathillai (Selvaraghavan’s film, an underrated classic of an album) and the recent Vada Chennai are examples of what film music should be. The former is a classy beauty ranging from rich Western orchestral themes to retro hip hop, while the latter is an earthy mix of gaanas and jazzy SaNa melodies.
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Cholan Raje
September 28, 2018
Haven’t seen the film yet, but my biggest complaint is that it looks sloppy. Even Kadal, and Kaatru Veliydai, regardless of their actual content, established their tones well visually. You could say the same about all Mani Ratnam films. His poetic direction is what separates his films from the mainstream.
But I don’t see that here. Tell me this is a Karthick Naren or GVM movie and I’ll believe you without doubting myself. The only poetic thing here is the chekka chivantha raththam splattered across the faces of the performers and every alternate shot. The frames are disconnected, generic, just average. I might like the story, but the cinematography and technicalities are unimpressive.
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mrinalnarayan
September 28, 2018
@brangan Sorry if this is a very silly question. How long did it take to comprehend the whole thing and write this review? I think you saw an early show at Kasi Talkies? 😛 I’m asking this because over time with problematic movies like these, the parts that work and the one doesn’t work keep changing a lot. So, when you had one whole day (i know you have a life beyond this 😛 ) I’m curious about the thought process
I agree with a lot of points in the review. But I am still unable to wrap my head around this movie. This abstract filmmaking worked for me in Kaatru Veliyidai – may be because the focus was only on two characters. So one could still make something out of them, their motives etc. Here with so many characters, it did not help. But I did enjoy the second half – Especially the last twenty minutes. When I came out of the theater, felt something was good about it. In most of the movies, the start is great and as it plays, we have that “Eanda nalladhanada poitu irundhudhu. Ean ipdi?” moment. Here it was opposite. “Enna nadakudhu inga” to “Oh! that was sort of nice”
The whole experience is like I’m unable to swallow because its bitter somewhere, neither am able to spit it out because its also tasty.
Also in the place where I live, the cinemas don’t have an intermission concept. The next half starts immediately. That way, the Mazhai Kuruvi that started immediately after the intermission card was choking the pre-interval intense moment with Bhoomi Bhoomi playing.
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Anamika
September 28, 2018
Fahadh Faazil was initially chosen for the role of Thyagu but he opted out stating that he was unable to visualize the movie in his mind after narration.
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brangan
September 28, 2018
mrinalnarayan: How long did it take to comprehend the whole thing and write this review?
About six hours I guess? With these difficult movies, I don’t start writing immediately. I let it swirl in my head and settle down for a while.
Because the OBVIOUS missteps are easy to identify (say, the disconect with characters).
But WHY that disconnect is happening is a tougher nut to crack. Is it just the writing? No. It’s actually something more pervasive, the way the scenes are shortened.
WHY is the music intrusive? Is it just the loudness? No, it’s something more — the fact that we don’t have a handle on these songs the way we did in Thalapathy.
So that takes a while to arrive at.
But that’s the case with almost all ambitious filmmakers. I remember the Iraivi review took a very long time, too. Mercury was much easier to write about.
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Heisenberg
September 28, 2018
@Cholan Raje
Sorry for not making my point clear. I am certainly not saying a composer shouldn’t experiment, especially not AR.Rahman who has constantly experimented right from his starting days. I would go on to say VTV was a big turning point in his approach to film music. He changed the conventional song structure (pallavi, saranam) and gave very different kinda songs in the whole album (except Mannipaya).
He certainly has given good music post VTV, but this past 3-4 years mostly (not always) his experiments have not been on pushing musical boundaries, but coming up with different sounds. In other words he comes across more like DJ rather than experimental composer. While I can list out some of his phenomenal work have been in his current phase like Rockstar, Ok Kanmani, I can also list out number of his songs that make me look for earplugs. I can extend this argument to his live performances as well which have become like light, dance and sound gimmick with less focus on music (like not even getting the notes and lyrics right), but that will be separate topic.
I agree with you that Tamil film music (Songs+bgm) is going through a transition phase where we are moving towards bgm & songs that gel with the film’s setting rather than highly romanticized versions that are pleasant to hear but seem out of place in that film’s world. While I don’t find it wrong to have songs that have their own life outside the movie, Rahman has become a misfit in both these scenario. Most of his songs (not all) neither have a life longer than 3 years, nor do they fit perfectly in a movie. I can list out lot of examples.
Makes me wonder has AR.Rahman gone into the kamal haasan zone where no one can tell him his standard has deteriorated and he needs to get back on the sadle?
Sorry for going off-topic, but can’t find a better place to have this discussion 🙂
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shaviswa
September 28, 2018
I gave up on ARR since the mid 2000s. There have been very few quality albums since then. VTV is a good example from that list. Nowadays when a Rahman song is released, I dont even get the urge to listen. I have not listened to CCV songs…..and from what I read here, I dont think I am going to either.
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You Know Who
September 28, 2018
Mrinalnarayan : Also in the place where I live, the cinemas don’t have an intermission concept. The next half starts immediately.
Speaking of intermission, is this an India specific thing? Does any other country’s cinema have intermissions? Considering the amount of importance an interval sequence holds in our movies (especially some movies where hardly anything happens in the first half, and just before the interval, a murder occurs or there’s some other twist that intrigues people and the story actually progresses in the second half), how would it look like when watched together, without an intermission? As in, the presence of an intermission acts like a break where, while buying popcorn you also discuss what has happened till now, what you expect might happen next, there by raising your interest and intrigue levels so that you pay a good deal of attention to the second half, even if you didn’t buy much of the first half.
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Rahini David
September 28, 2018
Heisenberg: The time is ripe for a Reader’s Write In, no? I, personally, would love to hear a lot about the lots of examples you have. 🙂
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Rajesh Balasubramaniam
September 28, 2018
Senpathi knows that Varadhan is the culprit (though not mouthed) mostly because Varadhan didn’t meet Senthipathi. He stays away for a while. Let’s his wife and children to meet them. Similarly, Etti finds that Thiyagu is a culprit from the same fact that Thiyagu didn’t call up for condolence . Surprised with such a connect.
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Rajesh Balasubramaniam
September 28, 2018
Without Nandini there can be a Chola history. But without Nandini , Kundavi, Azhwar mariyan, there cannot be a Ponniyin Selvan. Hence, I find it difficult to accept the other similarities with Ponniyin Selvan.
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Enigma
September 28, 2018
@You Know Who, I live in Australia and over here Indian movies are played without the intermission. That holds true for the Middle East too where I used to live earlier. Having said that, I haven’t seen an Indian movie in the cinema in a very long time. Not sure if things have changed now.
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Aadhy
September 28, 2018
Heisenberg and Cholan Raje:
“Rahman has become a misfit in both these scenario. Most of his songs (not all) neither have a life longer than 3 years, nor do they fit perfectly in a movie. I can list out lot of examples. “
Couldn’t agree more with this. The last movie I think Rahman really cared about to an extent was Tamasha, which gelled with the story really well, apart from also having a couple of good standalone melodies. Post that, his work has ranged from unimpressive to borderline un-listenable. The songs in AYM, although a couple of good ones, felt terribly forced. There is also a very noticeable shift in him to electronic music which is quite baffling. I think someone in his team is telling him this is what the youth is listening to nowadays, and this is him trying to appeal to the youth. If this is his idea of ‘reinventing’ himself, I already dread his future albums.
Another factor is that he’s touring a lot, milking the fans’ nostalgia to the maximum, and therefore doesn’t really have time to work on movies. I was one of those fans who was at the ‘Nenje Ezhu’ Chennai concert, where he shamelessly lip-synced to a playback track, which was that obvious that we could hear his processed voice so clearly even when the mic-sound was exploding from interference. This level of un-professionalism and indifference is also reflected in his movie soundtracks.
As Cholan Raje said, just giving a listen to Vada Chennai, or even the album of the just-released Pariyerum Perumal, there is no doubt that one guy’s experiments are working real wonders for the movie whereas the other’s so-called experiments is just him uneventfully fading away into the twilight of a glorious career.
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Thupparivaalan
September 28, 2018
SaNaa has been better than Rahman for the last 5 years. Rahman needs to rediscover his 2007 to dilli 6 phase when he defly balanced experimentation with soul.
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Srinivas
September 28, 2018
@Heisenberg @Cholan Raje, I read both your comments & just want to share my thoughts as well.I feel ARR is experimenting little much & even after that the tunes that is coming out is not fresh & we can connect with some of his old songs.I feel that ARR has started giving most of his half cooked work to his team “Qutub-E-Kripa” who are credited for
Background score in his recent movies.
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Tambi Dude
September 28, 2018
“whereas the other’s so-called experiments is just him uneventfully fading away into the twilight of a glorious career.”
He has lasted 26 yrs which is phenomenal. I think his last productive period was Dilli6-Rockstar time and after that it has been downhill and in recent years , a rapid one.
Which is OK, it is humanly impossible for someone to keep inventing new sound all the time.
The problem with ARR is that he does not have a reliable backup of good old melody which can at least coast him for some more time. In other words, his command over melody is shaky.
On a slightly different note, when I was in Chennai back in May, I happen to use Uber a lot. Almost all Uber drivers played 80s songs. Given that they are very young and in 20s, I asked them about it and I was told that that is the only music they find worth listening.
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Jaga_Jaga
September 28, 2018
Surprised no one brought the Al Pachino and Martin Scorsese connections!
Vijay Setupati was very much the equivalent of Leonardo in “The Departed” – only that he stays alive! That scene with Gautam further reinforces it.
“Godfather” connections are obvious too.
There is also a connection with Al Pacino’s “Donnie Brascoe”. The entire red sky op in CCV is very similar to the one used there, except that it is cleverly masked.
CCV is like old wine. It will grow on all of us. I am sure that multiple viewings will make this movie so much more interesting. The highlights part BR was alluding to, all the more adds to the allure of this movie for me.
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ini
September 28, 2018
I am starting to feel like Mani is taking the ‘I want to get away from the Ratnamesque flourishes’ too far. In doing so, he ends up creating these cold, distant characters and scenarios that are easy to see through as not genuine. It feels like he is actually ashamed of creating anything relatable, let alone charming,(reminiscent of his old movies) even if the script demands it. How far should a filmmaker steer away from himself and his world to be ‘interesting’ without seeming inauthentic?
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shaviswa
September 28, 2018
@Tambi Dude
I have experienced that too. In one of my recent trips to Madurai, when I walk around the Meenakshi temple watching the brisk trade going on in shops as well as platforms, you will constantly hear Ilaiyaraja’s songs being played – FM or audio systems in shops, auto drivers, taxis. I made exactly the same comment to my wife – the guys listening to Raja’s songs are young chaps – barely 20. How come they are not listening to the latest film songs? I was thinking even Rahman should be old.
Raja seems to have survived much longer and is still very popular.
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Tambi Dude
September 28, 2018
@shavisa
As I took the taxi from the airport to my home in Chennai, the first song
I heard was this
He told me “indhu madri paatu da kekaimudiyum, pudhu paatu la …”
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Tambi Dude
September 28, 2018
With that said, I can’t forever be in 80s mode too. It has a place in my life, but not all time.
For example, I was binging on Radio Mirchi (and I still listen here in USA, thanks to internet) and I really liked this song
I think a healthy balance is fine. I would find 80s songs in RadioMirchi bit odd.
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Ravi K
September 29, 2018
IMO what is happening is that IR now has retro appeal, kind of like how young people in the West listen to classic rock groups such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc. Twenty and thirtysomethings have grown up with ARR, so they’ve heard all of it, and his music doesn’t have the retro appeal of IR’s songs that were made before they were born. Those songs are new to them. Perhaps the generation born in the 2000s will discover ARR’s 90s/early 2000s golden era songs.
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sherevelations
September 29, 2018
@heisenberg I have to disagree with you. Bhoomi Bhoomi is probably the only good thing about this movie. The song was intense and very pleasing. Just needed sometime to catch on it. Personally addicted to the song.
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Ravi K
September 29, 2018
Thupparivaalan wrote: “SaNaa has been better than Rahman for the last 5 years.”
Absolutely. I wonder if part of that is that he is working with a younger and more exciting crop of filmmakers than ARR.
MR seems to have been struggling against songs since “Bombay,” and it feels like he WANTS to jettison them altogether, but includes them because he thinks they make the film more sellable. But he includes them in such a choppy, fragmented manner, as if to say, “there, I’ve fulfilled a minimum requirement so I can say this film technically has songs. Happy?” The other option is that he genuinely likes the way he’s used the songs.
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Cholan Raje
September 29, 2018
What does everyone think about the fact that this was a remake of Korea’s “New World?”
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Madan
September 29, 2018
“IMO what is happening is that IR now has retro appeal, kind of like how young people in the West listen to classic rock groups such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen, etc.” – Sorta, and like R D Burman in Hindi, he represents a cut off point where the music got Western/rebellious enough for people with today’s sensibilities to be able to relate to them while also retaining the essence of vintage Indian film music. You could say this about classic rock too; it was in the golden middle with neither the ambition of prog rock nor the aggression of punk and, later, metal but a little bit of all of these.
With Rahman, I think time will show that his music skews a little towards the urban side of the spectrum, Ottakara Marimuthu et al notwithstanding. Even Ottakara type songs are arranged such that they are rural songs that urban audiences can relate to. This is not a criticism of his choice; they are wonderful songs in their own right. But on my visits to Chennai or into the heartland, I have noticed that it is often young people working as drivers who like Raja songs. Maybe they don’t relate to Rahman’s music as much as they do Raja who covers the full spectrum.
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Mank fan
September 29, 2018
This review and the subsequent defence of the film is coloured by your love for Mani. Tried hard to like the film but there is absolutely nothing under the surface, just a bunch of stylish shots. The treatment is too dry, MANK chetta hopefully, will explain what else is wrong with the film.
PS – That Simbu look at the Minister, is actually a nod, after the minister reminds him that the camera is rolling he looked disinterested and spaced out just before that look 😂
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Abinaya
September 29, 2018
The movie worked for me in bits and pieces. Here is my interpretation.
The only explanation I have for Aditi’s role is that she is probably the one who instigates Varadan to finish off his father, thereby starting the wheel of events. She records him on her camera pronouncing he is the next heir, she asks him to finish off her brothers and do something rather than waiting for his ailing father to die. I was expecting a revelation in the climax that she was used by the cops specifically Rasool to plant this idea in Varadan’s head to start a family war which made the cops’ job of eradicating the gangster family, much easier.
Varadan – plans assassination of his father to be the next Periyavar
Thyagu – plans assassination of Chaya to either eliminate ethi from the succession war or turn him against Varadan
Ethi – plots Renu’s arrest so that Thyagu sides with him to finish off Varadan and he can then finish off Thyagu to be the successor
Rasool – Puts the idea of killing his father into Varadan’s head with the help of Aditi and the dominoes start rolling.
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Film Criticizer
September 29, 2018
Vijay Sethupathi was mass as Rasool. But, to cast a star was pandering by MAni rathinam to the audience. Driven by current trendz.
Imagine instead of VJs , he had casted sound engineer Rasool Pookutty as Rasool, how it would be? He would be perfect for the character.
Str and Arun Vijay were mass.
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pirhaksar
September 29, 2018
Long time lurker, huge ARR, MR and of course a fan of the blog and its diverse writers! Always fascinating to see different perspectives and understand nuances I may have missed. Look forward to catching CCV tomorrow.
It may seem unfair to speak for the man or his long term strategy, but it seems to me he is now milking his huge brand to the fullest, while racing against the clock in what surely is the last leg of a legendary career. Part time Businessman part time musician just like SRK! This is leading to some poor commercial choices, half baked concerts, TV appearances etc. I was at the recent NYC one and while I soaked in the nostalgia of my childhood, it was mostly a light and sound gimmick show, very disappointing to say the least.
Coming to the actual music, definitely has been inconsistent by his former standards but still think he is the best there is today even from an experimental perspective. As I analyze and review ARR’s recent work, the struggle to stay relevant with the instant catchy/viral generation/masses (uneven and patchy stuff like 24, Mersal and now Sarkar which get the popular awards and youtube hits) versus classier works like AYM, KV and now CCV is evident. I am surprised at the the indifference to AYM and now CCV. AYM was great with a couple of songs in my all time ARR list and I totally have CCV on loop! It To me it is better than OKK and KV! How songs get used in the film have more to do with the director in my opinion, but would be interested to see how the new age directors can use Rahman (if such a project does work out). I liked SaNaa when he started out as he sounded different but my reaction to his work is exactly how some of you describe ARR’s recent work here! So, I have to disagree he has been better. In any case, music taste is extremely personal, so to each his own.
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Madan
September 29, 2018
I am guessing SaNa’s music works better with the film. Because standalone it doesn’t work for me.
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Tambi Dude
September 29, 2018
Madan: Same here. I find all of his gaana songs sound same, specifically they sound like “kaasu panam dudu money money”. Here is a sample of Vadachennai.
That guy is massively overrated.
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Srinivas V
September 30, 2018
@Tambi Dude @Shaviswa @Ravi K I read your comments about how you felt Raja is dominating regular people in Chennai. Just sharing my thoughts on this. Personally I feel ARR cannot be compared with Raja just because ARR utilized the opportunity to reach the level that he is today. Raja wasn’t keen in moving to Bollywood. as Bollywood is still considered as the biggest market in India. Raja”s composition has so much soul irrespective of what kind of song it is & it can be sung by anyone as the orchestra is comparatively minimal & you can also listen to the song even in a basic phone or a radio but you can still enjoy the song because his concentration is completely on the melody. Whereas ARR elevates all his songs only through his arrangements & you need to listen using your headset/music system/home theatre to enjoy it.
In recent years if you try to sing any of the ARR song without karaoke you will not get the feeling that You are actually singing a song, as it will sound blunt without the complete score. The other view I hear from ARR as well as from my friends & in blog or reviews is the song is composed for a situation which happens in the film & it will sound better when u watch it. .Even Raja composed all his songs based on the context of the film, however you can still listen to those songs & it will never be a conditional song where you need to listen only with the movie. I will cut it short by giving an example on why I feel Raja is dominating & will continue to dominate majority of people(at least in south India) is “irrespective of where any person is born, everybody will expect a variety in food however they will always get back to regular food or to their nativity & other varieties can be tasted only once in a while & Cannot be consumed on a routine”.
In the actual context Raja stuck to the nativity & likings of the people (atteast in south) whereas ARR who has provided & still can provide songs like he did in his early stages has started experimenting too much due to the popularity & fame he has received. One other reason is ARR has become a brand where a lot of people are ready to accept & give thumbs up for whatever that is getting released from him. Am not saying he shouldn’t experiment but he need to balance it in the right way. Sorry as I have directly used their names without using prefix “MR” which i realized after typing the complete paragraph. I have great respect for both of them & their contributions is huge without any doubt
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Nishanth
September 30, 2018
10 Rs of Potent Material turned a generic fare from Mani Ratnam into an intense business discussion
Choices that could lead to an alternate version avoiding all arrests and deaths except Senapathy’s.
Choice 1 – Mother as Figure Head to fill in Leadership identity void and balance power between the 3 brothers
Choice 2 – Independent business units split basis both region and expertise:
::Tyagu – Middle East and Sheik Marketing – currently valued at 10% of overall business
::Ethi – Europe and Defence & Aerospace – currently valued at at 1% of overall business
::Varadan – Existing pie of India market + parts of businesses directly governed by Senapathy thus far – valued at 9 + 10 = 19% of overall business
Choice 3 – Leadership Council – The 3 and Uncle Cheziyan (also overall business mentor) with Rasool as not so Independent Director
Choice 4 – Professional executive search for leader to take over 70% of core business, (he or she will report into Leadership Council). All extended family members except the 3 brothers and the mother can also apply
Choice 5 – All 3rd generation members to be mapped to paternal functions and regions and ear marked for leadership of these areas alone
Choice 6 – Critical Success Factors
::Upskilling of cross organizational resources to create fungible pool of gangsters (Skills will include ability to understand Sheiks and dealing with European Police)
::Tech enabled business monitoring to compensate for latent knowledge loss owing to Senapathy’s death
::Acquisition of Chinnappadasan’s organization (thereby increasing market share to 60+25 = 85%; a virtual monopoly in organized crime)
::Upgraded MoUs with Rasool and Government/Regulatory authorities
::Setting up of incubator cells to scout new-age crime markets – headed by Chinnappadasan’s Son In Law
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Madan
September 30, 2018
@Srinivas V: I would not say Raja was not keen to move to Bollywood so much as he would only do it on his own terms and being swamped with work as he was, didn’t have much time for it anyway. I think the reason ARR succeeded in crossing over to Bollywood was because he is great at crafting big pop moments, like the big crescendo in the Pudhu Vellai Mazhai chorus. This, anyone can relate to, you don’t HAVE to get Tamil music to like it. And ARR probably picked up on this while working on ad jingles. If you have to get listeners hooked to a tune in 30 seconds, then doing it with a 5 minute film song might even be easier. And this ad jingle background also means Rahman will do whatever it takes to create a hit song and I think this creates the most angst lately for those who followed him from the 90s; where, for instance, is the Rahman signature in a generic dance song like Ladio. It’s unrecognizable from the composer who could pack so much nuance and detail in say a Strawberry Kanne.
Raja relied on a nambikkai framework, on a connection with his listeners, which collapsed somewhere in the mid 90s as it inevitably must. But he didn’t try to start writing Rahman like melodies (barring maybe one notable exception) to rectify this which again suggests that he was content to compose in his style with whatever adjustments he felt necessary out of his own artistic desires and said take it or leave it to the audience.
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Vinod G
September 30, 2018
Loved the review. Loved the movie too. My 2-cents on a couple of points:
Character sketching: Agree that the characters were generic. But, I think it was more by design. I don’t think Mani Ratnam wanted us to empathize with any of the characters. If he had added even a bit of meat more in each of the characters, it could have led to that. The fall-out: CCV could have become another ‘nallavana kettavana’ story. I think Mani Ratnam firmly took the film off that route.
SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD SPOILERS AHEAD
Death of a female character: Yes, the film didn’t linger enough in early stages to let us feel for the death of Chaya. But, still, I felt that tinge of sadness and the clenched teeth of backing the hero for revenge. I realized that it was the pre-release publicity of Mazhai Kuruvi that worked. Mani Ratnam and team went pretty expansive in publicizing the music, lyrics and video of that particular song. With the lovely couple in the background, the music itself made me fall in love with the character, weeks before the film released. Probably, that worked.
Overall, it was an enjoyable film. Mani Ratnam didn’t really want me to use my brains too much this time. I obeyed him. I love watching test matches with their slow twists and turns. But, I was taken to a T20 match, cheergirls and all.
I didn’t resist. So, I enjoyed.
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Aparna
September 30, 2018
I’m beginning to believe that female actors are contractually obligated to say that MRs female characters are “graceful” “beautifully portrayed” or whatever. There was nothing much graceful about any of CCVs women characters. You would say that there is nothing wrong with a male centric narrative. I agree. Let’s just not pretend to be texturing the women by making jothika mouth some parenting ideologies or propping ARH with the journalist tag. Varada could be screwing their kids nanny for all its worth. And has MR extended his couples meet cute to the wife-mistress meet cute? While I am all for a bit of levity, Jothika meeting ARH was absolutely grating and cringey, more so when Jo mentions the meen kulambu in the midst of hideout. Why is she okay with Varada’s infidelity? Was their’s merely a power alliance, in which case there was no background story to give any compelling context. What is it with this “kal aanalum purushan, pul aanalum purushan” attitude. The approach to this infidelity, by both the mother and jothika, is shockingly dated. It seems as if MR diluted all tightness in storytelling for a packed star cast.
I was pleasantly surprised by jothika s emotional scenes when she comes across her father, she does a good job without the usual over the top hamming. Your review though does not mention her performance much. Any thoughts?
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brangan
September 30, 2018
Aparna: I guess I would say there are two types of performances that “work.”
(1) The competent type. This type of performance hits all the marks, and does not “wreck” the scene but is also nothing special. (This is the equivalent of “clean” writing. Good spelling. No grammar mistakes. Conveys what needs to be conveyed.)
(2) The interesting type, where an actor brings something to the role — an internal, unstated element — that is his/her own. (In writing terms, there is a “personality” that you can see or sense.)
Jyothika’s performance here is Type 1. Aishwarya Rajesh’s “karuppu pulli” scene in prison is Type 2.
I usually tend to talk more about the things that stand out or wreck the film – because that’s the stuff that really makes (or breaks) the film.
The competent stuff doesn’t give me much to write about, usually.
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sanjana
September 30, 2018
One should be grateful to MR for not making Jyotika and ARH dance together as in SLB film!
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Srinivas V
September 30, 2018
@Madan, Agree with your comments. But the positive as well as negative of ARR is the way he pulls the audience with a 30sec or 1min tune or the beat or rhythm which is very catch whereas he couldn’t maintain the same for the complete song in quiet a few times. For example, Neethane song from mersal is such an addictive melody however ARR could have made that song more by developing the tune further but he didn’t do. Also personally all songs composed by any music director should appeal to all people irrespective of age. But ARR songs will cater to audience only to specific age. My dad is 66 now he enjoys any type of music irrespective of language genre but even he doesn’t show much interest or doesn’t enjoy much of ARR compositions in the recent years.. I hope if Directors like Vasanth, Kathir, Bharathiraja, Myskkin collaborate with ARR we can definitely get to hear everlasting songs from ARR. Soul is missing in the compositions that is done by ARR. Of course he is experimenting a lot but again the skeleton of any song is the melody in which he couldn’t create anything new or fresh. Say for example after composing for 800 movies or so Raja came up with a fresh tune “unna vida” from virumaandi but that doesn’t seem to happen in ARR music.
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MANK
September 30, 2018
Watching CCV was a bitter sweet experience. I was both happy and sad at the end. Happy, because after a long time, i thoroughly enjoyed a MR film, i sat riveted till the end, as opposed to his last few outings when i just wanted to get it done with
This film was pacey, minimalist, devoid of any narrative hindering music videos, to the point, never losing its focus. But i liked it mainly because it was this lean mean muscular urban crime thriller, which is perhaps my favorite movie genres of them all.
Sad, because it was more than obvious this is all surface, whatever i was seeing was all i was getting. there was no depth, no layers. it was purely a visceral experience rather than a mixture of the visceral and intellectual that is Mani’s hallmark.
Its a pity that in this final leg of his career Mani has ceased to be the filmmaker he was in his hey days when he made movies like Mouna ragam, Nayagn, Thalapthi, Iruvar etc , where there was a perfect mix of art and commerce, style and substance, surface gloss and ideological depth.
Now he either makes Kadal, KV, films which are experimentative and deep, but hard to enjoy as a viewer or just makes OKK and CCV which chugs along nicely and are very entertaining , but hardly has anything to say.
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sanjana
September 30, 2018
“The competent stuff doesn’t give me much to write about, usually.”
Thats an interesting confession.
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Madan
September 30, 2018
“But the positive as well as negative of ARR is the way he pulls the audience with a 30sec or 1min tune or the beat or rhythm which is very catch whereas he couldn’t maintain the same for the complete song in quiet a few times. ” – This does seem to happen and I think it’s his very deliberate process that leads it to happen rather than a lack of ability to develop a satisfying charanam to the pallavi. Udhaya is one of the best charukesis I have heard in HFM/TFM put together and the charanam rather than the pallavi of that song is the meat as far as I am concerned. So he CAN do it but maybe in taking so long to develop the ‘perfect’ product, he second guesses himself too much. There is a clip of him discussing the “Rahman songs grow on you” phenomenon with Karan Thapar, one of the few interviewers who dared to get to the brasstacks and have a discussion of some substance with him instead of 30 minutes of non stop “Rahman you’re so amazing inshallah” fellato which I find very boring.
I completely agree with Rahman here that what makes people not immediately relate to his music, especially older listeners, is their expectation of a flow akin to the older songs which he tends to rebuff. But I also wonder if maybe he sometimes tries too hard to buck that flow (leading to some bizarre charanams like Telephone Manipol or Sahana Saaral which is just a noodle). So..
” But ARR songs will cater to audience only to specific age. ” – I don’t think this was necessarily true in the 90s when he did do ‘family movies’ with music hewing to conventional Indian norms very well, like Duet or Sangamam. IIRC my chinathatha in Bangalore was more excited about Roja songs that I was back in ’93! What I am saying is I knew a lot of people in the 60 plus age group then who enjoyed his music and without trying hard. For one thing, the wholesome family movie itself has largely disappeared from Tamil cinema in the noughties and the reigning stars Vijay and Ajith have gone back to a more 80s-like muscular masala formula. There was an urban/class interlude in the 90s which worked heavily in Rahman’s favour; even the heroes were soft lover boys for the most part like Prashant, Abbas or Prabhu Deva (Vijay/Ajith too were trying to be romantic heroes then). This muscular tone of the noughties onwards doesn’t suit Rahman so much and being that he was finding much more acceptance in Hindi then starting with Taal, he pretty much shipped out, content to do a few films once in a while for long time collaborators.
As for older people today not being so much interested in Rahman’s music, maybe they just got bored of listening to the same songs. How many times after all can you listen to Anjali Anjali Pushpanjali however good it is? If Raja had only done a few great soundtracks like Mouna Ragam, Ninaivellam Nithya or Punnagai Mannan, we would probably get bored of him too. His detractors/ardent Rahman fans do think that is the case. But it’s not. Precisely because he has been so prolific, it’s possible to go months without listening to a particular song of his that you really like. So that when you finally do so again, you find it fresh and don’t find it boring to listen to it again. And by sticking to his quest to unearth great melodies rather than trying consciously to respond to trends, when he does come up with a new good tune like Unna Vida, the audience can still relate to it as they used to, even if it happens less often than before. Because Raja the musical person hasn’t become unrecognizable. There are pros and cons to both approaches but in music generally I prefer an unique voice rather than total versatility (which is impossible anyway).
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GODZ
September 30, 2018
I really enjoyed the movie much AFTER watching the movie than during the movie. Death is one of the primary themes in any gangster movie. Whether its Sathya, Company etc they reveal a strong message. But here Death and destruction is THE theme of the movie. The song Bhoomi Bhoomi Captures the theme of the movie perfectly. The Epilogue shows the events of the movie happening in the span of 2 months which means it really about how empires end. Empires are built by people and people surrounding them and show their ending too. The movie is not a highlight but a final chapter of may be a Trilogy and that should have been a conscious decision by Mani Sir. We are just shown the end or events Just before the end of each character. Why would have he made such a decision? Maybe its because Mani Sir Chose to Characterize and show “the end”, the consequence of “Choice”, the chaos, the loss, and the destruction. Rather than focus on why a character decided to behave a certain way, Maybe the focus is on to show us why and how Empires fail.. Maybe its because Empire built on deceit than trust, Lies than truth, Death than life and it does not have anything left on to support and it all crumbles by itself. Mani Sir assumes that the audiences already know the template of Empire story( A king, A queen, sons, minister, fight for the throne etc). Rather than showing an individual character, the story is really about the character of a falling empire, what causes and leads to its ultimate destruction.
Aravind Samy gets a lot of screen time and he is the backbone of the movie, I am not sure if VJS is a method actor but the way he delivers his voice modulation and Body language specifically in the final shot of the movie is 100% perfect resembling like a Real policeman. He is the primary protagonist of the movie in spite of a screen time of 15 to 20 min in the entire movie.
Overall, after the huge box office success of this movie,it will be interesting to see Mani Sirs Future work. MAybe we might not see works like kadal or character studies like Kaatru veliyidai ever again.
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Anon
September 30, 2018
I came to read about ccv and this thread has become the boring old raja v/s Rahman crapfest.
Saw the film yesterday. I expected more from simbu’s performance after all the raves – he was himself mostly except for that one scene with his mom, where he got my eyes misty. I hope the movie does well and Mani makes some money for his next passion project. Must say, Desi gangsters of the film were extraordinarily dumb. Probably reflects real life here though. Kinda wish simbu had not been standing on the cliff in a picture perfect spot to get shot beautifully and die, in the climax. Could see it a mile away.
Arvind swamy hammed, I felt. Probably cos char v different from his real self. I loved rasools boss though! 2 scenes or something but he nailed it!! Reminded me of all the super strong and memorable side chars we used to see in mani’s films, but don’t as much, anymore. Some atrocious bits included the drug planting scene. So amteurish, really did not belong in a Mani film. Anyway, let barking dogs bark. The caravan carries on. And so will Mani.
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Srinivas V
September 30, 2018
@Madan, discussion will keep continuing without an end & I could already see a comment from Anon saying it is a crap fest ..However it was nice to hear opnion & thoughts others in a healthy way.
@brangan, thanks for providing a forum to discuss our views.Am following all your reviews & interviews.thanks sir.
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MANK
September 30, 2018
I am not sure about the ponniyin selvan connection, but What Mani set out to do here is a subversion of the godfather as well as his own Nayagan. Remember the question that is repeatedly put to velu, are you a good guy or a bad guy?. well here , Mani unequivocally states that these people – gangsters – are bad and a scourge on the society and they should be eliminated by any means possible. In that regard VJS’s character Rasool, the cop is Mani the director’s mouthpiece. he is the puppeteer who is pulling the strings as his name suggests, the almighty who is controlling everything in this film . Which itself is a subversion,. Usually in gangster films, cops are puppets in the hands of the gangsters.Another subversion is that of the loyal Muslim friend of the hero, which is a typical trope in a masala film, but we soon realize that he is the main character manipulating and destroying the hero
The first hour of the film is simply terrific and the best part of the film. the speed at which the plot moves,the characters are introduced, its just phenomenal. what would have taken other directors almost half a film to do , he does it in about 10 mins. its not just generic hero introduction scenes, but he introduces the characters with their basic character traits along with their spouses and their traits. immediately you see the first son is impulsive and hot headed, the second is more brainy than brawn, the third one looks a mixture of both, albeit unsure about his place in the family. You have Sonny, Fredo and michael right there.
the first hour also follows the typical gangster template and hence very enjoyable in that sense too. its when the subversion starts kicking in that the going get tough. In godfather, you have the big scene where the whole family is huddled together post the assassination attempt on the father, when Michael decides to kill the family enemies and save his father and family. here in a similar scene , exactly the opposite happens. the michael stand in Ethi starts creating problems within the family, he suspect the assassination is an inside job and starts pointing fingers at other members . In both godfather and Nayagan, its always Us vs Them,them being the other families who are merely presented as rough sketches and that is enough in that context. But here in this case , when it becomes Us vs Us, its necessary that we know all of our people well.So when the brothers start battling each other, the film starts getting less interesting as we dont know them and their relationalship dynamics. But it still doesn’t fully damage the viewing experience because things are moving at a very good pace. the idea of chopping up scenes and presenting them in parallel works very well. A little bit of more detailing would have made the film a hell of a lot better
But Mani 3.0 has lost all interest in doing anything uncinematic like expositions or fully defined character arcs and stuff. he is now cutting it right to the bone as his films move from one big scene to the next as he leaves it to the audience to fill in the gaps. I think The disjointed narrative that Brangan was complaining about was more in the design rather than by accident. There is no other 10 hr series of this story, i dont think Mani at this stage would make a 10 hr series. if he does make it , then it will be a 100 hr series like Mahabharatha or something, which he will cut it down to 10.
i really dont think the twist ending was the main point of the film. One could spot that a mile away
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rsylviana
September 30, 2018
Ok , at the risk of being judged completely , I utterly loved the movie . Yes, even I had some problems with the movie especially about jyothika-character’s inconsistency . She sits and watches the video of her brothers-in-law being tortured by her husband and one of them actually saying that all the ensuing bloodbath will be in her husband’s hands , but still ends up being surprised when her husband and family get hurt . Seriously , what was she expecting?! Flower baskets and chocolates ?! But still I would take this one over KV anyday.
And I do have one question to the so called Maniratnam-maniacs who will love the film that is being hated by the masses but will celebrate his duds (yes, looking at you too BR) – Why are the ‘why questions’ either about a character’s motivation/the story’s twists and turns in a film like KV brushed off or accepted as ‘pure cinema and can only be seen if you have an artistic eye/Ph.D in Thermonuclear Astrophysics’ but such questions in films like CCV and OKK pulled up as huuuuuuge problems ?!
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Tambi Dude
September 30, 2018
OMG Karan Thapar talks about music too ???? (fixed raised eyebrows)
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Heisenberg
September 30, 2018
I see some comments here that Rahman is in his last phase of career as composer in Tamil cinema. Although I diss his work in recent times, I personally don’t think Rahman is done yet. The way I see it is Rahman is trying to do too many things like – directing film, running music school, world tours and still composing in different language movies. This totally reflects on his albums off late. Also the way he approaches – rather than going with the flow of a tune, take elaborate time to “construct” the song in pieces. Now he has done this from beginning and has worked for a while, but now it doesn’t seem to anymore.
Here’s an imaginary conversation between Rahman and Mani Ratnam on how the “Kalla Kalvani” song was constructed.
Rahman – Sings out the opening explosive line
Mani – Wow, this sounds great and might work for the script. How does it go from there?
Rahman – Hmm.. well, the first line will be sung 3 times. That’s how far I have got now. But sure, this can be developed into a great song.
Mani – Go ahead and let me know when it’s ready
After 4 months,
Mani – Is the song ready?
Rahman – Still looking ways to make it interesting. I will get it done in a month
Mani – But, the audio launch is in 2 days. Can you do something before that?
Rahman – Let’s just release the 2 songs that I have completed for now. Lets not give the track list for this album. Later this song can be released and the audience will consider it as sweet surprise.
Mani – Whatever.. just complete the song.
5 days before the movie release:
Mani – What’s the status?
Rahman – I couldn’t take the tune further. So just DJ-ed rest of the song
Mani – You can’t just have a song with 3 lines and DJ the rest of it. It’s not the way I do in my movies.
Rahman – Don’t worry. I have a big stock of monotonous Rap that comes in handy in such situations. Will fit one of those into this song.
Mani – Whatever.
PS:
I don’t know if I am allowed to write this way here. I mean no disrespect to Mani sir and Rahman, as I am a huge fan of their work. But terribly disappointed with Rahman for doing this to us.
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brangan
September 30, 2018
rsylviana: Why are the ‘why questions’ either about a character’s motivation/the story’s twists and turns in a film like KV brushed off…
But they aren’t brushed off, are they? Just like you are able to accept this over that, some of us prefer that to this — because of what works for us, overall. And yes, the “cinematic” aspects of a film do help in considering the question: Do more things work (for us) than not?
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Eswar
September 30, 2018
To judge is to define. When we judge a thing, a person, an idea it appears that we are defining what is being judged. But I think, when we judge, we define ourselves. Not the thing being judged.
It’s the difference between saying ‘It’s a beautiful thing’ and ‘I find this thing beautiful’. The former is defining the thing. The latter is defining a part of us. This can be seen as a matter of semantics. It can be argued that the implied meaning is same, so to qualify with an ‘I’ is redundant. This is probably true. But there are other implications with this phrasing.
The focus. When we do not consciously make the distinction between defining us and defining the thing being observed the focus is on the observed and not the observer. This makes the observed as the only changing thing, resulting in a skewed relationship. A relationship where we enquire only the observer but not the observed.
When we shift the focus and ask ‘Why I find this thing beautiful?’ it helps to understand ourselves — our likes and dislikes. When we are able to look inward then we would also know when our preferences change and probably the reason for its change. So in the future, when we find this ‘thing’ not so beautiful anymore, we might realise that this is not just about the ‘thing’ but it’s also about us. May be something changed in us. May be we are not changing with times. Or may be we are just discovering a different side of us that we didn’t know before.
When an artist produces an art form that we are able to appreciate we often attribute it to his genius. But the art we liked would have made no connection at all to many others. They would have considered the artist to be incapable of producing quality art even when we were celebrating him. Does this mean an artist is genius and inept simultaneously? It only means that an artist talks to multitudes of people at any given time. And the art is liked and disliked at the same time depending on the observer.
In this view, it’s not that Rahman’s music has deteriorated. It is just that his music does not strike chord with some of us currently. There may be others who enjoy his current phase. When we just focus on the observed, we perceive this disconnection to a shortcoming of the observed. But this disconnect could be very well be because of who we are. It could be because we are incapable of appreciating his current work. It could be because our senses are evolved to like only a certain type of music. Either ways it’s more about us than Rahman’s music itself.
Does this mean it is pointless to analyse art? No. From this view, it makes more sense to analyse art. The analysis, in this view, is to discover ourselves, through the art. Not to define the art or the artist.
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Rad Mahalikudi
September 30, 2018
Saw the movie today. First hour was well done and breezy. The way introduction was done crisp and fast moving. Went well till STR raises the “who did it’ question in the family gathering. Then the movie went downhill for me. Yes, gun fights and few acts were still interesting but couldn’t make any connect. So many people gets killed in the movie, but I am sitting there neither feeling sad, nor rooting for the kill. It was more like, OK, one more guy getting killed, please continue.
Viay Sethupathy, while he had good one liners, to me the character came very week. He is undercover cop, get that. If he is orchestrating the elimination of gangsters, there has to be some setup for that (something to show he played the brothers. eg: he orchestrated the death of Chhayya to get the spark going). Final reveal never came as a surprise. Similar to Kaala, we are told, these guys are BIG DON family, but has no clue what business they do to be there. Everything is told to us, Varadan kills people, Thyagu does something with Sheikhs, and Ethi deals in weapons. They make lots of money!!
For all the richness in production, and good actors, I only wished they had spent more time with the story. As it is now, Movie is a time pass and will end up as a forgettable movie.
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rsylviana
September 30, 2018
@BR – But this movie had a huge cast and hence capturing the motivations/thought process of each one of them would put a serious strain on the running time, wouldn’t it ? But a film like KV could have easily tackled them since it had only the hero and heroine at the forefront right?
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Srinivas V
September 30, 2018
@BR Very curious about your views with regard to current music trend & how you foresee the trend of film songs.
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Sutheesh Kumar
October 1, 2018
Eeshwar,
Super comment, very deep and analytical. Like the way you presented it too.
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Sutheesh Kumar
October 1, 2018
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.
How many of you read it right?
I think this is what MR did with CCV.
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JohnP
October 1, 2018
A disappointment-not a dud-is how I chose to describe CCV when I left( though I may have been scarred for life by the trailer for 2.0 ) . Plot holes,some hamming, redundant music and a lazy denouement.
What I was most reflective of was Fahad Faasil . Despite initially agreeing to do Thiagu s role , he dropped out at the last moment because he wasn’t convinced the script worked. I m all the more in awe of this man’s instinct when you see the work he s done over the years.
So many of the readers seem to have written an obituary for ARR . Really ? The music was misplaced no doubt but what do you do with a script like this? This movie was akin to a truncated tele-series ; how was he expected to muster a symphony to accompany the trivialities on screen?!
I recently revisited his -national award winning -background score for Sridevi’s Mom : it’s actually the best thing in that ….
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Aadhy
October 1, 2018
Sumaar movie, one time watch, that too mostly because of Simbu and Vijay Sethupathy who carry it with their nonchalant swagger. Nothing to take away, ponder over or come back for layers and all that. I think it’s meant to be that way. I found the relentless bloodshed on screen to be strangely gratifying. Also, seems like MR sent Hari to brief Sreekar Prasad about the script. The cuts missed only the ‘whoosh’ sound.
And man, what was Rahman thinking? After watching the movie, now I’m even more pissed (as a big ex-fan). The background score is simply horrendous. They (Rahman and Qutub-e-krupa) simply kept re-using sivandhu pochu nenje and Bhoomi bhoomi throughout the movie as background cues, apart from the songs themselves being used in bits and pieces. There seems to have been no separate sessions to compose any background score. The music started producing a droning effect after a point. Pathetic.
A few other observations :
Arvind Swamy looked quite beastly in the end fight sequence. This fellow can pull off a proper ‘mass’ fist fight sequence quite well. But not sure about him being a convincing thug (his “machan” was the most peter-ish machan ever heard)
The shot with Thiyagu removing the bandage from Senapathi’s hand while the other two sons watch on, everyone captured in the same frame at different positions, looked quite cool, though it didn’t contribute anything significantly more.
Arun Vijay is setting serious fitness goals, at 43. It’s been quite a transformation, the man’s turned into a stud.
Although Jyothika can’t really control her eyeballs from rotating 360 degrees in emotional scenes which is her patented expression, I quite liked the way she looks at Aravindswamy when he calls Aditi to check on her as Simbu enters her house. It’s a look that conveys both concern and jealousy at the same time. Maybe there’s an untapped actor inside her. If only she goes a bit easy on her eyeballs…. nvm.
The dialogues in a Mani Ratnam movie haven’t stopped sounding weird. Varadhan’s ” En kaiyellam ratham” sounded like a direct translation of <ëm> “I’ve got blood on my hands “. One more is “Made in Russia, Comrade” . A world-wide weapons dealer thinks Russia is still communist? Thyagu screams out lines like “Periya deal elam strike pana pakuren “ to his wife. It sounded more like he’s telling his character brief to us, so that we know he’s a master businessman. Simbu and VJS do get some crackling lines though.
VJS still blurts out his lines, though he’s displayed great acumen in turning that into a strength, a style.
Why would a gang with pistols, guns and a car at their use get intimidated by another group of gangsters throwing bottles at them?
So many questions regarding the motivations of the brothers to kill each other, but I’m not gonna ask them since I quite enjoyed seeing them going berserk on each other, purely from a voyeuristic point of view.
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Aadhy
October 1, 2018
Sumaar movie, one time watch, that too mostly because of Simbu and Vijay Sethupathy who carry it with their nonchalant swagger. Nothing to take away, ponder over or come back for layers and all that. I think it’s meant to be that way. I found the relentless bloodshed on screen to be strangely gratifying. Also, seems like MR sent Hari to brief Sreekar Prasad about the script. The cuts missed only the ‘whoosh’ sound.
And man, what was Rahman thinking? After watching the movie, now I’m even more pissed (as a big ex-fan). The background score is simply horrendous. They (Rahman and Qutub-e-krupa) simply kept re-using sivandhu pochu nenje and Bhoomi bhoomi throughout the movie as background cues, apart from the songs themselves being used in bits and pieces. There seems to have been no separate sessions to compose any background score. The music started producing a droning effect after a point. Pathetic.
A few other observations :
Arvind Swamy looked quite beastly in the end fight sequence. This fellow can pull off a proper ‘mass’ fist fight sequence quite well. But not sure about him being a convincing thug (his “machan” was the most peter-ish machan ever heard).
The shot with Thiyagu removing the bandage from Senapathi’s hand while the other two sons watch on, everyone captured in the same frame at different positions, looked quite cool, though it didn’t contribute anything significantly more.
Arun Vijay is setting serious fitness goals, at 43. It’s been quite a transformation, the man’s turned into a stud.
Although Jyothika can’t really control her eyeballs from rotating 360 degrees in emotional scenes which is her patented expression, I quite liked the way she looks at Aravindswamy when he calls Aditi to check on her as Simbu enters her house. It’s a look that conveys both concern and jealousy at the same time. Maybe there’s an untapped actor inside her. If only she goes a bit easy on her eyeballs….,nvm.
The dialogues in a Mani Ratnam movie haven’t stopped sounding weird. Varadhan’s ”En kaiyellam ratham” sounded like a direct translation of “I’ve got blood on my hands “. One more is “Made in Russia, Comrade” . A world-wide weapons dealer thinks Russia is still communist? Thyagu screams out lines like “Periya deal elam strike pana pakuren ” to his wife. It sounded more like he’s telling his character brief to us, so that we know he’s a master businessman. Simbu and VJS do get some crackling lines though.
VJS still blurts out his lines, though he’s displayed great acumen in turning that into a strength, a style.
Why would a gang with pistols, guns and a car at their use get intimidated by another group of gangsters throwing bottles at them?
So many questions regarding the motivations of the brothers to kill each other, but I’m not gonna ask them since I quite enjoyed seeing them going berserk on each other, purely from a voyeuristic point of view.
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therag
October 1, 2018
Loved CCV and while I loved KV I’m happy that MR is playing to his strengths. A generic plot, generic characters and yet thoroughly riveting. Evem though the ending was what you would expect given the situation , All sorts of theories were floating in my mind during the film. And I really liked the music in the film. It didn’t fit well in some places but given the sheer number of characters and the short scenes, I thought ARR did a great job here. I feel he’s not really trying to give memorable melodies, hes made it clear in interviews also. So what, I can get my musical fix from other sources. Also, his decline is way exaggerated.
Anyway, MR seems to have learned his lesson. Now that he’s got VJS on board all he has to do is get Kamal as writer. Knowing Kamal , he’s not learnt his lesson even with the disastrous failure of vishwaroopam 2.
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Gautham
October 1, 2018
@rsylviana
I don’t think it’s about the number or psychological make-up of characters per se, but the ability/possibility to invest and plant yourself into the film’s universe.
For instance, Kadal had me thoroughly invested despite none of the characters feeling immediately relatable because the implications – moral, religious, the interaction between them, the interaction between these and society, etc – stemming from Thomas’ situation is something I am interested in. I disliked Kaatru Veliyidai but it had moments that reeled you back in.
As an aside, I felt none of the characters registering in Merku Thodarchi Malai worked in its favor, as the focus could then remain solely on the its central theme.
On the other hand OK Kanmani felt flat and bland while CCV had me apathetic towards its characters. The only moment that evoked any empathy from me was during Varadan’s monologue, but it would have resonated better if I had, for instance, been privy to Varadan’s motivations and insecurities to a greater extent. It does throw up a lot of questions though. Were the excesses the cause of the family’s downfall ? Was the family too structured, too rigid – by having each son in their respective places – to be able to retain semblances of a family ? Did one’s love feel like something else to the recipient ? Was someone given too much attention, freedom or education with someone else being not given enough of the same ? Were they too close in proximity or too removed ? Did Rasool feel any kinship or allegiance to Varadan ? Did he ever sense the lines blurring ? Was there a sense of inevitability to the proceedings ? Were they paying, in effect, for the sins of the father ?
It’s just that these questions are asked from putting oneself in the writer’s shoes rather than from inside of the movie’s universe.
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brangan
October 1, 2018
Gautham: To add to your comment, did Varadan know his mother was going to be in the car with his father? Did he not mind her being collateral damage? Or did she get in at the last minute?
We get an inkling of guilt when Chitra says she is going inside the hospital rooms and Varadan prefers to stay outside. But to some of us, that’s not enough. To many others, they either don’t care or this is enough.
So it really depends on how deeply you process a movie. And it’s not about the number of characters. You see Godfather. So many characters, yet each one — even a throwaway Luca Brasi — gets some definition.
Definition is especially important in genre films, which are more or less reworkings of the same template. Many people told me “Mani Ratnam is just giving you the dots and asking you to connect it in your head.” But HOW these dots are connected — i.e. the fleshed-out narrative — is what makes us buy or not buy into a movie.
PS: Watching the movie again this week. Will come back with more thoughts.
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Madan
October 1, 2018
@Easwar: I partly agree that in essence it is we who relate to a work of art and not the artist magically reaching out to all of us. But there are two scenarios where this framework runs into limitations:
1) When comparing the work of two artists with a vast chasm in talent. Is the only difference between Mozart and Bieber all about why some people liked one or the other? Are they really just equal creative forces? Are Rahman and Anu Malik just equal creatively and it’s just we who assign different values to them? Wouldn’t that be blatantly unfair to Rahman? And yes the music industry is a terribly unfair place though it has fortunately been kind to both Raja and Rahman for the most part. But sticking with the above rationale, is it possible that somebody becomes a shadow of his earlier shelf with either his creative juices exhausted or a change of priorities/loss of motivation?
2) Which brings me to the next point which is that artists do atrophy. We see that more clearly in the ‘physical’ dimensions of music. Like singing. A singer who hasn’t maintained their voice well or uses strainy technique may lose it sooner than others. Sometimes just plain old age catches up. It hasn’t though for Tony Bennett, for example. In the same way, it’s entirely possible that the talent to compose also erodes with time. It’s just not so obvious as it is not physical and therefore a composer can maintain his mental muscles and keep exercising them.
With that in mind, I use a similar approach as BR does to films to see whether a musician has still got it. It too is subjective and ultimately is impossible to completely separate from my preferences but the endeavour itself is, I find, educative about music and its possibilities. My approach is to look for whether a composer is attempting interesting things in his songs. Need not be things I like, necessarily. Just whether he is still flexing his muscles, or he has given up, or slowed down. It’s a range and not a black and white framework of binary opposites. But the drive to try something ought to be there. When it’s gone, it’s fairly safe to conclude the composer is on autopilot.
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Gautham
October 1, 2018
@BR:
Exactly. I don’t mind connecting the ‘dots’ as long as a sufficient amount of them are present. I think everybody would agree that nobody likes things to be spelled out for them.
It’s just that when there’s so little to go on, a situation can be construed/read in too many different ways for my liking, and in essence, leaves me observing myself, rather than offer up something original or at least a variation on my pre-held perceptions.
Even with the Vardan monologue, it was me part-hoping and part-seeing him considering the grander scheme of things. That maybe his struggle to amount to something was pointless because irrespective of one’s actions/power possessed they always remain insignificant. And that this insight was lacking earlier because his rage, fuelled by his insecurities, had blinded him. But this then, sort of gets undone slightly, with him trying to strike a deal with his brothers before he dies.
I had a few other ridiculous questions pop up too :). Was the whole movie about Lakshmi being a failed mother with Rasool’s mother being the ideal ? Was every single character misconstruing/misrepresenting what love is ?
Looking forward to your thoughts.
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sanjana
October 1, 2018
“Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm.”
This comment made me smile. Thanks Sutheesh Kumar.
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Voldemort
October 1, 2018
BR : did Varadan know his mother was going to be in the car with his father? Did he not mind her being collateral damage? Or did she get in at the last minute?
She did get in the last minute. When Varadan asks his Mama how it all happened, he says, he was planning to go meet X person, but cancelled it suddenly because he forgot his wedding anniversary and wanted to go to the temple with her as she was angry.
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brangan
October 1, 2018
Voldemort: Right, thanks. I do recall that bit in the hospital. Don’t know why that slipped my mind.
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therag
October 1, 2018
@brangan, I appreciate your honesty in saying explicitly that you don’t care for performances that just work and look out for more interesting work. I’m sure regular readers of film criticism also look out for writers who write about the interesting stuff. However, the question of bias comes into the picture, and here I mean bias in a more statistical sense.
A film critic (or music critic) trains himself/herslf to spot certain cinematic techniques that are considered to be marks of a good filmmaker, by watching arthouse films, taking courses, reading other critics etc. There has to be that thrust to learn about film, and that means watching films even if you don’t like them, or if they are not to your taste. In the process, you build up your tolerance, or should I say learn to appreciate certain kinds of film and styles of filming that are just not meant for mainstream consumption.
Now this wouldn’t really be a problem if most other critics are not really “educated” in film criticism. This is the case in Tamil cinema today. People like Blue Sattai are not exactly educated in film but they arguably do a much better job of tracking the views of the average filmgoer whereas your reviews are hit or miss. In fact, having followed your blog for sometime now I’d argue your reviews are worse than random when it comes to predicting the average filmgoer’s response.
Now when it comes to English movies, this breaks down because there are quite a few people writing at/above your caliber. In fact, most major publications have highly qualified and pedigreed people writing about film. In this case, I posit that the average critic just doesn’t know or care what the average filmgoer wants in a film. Critics opinion are simply not a reliable indicator.
Now one may argue, why should a critic’s opinion track public opinion? Well yes. But the problem of bias arises. Meaning: How immune is a critic from being influenced by another critic, or other influencers? Critics lean politically liberal, socially liberal. They are trained to appreciate the same kind of films (for the most part, I mean a student of film anywhere in the world is instructed to watch Kurosawa). Again, one might argue that there is too much variance, that even among film critics there are likes and dislikes and that this should balance out whatever prior bias exists in the system. But from reading reviews, following Rotten Tomatoes etc, I feel that critics operate on the same fundamental frequency, that there really isn’t much variance in their opinions. This bias has probably always existed.
But with the advent of Machine Learning and user profiling, how far is it until we get major critics profiled and their opinions predicted? I don’t think this is farfetched. In fact, it is possible companies like Netflix build special recommender systems/classifiers for film critic and important bloggers etc to better predict how their films might be received. And then, how long till studios start engineering their films to increase the probability of getting good reviews from critics? Don’t say studios will get good reviews if they make “good” films. In anycase, “engineering” here means adding a specific element, the addition of which is not of great consequence to the film, but increases your chances of getting a good review. Some hypothetical situations, given a choice between using a jazz track and an EDM track, use jazz because they are more likely to respond well to jazz music, there is so much to write about jazz and what the hell does one write about EDM anyway. Make some secondary character or even the protagonist a woman/minority because a critic is inclined to point this out and praise the fact.
If Russia can engineer the opinions of voters, why assume critics are immune from being engineered?
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brangan
October 1, 2018
the rag: I’d argue your reviews are worse than random when it comes to predicting the average filmgoer’s response.
A critic is not an “average” filmgoer in terms of the (abnormal) number of films he watches, the things he expects from cinema, the way he looks at and evaluates art,etc.
I would call Blue Sattai more of a “reviewer,” in that he “reviews” a film like a consumer product. That’s not my interest at all.
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Madan
October 1, 2018
@therag: Your view that critics’ opinions tend to be similar is far fetched. Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel disagreed heavily on as mundane a film as Baby’s Day Out. Closer home, websites like firstpost allow different reviewers to tackle the same film and often they don’t agree. A Shubra Gupta has very different views from a Rajeev Masand. We saw with Mulk that the same film which BR praised for secular values was criticised for the lack of said values by other reviewers. No, I don’t think at least in India, reviews are anywhere that uniform. In America, it is possible that newspapers/mags like NYTimes, LATimes or New Yorker all look for journalists with a liberal slant which leads to similar thinking even when it comes to reviewers. But I have my doubts about even this phenomenon, even as far as regular news and op-eds go, let alone films. NYT has two regular conservative contributors, Brett Stephens and David Brooks, who regularly disagree with Frank Bruni, Maureen Dowd or Gail Collins. Stephens alone on the NYT op ed page has been voicing his dismay over what he perceives as a trial by media sans evidence against Brett Kavanaugh and contrary to the frequent conservative grievance, has not been thwarted from voicing his views. It is instead on the conservative outlet National Review that I find absolute and unanimous support for Kavanaugh. And I have observed this phenomenon in India too. NDTV allows Swapan Dasgupta to write pro-right columns for their website. It is right wing outlets like swarajya that abhor a left/liberal perspective. So in sum, I don’t think tribal herding behaviour is anywhere as prevalent in film criticism as you think or even in journalism per se and to the extent it exists, is more common in conservative media outlets which do not tolerate liberal perspectives.
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sanjana
October 1, 2018
Majority of the critics go with the flow.
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Anand Raghavan
October 1, 2018
I think music in films is in a transition phase. Many of the film watching crowd these days don’t relate to the formula of 5-6 songs in a movie like till even a decade earlier..even if they are melodies (which many are not anyway) People surely look for an apt BGM…this reflects the trend too..
Many of us we remember decades thru music..80s – Ilayaraaja, 90s – ARR, 2000s – Harris and Yuvan…but this decade sadly Anirudh and Santhosh cannot make us remember it for memorable melodies….
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Rahini David
October 1, 2018
I don’t fully understand why the opinions of critics is so highly important. Studios predicting popular success is understandable. Money.
But predicting critical success? Why bother? For awards? But that is a completely different thing, no?
To tell the truth, I don’t read a positive review from BR and think I’d like a movie or read a negative review from him and think I’d not. I stopped that more than 5 years ago. His idea of what is romantic, touching, funny, annoying etc. is quite different from mine. But I have consistently read almost all of his reviews for the better part of the decade. Why? Because it is well-written. I get something out of the reviews. I don’t just mean the clever use of language. I kind of get annoyed when people imply that.
Sometimes he says something that makes me notice something I had overlooked. That enriches the experience. Maybe he pokes fun at a something that was annoying me too and now I have the opportunity to laugh it away. I don’t watch most of these movies but when he says “But it’s all swept away in a sea of testosterone” I have certainly known other movies that fit that bill. So I just like reading that line. Plain and simple.
Why do we want someone to taste the poison first? What is the big deal about going to a Maniratnam movie that BR gave a lukewarm response to. What is the big deal of going to a Maniratnam movie that BR gave high praise to and find that it did not work for you?
I guess it was a different game during the 80s or 90s. We got only 4-5 reviews from newspapers and magazines. We found the critic who seemed to be like us and chose movies based on his/her reviews. But if you want someone to choose movies to watch as your time to too precious, then the IMDB rating should be more than enough, no?
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sanjana
October 1, 2018
I wonder whether the vernacular critics are as aware about international cinema and its influences and do they care to throw names the way our English writing critics do sometimes when reviewing serious films? Usually it will be sab badhiya hai.
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Bala S
October 1, 2018
Silent reader for a long time. There was this very violent ‘Pattiyal’ movie about a decade back. One of the very under-rated action thrillers. Straight to the point, beautifully shot and a matching riveting BGM from U1 (specifically when the title and end credit roll). As a scheming Saami, Cochin Hanifa is top class. Revisited this again..
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Tina
October 1, 2018
I saw Siva Ananth’s interview in a couple of youtube channels, how come we don’t have one of his with you. After all, he’s a part of the brain that made this movie – would you be doing an interview with him? Would love to see him respond to you.
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rsylviana
October 1, 2018
@Gautham and BR – Of the questions both of you had ,most of it were answered in my head because a) I kept referencing to a real-life political dynasty in TN in my head b) I went into the film thinking ‘this is a story about a gangster family so we can’t expect for the characters to have a conventional moral compass or to make it out alive from the movie’. But after reading your thoughts , I can tell that the problems that you both have with this film are more or less the problems I had with KV. In that film, since I couldn’t actually understand what Aditi’s character was thinking when she decides to get in bed with Karthi after being harassed publicly by him , I just didn’t care what happened to the both of them at the end. I haven’t heard of or know any women like Aditi in KV who spout verbose about self-respect and still throw all of it in the wind and jump in bed with her harasser/lover minutes after being manipulated openly.
The major gripes I had with this film were,like I have already mentioned, about Chitra(Jyothika)’s inconsistency and how/why exactly did Rasool befriend Varadhan? Did Varadhan befriend Rasool without knowing his backstory? Or Did Rasool already know Varadhan was Periyavar’s son and was it always his plan to bring down their family? Also when both Rasool and Varadhan were kids, Periyavar could have still been an up and coming Don so him being a potential target for a 10year old Rasool seems a bit of a stretch. But all of this came to me only after a few hours after watching the film because before that, I felt such a high watching an excellent mainstream Tamil action movie with both the actors & the audience enjoying the heck out of it. I’m a bit ashamed to admit but I was one of the folks who kept hoping that Maniratnam would drop the ever-annoying-STR but damn, that guy was fantastic in the movie. It felt like he was born to play Ethi. Also Arun Vijay and VJS (as usual) were in top form too. Even Jyothika did well, spare that scene where she realises her close-relative has been harmed by her own family when you could see her mutta-kannu doing its thang.
P.S – Does anyone else think Arun Vijay would have made a terrific VC in KV? He would given that character its much needed charm and hotness-quotient.
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rsylviana
October 1, 2018
@BR – About Godfather, that movie came out in parts so it would have been easier to chalk out a side-character’s thoughts into the film right? Maniratnam here has been working in a heavily downsized running time so such things can be considered as a luxury, no?
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MANK
October 1, 2018
The shot with Thiyagu removing the bandage from Senapathi’s hand while the other two sons watch on, everyone captured in the same frame at different positions, looked quite cool, though it didn’t contribute anything significantly more.
Actually this ties into the other scene where Thiyagu removes the bandage from the mother’s head, which is actually the pivotal scene of the film. Thiyagu peeling of the bandage from her head, while the other 2 brothers are arguing in the background is a metaphor for the facade of the happy family being lifted and the dark family secrets coming tumbling out
From these 2 scenes you can deduce the following:
Either Thiyagu is the one closest to his parents, or he is just being the quintessential businessman. he is sucking up to his parents in the moment of crisis
Ethi is the one who is most distant from his parents. he is more of an outsider who starts questioning the involvement of the family members in the attack
Varadan , though looks like most closest to his parents , since he stays with them, has his own issues with them
That scene ends with Prakashraj remarking about the scars on her face, that they are merely after effects of surgery. of course its not ,they are scars on her soul and on the family’s soul
I do recall that bit in the hospital. Don’t know why that slipped my mind.
Ha!, guess there are a lot of stuff like that strewn throughout the film, when i look back at it. Like the one Aishwarya describes Arun’s character. he has 2 faces , One could say the same about all the male characters in the film, they are one thing and pretending to be another
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Heisenberg
October 1, 2018
Talking about reviews and reviewers, I find Vikatan reviews to be highly overrated. Their marks are considered like gold standard in tamil nadu. But their reviews are pathetic, giving no insight about the subject or technicalities, and making juvenile comments like the youtubers – Tharumaru, thakkali thokku, therikudhu.. Here’s their CCV review
https://cinema.vikatan.com/movie-review/138200-chekka-chivandha-vaanam-movie-review.html
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Srinivas R
October 1, 2018
@Heisenberg – +1 for Vikatan reviews. They are horrible and also sense a “sitting on the high horse” attitude to their reviews. The last review of Ananda Vikatan i read was way back for Raja Rani I think.
They are considered gold standard because rest of the Tamil cinema reviews in local magazines and newspapers are stinking bad. Try Dina Thanthi review if you have high tolerance.
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Aadhy
October 1, 2018
MANK : But then I’m saying the stuff we get from the bandage scene, we also get in other scenes. The relationship dynamics of 3 brothers with their parents is established already in how they react to the news about the attack. Varadan bolts off straight to the hospital without wasting a second but hesitates to see their faces (for reasons we know now), Thyagu freezes and stays motionless, while Ethi asks if his presence is even needed as if it’s some family function. There was a lot of flab in the first half. I understand that the prank at the airport scene exists to tell us they’re all having these facades on and it’s only a matter of time before they point guns at each other. But it felt incomplete.They quickly move on to chinnappadas and his men. IMO they could’ve a) totally done away with Chinnapadas, b) worked on the family dynamics more, c) kept building the tension till the interval, d) had more scenes with Rasool in and planted a few clues or misled us by making us trust Rasool. They could’ve made it less predictable that he’s been the catalyst to the whole chain of events from outside.
There was no simmering tension between the brothers that convinced me that Varadan would get his brothers beaten up to pulp just because they were coming to India. Why did he bring all the carnage upon himself, when his brothers didn’t even seem that threatening in the first place? And why did Chezhiyan die? because he was involved in getting Renu imprisoned? or was he also collateral damage? Also henchmen keep shifting loyalties at the drop of a hat. Names like Jayan and Kurup keep getting thrown around, but we don’t even know these guys.
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Jaga_Jaga
October 1, 2018
BR wrote – “Watching the movie again this week. Will come back with more thoughts”
Yes, please do so! I strongly endorse this movie – this coming from someone who doesn’t rate Manirathnam highly.
So much is so tightly packed-in so beautifully, that it will all cohere after multiple viewings. Already saw it thrice! Adii Rao Hydari’s character is so quintessential to this movie to clarify so many things. Too lazy to type what all.
One point which stands out is how this is also the story of a dysfunctional family. The best scene to highlight it was – a mom, visiting her elder son’s mistresses’ house to meet her younger son (when the eleder brother was absent) trying to placate the brothers! I was chuckling at the audacity of this scene! Have never before seen such a scene, so creative to conjure it.
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Tambi Dude
October 1, 2018
@madan: “NYT has two regular conservative contributors, Brett Stephens and David Brooks, who regularly disagree with Frank Bruni, Maureen Dowd or Gail Collins. Stephens alone on the NYT op ed page has been voicing his dismay over what he perceives as a trial by media sans evidence against Brett Kavanaugh and contrary to the frequent conservative grievance, has not been thwarted from voicing his views.”
May be NYT changed after 2016 election fiasco. Alongwith WaPO, their coverage of 2016 was terrible with anti Clinton news blacked out and pro Trump news meeting the same fate. The reputation they earned is that they are terribly left.
As a resident of NY suburb in NJ, I am a long time NYT reader. They are a excellent newspaper for news and some breaking stories about various topics [ e,g. Exposure of Diploma mill from Pakistan Exact, or how Amazon treats its employees]. But I don’t read their opinion page for a reason.
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MANK
October 1, 2018
Who would have thought the day would come , when we will be defending a Mani Rathnam film from Brangan’s attack 🙂
With both Kadal and KV, the issues were different. Both films had the disadvantage of being based on unusual subjects, which was quite opposite to what Mani used to do. with his best films like Mounaragam, Nayagan, Iruvar, Thalapathi etc, he used to take a very familiar subject that connect easily with an audience and find ways to tell them in his own personal\unique way.
So then on top of the unusual subjects , you add his craziness, his idiosyncrasies , then it becomes even more weirder. On top of that he wants to commercialize them for a mass audience – which means song & dance, generic romance and happy endings not to mention people breaking out into bluesy music videos out of nowhere , that not just takes, but kicks you out of the film. no wonder the end product is something that neither satisfies the connoisseur of art nor a mass audience
I honestly feel that with Kadal, Mani was way out of his league , with both the story, characters and the milieu . He was just too refined and sophisticated for a subject that cried out for the rawness ,earthiness and explicitness of a bharatiraja in his peak. Perhaps even Bala with his crudeness would have made an appropriate enough film. Mani was bogged down by, what Pauline Kael famously described David lean’s take on Ryan’s Daughter, he has just too goddammed good taste to make it work. With KV, the milieu and characters were more in his comfort zone, but his purely cinematic take left big holes in both the narration and characterization which upsets the viewing experience, because these are unusual characters whom we cant relate to with without knowing everything about them.
With CCV, he has rectified a lot of those shortcomings, he chose a very familiar subject that can be communicated easily with an audience, he chose his favorite upper class urban landscape. he adjusted his story telling technique to suit the story. Only gripe is that he just didnt go deep enough with subject the way he did in his earlier films. If he wants to continue as a big time commercial filmmaker, this is the way forward. Otherwise he is welcome to try off beat subjects like KV, but they should be made with their artistic integrity intact, no shoehorning of commercial ingredients , make them the best as he can and hit the film festival circuit. Which i am doubtful about, because like Kamal, he is someone who yearns for the BO success
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therag
October 1, 2018
@Madan, I’m talking about film criticism is not political opinion. Tamill/Hindi cinema don’t have academic critics, yet. So you don’t spot this much in those industries. I said so myself in my OP. Ebert and siskel were a generation ago. Today I’d argue reviewers like manohla dargis and A.O.Scott are in consensus more often than not. I was not talking about political columns/reporting where a conscious effort is made to be unbiased, by liberal media only. Film critics don’t have any such constraints. A critic does not apply any filter to remove bias, it is all about how a critic feels the movie affected him/her, in other words a totally subjective feeling which can be influenced externally when a large number of your colleagues share the same base feeling.
@brangan, well that is kind of my point. A film critic is not the average film goer. But a random film critic is very close to the average film critic. Seen as a group, they are prone to bias. When the variance within the group is small, can the group not be influenced externally? In Tamil, you are an outlier by a very wide margin. But most Tamil film “critics” are close to the average film reviewer, someone like blue sattai. I don’t really read too many Hindi reviews so I can’t comment on that.
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Voldemort (You Know Who)
October 1, 2018
The Vikatan magazine print review and the online website review are done by different people, I guess. I remember how the review in the magazine trashed Remo saying the storyline reminds us of Francina (who was an acid attack victim by a stalker) and said the Keerthy Suresh character was treated like a dog which was called by whistling. “Ithu pondra thiraippadangal cinemavukku mattum alla samuthayatthirke oru kedu” was the closing line.
However the online vikatan.com review was full of effusive praise.
“பாக்யராஜ் கண்ணனுக்கு.. வார்ம் வெல்கம் ப்ரதர்! கதை சொல்லியே படத்தை ஆரம்பிக்கும் டிரெண்டைக் கொண்டு வந்த எஸ்.ஜே.சூர்யாவின் பாணியில், அவர் குரலிலேயே படத்தை ஆரம்பித்ததில் இருந்து கடைசி சீனில் பேனரில் கே.எஸ்.ரவிகுமார் பெயர் ‘பாக்யராஜ் கண்ண’னாக மாறுவது வரை சின்னச் சின்ன விஷயங்களில்கூட கவனமெடுத்து இழைத்திருக்கிறார். ‘பொண்ணுகளை கண்ட்ரோல் பண்றது கஷ்டம் கன்ஃப்யூஸ் பண்றது ஈஸி’ போன்று டிரெண்டி வசனங்களுக்கும் குறைவில்லை.” Trendy vasanangal, mind you!
https://cinema.vikatan.com/amp/movie-review/69237-remo-movie-review.html
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Voldemort (You Know Who)
October 1, 2018
@Srinivas R : Try Dina Thanthi review if you have high tolerance.
Haha! Good one. I wouldn’t even call it a review. It’s the Tamil equivalent of the plot heading of the Wikipedia page of a movie – a rough outline of the plot, albeit without the climax. And it says nice things about every single actor of a film.
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Vivek narain
October 1, 2018
Why is it that revenge and vigilantism is seen only in books and movies?although rarely we do see some beautiful revenge killings in real life. How i long to see a vigilante like Hoppy Uniatz giving dem,the berserk scum, the woiks with his unerring Betsy, and sitting on the corpses before giving them a cement coat.
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Vidya Vineet
October 1, 2018
I agree with Rahini. A critic or reviewer has one thing in common: They both voice their own, private opinion. What they opine about, and how they do it is the difference. As Rahini said, with BR, the “how” is especially interesting.
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tonks
October 1, 2018
I’m putting this here because I do not know where else to put it, but our Rahini David is a celebrity. She is interviewed in this feature on the loosu ponnu where she shares opinion space with Nithya Menon, Jyothika, and Khushboo. Way to go, Rahini, you deserve no less. And hats off to this blog for giving Rahini the space to air her views that has led to this :
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Vidya Vineet
October 1, 2018
But then again, most people do expect someone to ” taste the poison” for them, to use Rahini’s words. And no, at least to some of them, the rating alone is not important. They want details. And to speak frankly, it would indeed be great if a critic were to, more times than not, reflect the majority opinion, in addition to whatever technical stuff there is to discuss. But in reality, that never happens. Oh, if only the general public realises this….! But that too never happens!
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tonks
October 1, 2018
Maybe you can make a separate post of this? Because to me it seems a wonderful thing, an extension of the discussions in this blog. It’s wonderful that they are being read and appreciated.
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Rm
October 1, 2018
@Madan:
I enjoy reading your posts. Do you have a blog or something? Or perhaps a twitter handle? I would like to subscribe.
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Madan
October 1, 2018
@Tambidude: Given that a Gail Collins-David Brooks ‘bipartisan’ conversation feature has been running since at least 2014 (lately Stephens has replaced Brooks in this segment), I don’t think it has much to do with Trump’s elevation to the presidency. If anything, it is conservatives who have changed their tune seeing that they are getting the low taxes and conservative SCOTUS they wanted. Pre election they weren’t so convinced about Trump and wondered if he was really a conservative of any stripe since he took so many populist positions. I don’t think anti Trump coverage has much to do with liberal bias; it might indicate elitism. Brooks didn’t like Trump for instance.
@therag: You have mentioned two reviewers. There’s a whole bunch out there. Can you really demonstrate that all of their opinions routinely converge? Because for most Hollywood films of some note, one can find dissenting reviews just on the wiki page and there would be plenty more if you did a Google search instead. I brought in politics because you mentioned about social liberals getting into film critique and allowing their liberal bias to colour their opinions. If this was the case, most Eastwood films would be panned but critics don’t do that because they respect well made films. Now if it’s about documentaries, it’s another ballgame but we were only talking about films. By the way, you mentioned that liberal outlets strive to appear unbiased in their coverage of news. Care to illuminate as to why conservative outlets seem to be rather unburdened by such obligations?
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Madan
October 1, 2018
@Rm: I blog but very very intermittently at
http://rothrocks.wordpress.com
Did sign up for Twitter but didn’t ever use it and don’t intend to now.
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Anu Warrier
October 1, 2018
@tonks, Which feature – could you post the link?
@Rahini – congrats!
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GODZ
October 1, 2018
The idea that movies are engineered for Critics by studios, Netflix is not true. IMO Studios don’t care about the Rating any more. Netflix business model works in such a way they produce movies based on market demand and consumer taster, their own huge search database etc. They can predict the consumer taste accurately and create content addressing consumers and not critics. Example: Following the huge success of Game of Thrones, Netflix is producing the adaptation of “The Witcher” series. They also want the viewers to recommend and do the marketing and not the critics.
As far as the studios, yes they do engineer the movies but not for Critics but for teens and International audiences. Local BO numbers do not count anymore as far as big-budget movies are concerned and they are specifically made for international audiences and targeting teen audiences. For example, Bumble Bee, is it being made for critics? Tomb Raider, Transformers etc was it made for critics? This is the current formula for the studios – Remake 90s movies for 90s kids(ID, Jumanji, JW etc) and make movies with a female Action protagonist. The movie “Get out” earned 99% approval ratings? It was universally acclaimed movie both by liberals and conservatives. I can go on and on. Was it tailor made? No. But this idea is really not true.
Regarding Blue sattai, CCV is a master class for other movie makers. His review affected the BO numbers of Kaala but it had the least impact on CCV. The movie still goes strong and is on the verge of becoming a blockbuster. In this case, his opinion did not mirror public opinion if so it would have reflected in BO numbers. It means when a movie has a strong selling point and when that selling point strikes a chord with audiences(in case of CCV, the multi-star cast is the core selling point and expect the next wave of multi-star movies in Tamil cinema), none of the reviews matter. It’s going to sell. This applies to the success of any Mainstream movies including Transformers etc.
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Cinema Studier
October 1, 2018
I am forced to say that the movie was a big let down given the ensemble cast… I mean what is the plot ! And the revelation could have been explained a bit more…
mr.brangan, u ve mentioned that here the question is “who wants senapathy out of the picture”. I don’t think that’s the case.. because it was only Varadan who plotted to kill senapathy, even though we get to know that Thyagu wanted the throne through his menacing smile while sitting on Senapathy’s chair…and ethi didn’t even intend for the throne…
I do agree that there should have been more scenes convincing the brothers’ relationship and why and since when they turned on each other..
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shaviswa
October 1, 2018
I do not agree that a critic’s views should align with the average public opinion.
Heck – within my family and friends cricle, I have got negative reviews for the film. In fact, in one of my family whatsapp group, someone blatantly suggested watching Kolamavu Kokila to CCV. 🙂
Liking or not liking a film also depends on your background, upbringing, the kind of people you move with, etc. For example, despite majorly positive reviews to Pudhupettai, I hated that film. I found it extremely arduous to sit through that movie.
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tonks
October 2, 2018
Anu : I meant this video created by TheNewsMinute :
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=322803768527860&id=1375307999395597
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Eswar
October 2, 2018
@Sutheesh Kumar Thanks
@Madan When we compare artists preferences kick in. Mozart and Bieber are different people , so their art expression will also be different. To acknowledge the difference we don’t need a preference. But to say Mozart is Better than Bieber or Anu Malik is worse than Rahman preference — likes and dislikes come into play. It is not unfair to Rahman when I say I prefer listening to Deva. It is about who I am and not who Rahman is. In a world where everyone likes Deva, Rahman is nobody. Again this does not define Rahman’s creativity it only defines the listener’s taste or preference or likes.
Physical and Mental atrophy is real. One’s creative output changes over time. But to like/enjoy/appreciate the music produced at one point of time over the other is also about the observer’s preference. An artist might have never evoked an emotion in us in his prime age, but he could very well evoke one when he is physically and mentally exhausted. When that connection happens we celebrate the artist. In the artist’s view, it could very well be the least of his creations. But for the observer that will be the artist’s greatest piece.
In your way to try to understand if an artist has still got it or not, you chose to use ‘using interesting things’ as a tool. May be doing interesting things means something to you. May be it connects you in a way that you enjoy. So you prefer this over something else. With that preference you try to measure the artist. By doing so you have only defined or discovered your definition of the artist’s shelf life and not his. In the artist’s world he might be still in his prime but in your world he is already done and dusted.
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Sutheesh Kumar
October 2, 2018
Tonks, thank you for posting that video. In that whole video C S Amudhan was the only man and he sounded so sensible. Rahini i had only imagined how would you be in person and this video proves that you are that sensible, calm, collected and fiesty person that I had sensed from your comments and your writings.
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Gautham
October 2, 2018
@rsylviana
I found the characters in Kaatru Veliyidai and Kadal unrelatable too. Kaatru Veliyidai, though, had scenes like the one where Karthi is having a drink after standing up Aditi which demanded investment on my part, however momentarily it might have been. Kadal had a metaphorical layer which I found very interesting and I found the viewing experience I had, to be similar to that I had when I watched In the Mood for Love, just that it’s superficial layer wasn’t anywhere as absorbing as that.
The problem I had with CCV was that , if its taken as a story of shifting loyalties, the motivations for those shifts were weak, missing or expedient. (I couldn’t buy the gangsters being sold on the ‘Dubai dream’ for instance). It needed that depth because it doesn’t work as a whodunit. The moment Vardan and Thyagu let slip the assassin they were pursuing, and given other factors, that thread of the story could only unravel in one way.
The other gripe I have was that for all that the potential and promise that the characters showed, they were treated almost flippantly. I found Vardan the most interesting because it had the most etching. Was he having an affair because that was the only way he could seek a sense of control and consequentially power, in his life ? Was it also the only way he could outdo his father ? Did he feel a lack of authority or agency when being with his wife and thus was reminded of his father ? Or was it just a way to test the others to see if they cared ? I also sensed that he felt a sense of kinship with his brothers and Rasool. Did he not know how to express this or did they not know how to recognize this ? I think he also calls, iirc, Rasool his coolie. Has the friendship always been with a power skew or is Vardan unaware of the possibility of a relationship being founded on equal footing ?
The women, too, offer tantalizing prospects. Have Lakshmi and Chitra failed – through an unwavering loyalty to their respective spouses – where Rasool’s mother succeeded by abandoning the notion of her husband for ideology ? Or, is the most they can have done is, not to have prevented violence, but to give whatever violence that is to occur, justifiable cause and a sheen of righteousness ? Is Parvathi the female equivalent of Vardan ? Is she his inspiration, showing that one can move away from their father ? Does she gain comfort by being with someone who has, in her eyes, even less agency than she does ? Are Renu and Chaaya seeking a sense of home or of a family, only to be worse off when they gain that than when they were alienated ?
These are interesting, though, as they would be when reading, say, a first draft as compared to watching a complete piece of cinema. I don’t mind that not all answers are available. But without a directional nudge, gentle or otherwise, the answers could be anything. For instance, Ethi and Thyagu use the predicament of their respective wives to justify their actions but immediately afterwards, switch their attentions to the criminal enterprise. Are their wives, excuses they give themselves ? Or is at an excuse directed at each other and society in general ? Or, is it just the writer’s excuse for the bloodshed ?
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therag
October 2, 2018
@Madan, I don’t know why you are making this a liberal vs conservative fight. The reason why I mentioned liberal is that a film critic is much more likely to be liberal than conservative. Now don’t say Armond white is conservative, yes there are conservative critics but they are relatively rare. I know you can find dissenting reviews, but in my experience the reviews kind of line up very neatly, more often than not.
I’m sure critics also make an effort to treat every film fairly but there is an inherent bias here that cannot be corrected for. And that bias is exacerbated when the political leanings of critics align. It does not have to be just political leaning, it could be something else. Maybe a test where you control for the fact that a movie was screened at Cannes. I’d be willing to bet the critics would be slightly more favourable to the movie which they think it was shown at Cannes.
@Godz, It looks like Netflix doesn’t really care because they get feedback directly from the audience. So this makes it easy for them to recommend movies. But then, when they release their movie at Cannes or Venice, doesn’t that mean they care about critics? Why did Mad Max Fury Road (studio) premeire at Cannes? Because someone made a very calculated decision that critics would give the film a huge thumbs up. Now you might think the movie deserved it, it was a great action film. Well yeah, but would a movie like Kingsman get a Cannes premeire? No. Mad Max had certain elements, a director and cast who are not new to festivals, the feminist angle, sly references to classics like the Lawrence of Arabia etc. It was a gamble to take it to cannes but not a bigger gamble than spending 150 mil on the movie in the first place.
I read an article which said the studios were mulling an embargo on rotten tomatoes just before the release of a film. So they definitely care.
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brangan
October 2, 2018
Gautham: I don’t mind that not all answers are available. But without a directional nudge, gentle or otherwise, the answers could be anything.
This is exactly it. I hope you mind that I steal this line for a piece.
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Voldemort (You Know Who)
October 2, 2018
Tonks : Thanks for sharing the link.
Rahini David : You rock! You were amazing.
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jaga_jaga
October 2, 2018
@Gautham, and BR:
“The answers could be anything”. Isn’t it precisely what the so-called good Directors do? Particularly in Hollywood. Establish the story, but don’t fully reveal the motive! Give hints, but leave them open-ended. That is precisely what MR has done here, IMO.
There were more than enough nudges, though, nothing was definitive. That should be more than enough. This was not a “warm” movie (using BR’s language) for the Indian audience. But it definitely did not have any loose ends, and for the discerning audience (as I felt), the connection with the movie was excellent.
And I for one could thoroughly enjoy it, since I saw it as a more subtle version of “Donnie Brasco”. I am still surprised why no one has made this connection, yet!
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Madan
October 2, 2018
” When we compare artists preferences kick in. ” – Partly, but it need not. It’s rather that most of us don’t WANT to drill down to the level of separating preferences from abilities. I prefer Raja to Mozart every day of the week. I can’t listen to so much classical music in one go, can only consume it in small doses. My preference. I have no problem though in saying Mozart was an incomparable prodigy. To be honest, I don’t get and never have why people find this so difficult, why they take it as a personal affront if say a Rafi fan says Rafi was a better singer than Kishore. Now that is a debate to be had without a clearcut answer, but it doesn’t mean you’re a fool for preferring an ‘inferior’ singer. It’s just that Kishore speaks to your wavelength and somebody else does to some other person. But we can at least attempt to separate the creative or technical accomplishments of a musician from our own preferences.
” But to like/enjoy/appreciate the music produced at one point of time over the other is also about the observer’s preference” – Of course but it’s not necessary that when one says a particular composer is past his prime, they are ONLY referring to their own preferences and said composer’s inability to meet these preferences. FWIW, as far as the subject of Rahman goes, no, I don’t think he’s past his prime and he has more or less run into the same wall that Raja had by the early 90s, the limitations and constraints of Tamil film music and its inability to fully satiate a talented composer’s ambitions. If I had name a once great composer who is past it and should, with the greatest respect, be put out to pasture, it’s John Williams. He’s been composing the same score over and over again for some time now. Maybe he really does want out but his long time collaborators won’t let him go.
“By doing so you have only defined or discovered your definition of the artist’s shelf life and not his. In the artist’s world he might be still in his prime but in your world he is already done and dusted.” – I agree with this but it’s also possible the artist inhabits a bubble of self belief (which transcends to delusion at a certain point) and it may not be that he is right and I am wrong and we might both be partly right/wrong about this. Maybe there is no right or wrong but in any case at least I find it interesting to explore this. For perspective, I remember Ricky Ponting got stuck in a rut from 2008 and he would keep saying his batting was as good as ever when the outsiders did see something different. It took a good two tears of failing before he at least began to say, “Mate, I am doing well in practice but it’s not happening in the match for some reason.” If it can happen in a far more physical and brutal sphere like sport which quickly shows up a once great athlete who’s past his best, it can certainly happen in music. In other words, I never take an artist’s self assessment of where he/she is at as gospel truth. If a great musician says his latest work is his best (and they do this all the time, by the way, they don’t encumber themselves with the subjectivity framework that we strive for), I tend to take it with a pinch of salt because it’s most often pure marketing spin. Have there been those who have produced great works comparable to their career best many, many years after they first came to the fore? Sure. Radiohead’s Moon Shaped Pool for instance. Does it happen very often? No, don’t think so. It doesn’t even mean that a once great artist descends to utter mediocrity. Usually they don’t but the baggage of their earlier great works becomes rather formidable, like an albatross round their neck.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
“, I don’t know why you are making this a liberal vs conservative fight. ” – Because…
“It does not have to be just political leaning, it could be something else. ” – This is what I was looking for. It’s not much about political leanings and rather much more about similar cultural backgrounds and experiences which also lead to similar preferences. I am sure somebody writing on films in the Rust Belt (if there are gigs for that in the Rust Belt) would have a different perspective from the ones writing for the big name outlets but the big name ones are all metropolitan and that leads to some unavoidable level of convergence. At the same time, no, I don’t think it’s as simple as say putting a jazz bit in the BGM instead of EDM to get raves from critics. Actually, that might happen HERE but jazz is pretty ubiquitous in America so that isn’t really going to get many eyeballs. If you’re referring to Whiplash, it was a whole film and about the relationship between an exacting, cruel teacher and a promising pupil. By its nature, that subject lends itself more to jazz and classical because they’re the ones who really want to play.
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jaga_jaga
October 2, 2018
Let me also explain the different versions of feminism/females here:
(a) ARH – The fiercely independent journalist, who keeps Varadan (not the other way about). But she loves him! She is embarrased when Simbu intrudes in. And tacitly, the entire family have accepted her as the chief-mistress (assuming Varadan may have others too).
(b) Jyothika – The super-loyal wife. She had her suspicions on her husband, but until she dies she doesn’t believe that Varadan had plotted to have his own dad eliminated. That scene when Varadan confesses to his crime, but it was Jo who rather dies, is a masterpiece. She is cool with her hubby’s affairs, and is more concerned about his life as a whole, and doesn’t bother with his sex-life! She knows she is the boss and the matriarch, so is entirely OK with the mistresses.
(c) Jayasudha – She is the hapless woman who has had no luck with either her dad, or brother, or husband or sons. She is the perpetual emotional hostage, who literally has no options but to bear it all and live.
(d) Chaya – Those one or two scenes she had were enough to establish how much she craved to be a part of Simbu’s family, but eventually her association with Simbu is what cost her life.
(e) Tyagu’s wife – A fascinating charecter! Strong, independent, and loathes all this goonship and extravegance. Yet she is the also in trouble for being wedded to the wrong man. That scene where she brings out the disgust for her husband is excellent.
(f) Rasool’s mom – The anti-Jayasudha. Ideology means more to them than her husband, and she begets a son in-tune with her ideology.
(g) Rasool’s chiiti – A regular, peaceful housewife.
(i) Varadan’s sister – A regular, peaceful person, found in every family, who kind of seems to understand her brother’s plight (or has been instructed by the dad to highlight Varadan), and who is apathetic to the family’s history. She just wants to move on with her life.
And all of them made an impact on me!
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GODZ
October 2, 2018
I am really talking about current trends..Yes, a couple of years back RT had its influence in the BO receipts not anymore bcz as I said Social media and international markets makes or breaks a movie.
Latest Example Nun – it has just 28% in RT but look at the Box office it’s currently the highest grossing movie in the conjuring universe better than conjuring 2. Can you believe it.? As I said if a movie has a strong selling point(in this case the positive vibes of previous conjuring movies), reviews do not matter. Another Example Meg. It grossed 500 Plus and its RT score is 46%.
I am not entirely discounting what you say. There could be few exceptions but that could be for an entirely different reason not for the reasons of BO.
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-the-nun-succeeded-at-the-box-office-despite-bad-reviews-2018-9
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Gautham
October 2, 2018
@BR
I do get royalties right ? Jokes aside, sure.
@jaga_jaga
Renu – flees from war-torn Sri Lanka. But the more she tries to return to her roots, the more she drifts away. Doesn’t understand how those who wrong are still free while she is imprisoned. When she tells Thyagu that it was he who should have been in her place, she is speaking simultaneously to men, her government and those who claimed to fight for her rights. Transplanted from her lush homeland to a prison in a city in the middle of a desert in an alien land. Metaphor for refugees and an acerbic critique of social engineering and empire building.
But that would be more my story than the director’s, right ?
Donnie Brasco had Donnie and Lefty with additional heft from the book and also from being based on real-life incidents, so it was easy to find a connection.
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brangan
October 2, 2018
Congrats Rahini David. Must have been fun discussing one of your favourite topics 🙂
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Rahini David
October 2, 2018
Thank you BR.
It was great fun.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
Congrats Rahini!
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MANK
October 2, 2018
Thanks to Tonks for posting the Loosu ponnu video. It was great , especially to see my film favorite Nithya Menen there making her point strongly
Of course loved the presence of our blog Favorite Rahini. Already mailed her my congratulations. Hope she got it
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MANK
October 2, 2018
Was he having an affair because that was the only way he could seek a sense of control and consequentially power, in his life ?
I thought he made it clear in that conversation with ARH, here i am king, there i am just one among many. I do agree a few more nudges , a few more tweaks here and there would have given the film a lot of shape.
I saw it as a more subtle version of “Donnie Brasco”. I am still surprised why no one has made this connection, yet!
I dont feel that way at all. Rasool’s character looks inspired from Leo’s in The Departed. His complex history and those conversations with his boss establish that.
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rsylviana
October 2, 2018
@Gautham – Regarding Varadhan’s affair with Parvathi, I thought it was answered a bit in the one conversation that the both of them have in bed. He feels helpless/overlooked by his dad and family and so needs someone to actually see him and treat him like a King. Him getting that kind of attention from his wife is out of the question since her being his uncle(also his father’s right hand)’s daughter and all makes her seem like one of them as opposed to one of his. So Parvathi appeals to that side of him. She having her own set of parental issues makes her seem all the more affectionate and understanding towards him. As for Parvathi, I think she kind of sees herself in Varadhan since she has been literally abandoned by her parents and here Varadhan has been abandoned in a more unusual sense. He isn’t been treated like Periyavar’s eldest son but like one of his many goons.So she wants to be to Varadhan, the kind of person she wanted when she was younger.
Was it also the only way he could outdo his father ?
As for this, isn’t this surely one of the easier ways? The other ways are much more dangerous to pull off right from his dad’s nose especially when he is alive , no?. So I can see him resorting to the easier ways first and then trying to make his way after getting his dad to be slain/incapacitated.
As for Rasool’s mom winning the Motherhood game when compared to Lakshmi and Chitra, sure that’s one way to look at it. But Periyavar is shown to be quite deceitful and deadly even before his heydays what with him murdering Lakshmi’s dad and everything. So Lakshmi would have known that it would be extremely dangerous for her to take her son(s) and flee since we can be assured that Periyavar wouldn’t be happy about it and would do his best to finish them off by himself or using his goons. Chitra seemed to be the most practical and sensible of the lot seeing as she was born into this bloodlusty family so she has the ‘my family is completely dysfunctional and I am a part of it so I might as well make the most of it using my own intelligence ‘ attitude amongst them. That’s why even before properly grieving for her dad’s fate she is more concerned about the string of unfortunate events that are bound to follow because of her husband’s need for retribution. There was a split-second where I went WTF after she is seen running behind her husband but after listening to her explain why she did so to her husband, that woman had my respect. As for Renu, she is the one who is the most disgruntled with the family and its absurdities (to put it mildly) but she does love Thyagu deeply including his own hunger for power. So I can see her put up with his family just out of her love for Thyagu. After watching how Renu and the others ride together in the lift, I appreciated the scene where she informs Thyagu about her dad much more. And Thyagu too for his part does in-fact love Renu albeit in his own way. Chaaya frankly doesn’t have much content to assess so I just chalked her up as the young woman who falls in love with this deeply disturbed and broody hunk. And it is quite clear that Ethi cares for Chaaya too.
In KV, that scene you mention did nothing for me except answer the question – what was VC doing at the time of his wedding? I didn’t care about why he forgot because not showing up for his secret wedding with his lover seems to be just the kind of selfish and thoughtless act someone like VC would do. More than Karthi, I yearned for Aditi’s motivations that drove her to declare her love for him after being treated like trash in front of everyone. When that didn’t come, the film just lost me as an audience.
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brangan
October 2, 2018
rsylviana: This is exactly the kind of thing that makes cinema so personal, and you cannot argue with anyone that YOUR POV is right or wrong.
When you say about Chitra, “That’s why even before properly grieving for her dad’s fate she is more concerned about the string of unfortunate events that are bound to follow because of her husband’s need for retribution” — it’s the kind of connect-the-dots exercise that YOU are doing.
I could not make this bridge at all. I felt I needed to know more about Chitra to connect these dots.
Whereas with KV, I have seen many upper-class women in abusive relationships who keep making the same mistakes, keep believing ‘I will change’ promises and keep going back to their toxic men. So it wasn’t hard for me to accept that scene at all.
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
@madan: “I don’t think it has much to do with Trump’s elevation to the presidency.”
Trump’s elevation to the presidency has definitely amplified the identity. Now, more than ever, media is exhibiting their leaning what they are accused of. Granted that NYT was always left leaning, but what Trump’s elevation, NYT and WaPO are now carrying their identity like a badge of honor.
Given all this, the cynic in me is telling that NYTs attempt to occasionally allow the conservative noise is all a result of their imagine building exercise.
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rsylviana
October 2, 2018
@BR – Touche Sir, Touche !!
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Madan
October 2, 2018
@Tambidude: And I have already mentioned to you that both Brooks and Stephens have been writing for NYT since well before Trump’s election or even before he announced his nomination. So I don’t think it has much to do with an NYT attempt to accommodate conservative voices. That would be ABC and their bizarre attempt to relaunch Roseanne or Joe Scarborough imitating Arnab after Trump’s win.
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Jayram
October 2, 2018
Congratulations Rahini!
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
@madan: In that case one has to explain why NYT ended up with the reputation of being incorrigibly left. No right or even centrist leaning person takes their views as balanced. In other words their accommodation of conservative voice has failed miserably.
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Anu Warrier
October 2, 2018
Anu : I meant this video created by TheNewsMinute :
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=322803768527860&id=1375307999395597
😦 The one time I regret not having an FB account.
If it shows up anywhere else, please do let me know.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
@Tambi Dude Well, why they ended up with that reputation is not something I can account for, especially in these times. I mean, those of a center right or overtly right persuasion consider Hindu a Marxist paper. I don’t necessarily find it so. In other words, maybe those who call NYT imbalanced aren’t themselves looking for balance in the first place but opinions that pander to their own right wing orientation.
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GODZ
October 2, 2018
Congrats Rahini..
And here is the youtube link for the New minute video
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
@madan: If we go by your reasoning, any labeling can be concluded as mislabeling due to the inherent bias of the labeler. That said, you have a point to some extent.
Sticking to NYT, it is not uncommon to see a NYT reader declaring himself/herself as a liberal who loves NYT. In other words, they acknowledge it as a left leaning. In NPR radio [ another left leaning media ] I have heard interviews where both the interviewer and the interviewee talk about NYT as another similar left leaning liberal media. In other words they [NYT] earned their reputation.
Why are you restricting yourself to only opinions? How about covering news. NYT chose to ignore anti Clinton news during 2015-16 campaign season. IMO they did the right thing by covering anti Trump news during the campaign. By staying silent on the simmering hatred for Clinton due to her closeness to Wall St, they stopped being balanced news media and behaved more like activist.
Interestingly the right wing Indians who call Hindu newspaper Chindu (C for China) are also the same ones who bash NYT when it, like a clock work, comes up with an article on India, affronting RW Indians [ for record, I absolutely support NYT’s articles on India ]. On a lighter note, RW Pakis say the same about NYT. On an even funnier note, anti Pak article goes viral in social media, thanks to Sharing by RW Indians and vice-versa. All a matter of convenience.
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
There is one more. The moment these swollen heads [ aka journalist ] resign from their job with a particular media , they shed the skin they had.
Few examples
Rama Lakshmi – She quit WaPO and is now distinctly less anti Indian in her articles.
Chitra Subramaniam: After she quit CHindu, her bias or style has changed a lot.
Barkha Dutt: She is less vitriolic after she quit NDTV.
Doesn’t that prove that all along they were driven by agenda written on their pay check.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
“If we go by your reasoning, any labeling can be concluded as mislabeling due to the inherent bias of the labeler. That said, you have a point to some extent.” – Not ANY labeling, but the labeling itself has become excessive in the last few years. There’s way too much political polarisation these days, and mostly on account of the right. I am NOT a left winger myself. But when the right wing pankhas of BJP cannot bring themselves to criticise a deal in which a brand new incorporated firm of Anil Ambani is given a large slice with prior no credentials, I know which side’s caught up more in identity politics. Before 2014, nobody on either side of the aisle hesitated to criticise the govt. It’s the right which has willfully surrendered its independence to a demagogue they seem to be madly in love with. It’s the same phenomenon with Trump and the American right. In other words, it is not much about honest ideological differences but a cult of personality.
“Sticking to NYT, it is not uncommon to see a NYT reader declaring himself/herself as a liberal who loves NYT. ” – And NYT readers also blasted it for both giving too much and too little coverage to Trump. So readers do not define an outlet’s true ideology.
” NYT chose to ignore anti Clinton news during 2015-16 campaign season. ” – Days before Nov 9. I rest my case.
These are all only perceptions. Perceptions which fly faster than the speed of light these days of social media and quickly begin to be construed as truth. I however would like to independently examine what is happening than go by how people perceive things as.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
“Rama Lakshmi – She quit WaPO and is now distinctly less anti Indian in her articles.
Chitra Subramaniam: After she quit CHindu, her bias or style has changed a lot.
Barkha Dutt: She is less vitriolic after she quit NDTV.” – These may be so and I am not denying the existence of ANY bias on the left. I was critical myself of the left;s coverage of the US election. My original point however was that at least some left leaning outlets accommodate conservative voices while conservative outlets do not reciprocate at all.
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therag
October 2, 2018
@GODZ. Horror is a poor example, it has historically had the poorest reviews and still managed to get an audience. The average horror film actually gets a poor audience score even, but is able to attract an audience maybe because even a formulaic horror film has some jump scares, and horror films are good date night films.
@Madan, I made that point about Jazz because of brangan’s comment about writing on interesting stuff. Replace it with classical opera or something if it doesn’t work for you. There is a vast trove of literature on jazz as supposed to something like EDM or metal even. Use a massy jazz track instead of a metal track and chances are that some subset of critics is going to pick up on that. Because they will find something interesting to write about it.
Critics are biased by definition but in a group the net bias should be somewhere around neutral. This is why something like Rotten Tomatoes has credence. But I do find some axes of alignment among groups of critics. This is not easy to demonstrate, let alone prove.
An example down here, when brangan was criticized for not picking up on the Dalit theme in Madras. Given his background I don’t think it was an unforgivable sin for not picking up on that. But it would be an issue if other critics had similar backgrounds. Chances are no one would actually write about the Dalit issue. Of course, with the avenues available today someone who does notice the theme can write a blog or a post on social media. But critics write for major publications and are able to reach a broad audience (as a group if not individually).
Here’s a WaPo article about critics being majority men.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/here-are-films-that-got-hurt-because-female-critics-are-outnumbered-by-men-2-to-1/2018/06/28/7abf2f9e-70d4-11e8-bf86-a2351b5ece99_story.html?utm_term=.6fb03672aaba
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
It is not at all nuanced to blame Email Server issue for the defeat of Clinton. She does it even today just to deflect the blame. We should not do it.
The thing I am referring to, is the fact acknowledged by US media after Nov 9 that they got negative response about Hillary as they hit the road to cover the campaign, but the editorial decision was to suppress it. NYT/WAPO/MSNBC/CNN all were guilty. Some of them are now on steroids to make up for the loss of credibility by going after Trump and trying to project themselves as saviors of democracy. Wapo has a tag line these days “Democracy Dies in Darkness”.
“Before 2014, nobody on either side of the aisle hesitated to criticise the govt.”
Before 2014, no one in the media returned Award when Nirbhaya was raped in 2012. No one called India as intolerant when riots happened regularly. No one linked a routine crime like a break-in into a church with anti christianity wave.
One has to be blind to not see the agenda.
That said, RW nutters are not going favor to any cause by behaving stupidly in social media. 3rd rate logic coupled with capacity to get angry at will, makes them total Dolts.
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Madan
October 2, 2018
” Use a massy jazz track instead of a metal track and chances are that some subset of critics is going to pick up on that.” – There’s no such thing as a massy jazz track. Jazz had its mass moment in the 1950s at the outer and it’s long gone. As for metal/EDM, Nine Inch Nails scored The Social Network. Going further back a bit, Lisa Gerrard scored the music for Insider. Hans Zimmer himself uses a lot of electronic as well as world music. If there’s more literature on jazz, it’s simply because it’s an older genre and regarded as high art and tradition in USA. But metal/EDM’s days of being underground have long gone and they are very much mainstream now and have been for quite a few years.
As for the Dalit references in Madras, they referred to a particular subculture that BR did not pick up on. That is a very different issue and specific to the film because very films, at least those involving a fairly big name star like Karthi, are about Dalits. If Dalit culture itself became mainstream in the way black culture did in USA, this would no longer be an issue. But the onus for that is on filmmakers, not critics.
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Kay
October 2, 2018
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/women-chekka-chivantha-vaanam-strong-and-bold-or-mere-props-men-89278
On a separate note, great to watch you on screen Rahini. Very clear and concise, just like your comments here. 😊
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Madan
October 2, 2018
“It is not at all nuanced to blame Email Server issue for the defeat of Clinton. ” – That is not what the article was doing. It simply compiled a timeline of developments on the email server issue. Was it an issue that hurt Clinton? Yes. Would not reporting on it have helped her cause? Yes. Did she want mainstream media to do just that? Yes. Did NYT report on it? Yes. Did Clinton blame NYT for that? Yes. Case closed. You asked whether NYT reported on news unfavourable to Clinton and I gave an example without even much of a google search. Now you don’t get to ask for specific news items you were looking for only because your earlier argument didn’t work. Opinion and exit polls go wrong all the time. Everybody thought BJP would win in 2004. Did that make all of them, including NDTV, conservative media? Really?
“Before 2014, no one in the media returned Award when Nirbhaya was raped in 2012. ” – Returning the awards was a response to the govt’s tone deaf attitude to regular lynchings of Muslims. A responsible govt would act on it instead of sending its social media warriors out into the battlefield to ask what about Kerala/WB. The central govt is supposed to speak for the entire country and not the section it is most beholden to. The Modi govt has not shown this impartiality to date.
:”No one linked a routine crime like a break-in into a church with anti christianity wave.” – It happened not far from where I live and it’s not routine there at all. There’s even a small hillock here in Nerul, New Bombay where a Balaji temple, Swaminarayan temple and a church are all side by side. We have never had problems like these. Obviously the election of a right wing govt has emboldened miscreant elements. That by itself is not the govt’s fault. What is is how slow they are each time to act on it.
And for the handful of complaints you have compiled, I could build an exhibit running into several posts about the insane and ceaseless whataboutery of Modi fans since 2014. The Rafale deal is the last straw. If you, a figurative you to be clear, cannot bring yourself to criticise handing over an important aircraft production deal to a near-bankrupt incompetent businessman who has already run his telecom business into the ground, you have no right to demand impartiality from the media. It seems to me that today even if Modi blatantly acts in a manner against national security, the rightwing will find a way to justify it. And that ought to be a cause for concern. But it’s not. Because the delusion is pretty deep.
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chvs Chaitanya
October 2, 2018
This films is a perfect example of how songs can be used as an integral part of the film to convey what characters are feeling and what characters are doing.
***********Spoilers ahead**********************************************
For example take a scene where Senapathy(prakash raj) gets attacked, SEVANDHU POCHU NENJU song gets played in the background, an indication that something wrong is happening, some one is doing a mistake..the same song comes again when Varadha(Arvind swamy) kills the son in law of chinnappa dasan, it confirms that Varadha is doing a mistake, he is doing another mistake to cover his previous mistake… a clear hint for audience about who plotted the attack on Senapathy. When he gets to know about the attack on his father on phone he asks ‘amma kooda vaa????(mother also??)’… it shows his suprise, his mother is not in his plan.. another hint!!!
All songs of the film are used as a background of the scenes reflecting the emotion of the characters.
I liked the scene where the three sons meet the father in hospital after the attack, the conversation between the sons and father has been intercut with the conversation between the two ladies of the house in other room. It shows us two different worlds in a single scene, one world where power and money is important, another world where peace and love is important….first world cannot hear the cry of second world, which is the meaning of Bhoomi Bhoomi song.
Bhoomi Bhoomi song tell us the story of Lakshmi(Jayasudha), her expression before interval when her sons are leaving, its like the Earth under her feet is shaking and she is sensing a big Tsunami in her family. But she cannot do anything, she is like a fish in the sea, Sea shore cannot hear her cry….
I wish this film gets made a ten part nextfilx series….in that series we can hear the full story of every character
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Gautham
October 2, 2018
Congratulations Rahini!
@rsylviana
To add to BR’s point, the relationship between Vardan and Parvathi could be read in so many different ways. Among others, if she is taken as his mirror, and if you extend the symbolism with the genders reversed, it could be taken as a confirmation that Vardan’s father has been unavailable to him since infancy and that he had a desire to move away from his mother as he entered adulthood. It’s maybe a hint that their relationships could only be warped and depraved, with the either of the them mainly drawn to each other for the sadistic solace they get from knowing that someone else is worse off than them. Or maybe it’s just a man-child/woman-child cribbing about their fate/lack of respect or responsibilities afforded to them while simultaneously proving that they shouldn’t be entrusted with such responsibilities. Is it just them acting out their carnal desires ? There isn’t enough to go on and I wasn’t bothered as there wasn’t an investment made in the first place ?
The scene in KV was even more rewarding because I was unable to relate to those characters. I thought it was a brilliant conceit to show that VC was suppressing Leela from his thoughts. You go from thinking why is doing this to her, to why is he doing this to himself and your empathy extends from Leela to VC too. It then throws up questions like what’s he running away from, what’s he scared off and what is it that that he is lacking in his toolkit.
If there are parallels between VC and Vardan, the questions aren’t posited when it comes to Vardan and led to believe that the answers don’t really matter.
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Anu Warrier
October 2, 2018
@Tambi Dude – Dude, I don’t know where you were hiding during the 2016 campaign – CNN went hammer and tongs on Hillary; about her emails, about her campaign, about the diss on Bernie. To the point where Jeff Tobin acknowledged later that they were harder on her because they felt that when they came down on Trump for his Access Hollywood tapes, they also had to cover the negative news on Hillary.
If they were so left-leaning (NYT and the ‘liberal’ news media), then Comey’s letter just days before the election wouldn’t have been given the air time and print space it got. They failed miserably at keeping the focus where it should be. And we are facing the consequences.
NYT still has credibility despite Trump calling it Fake news and ‘failing’. As Madan points out, they still give a platform for conservative voices (and so does CNN, much to my horror!) while the right wing media does not. At all. When Kelly Anne Conway (or one of her doppelgangers) are invited on CNN, they get debated, but they get to talk. When Tucker Carlson calls a ‘liberal’ political analyst (and he’s pretty Centrist, actually), he talks over the guy.
Even during the elections, conservative pundits were always on the table on all the so-called liberal media, defending Trump and making a case for him. Every single time.
I am a liberal; yes. But not ‘left’ of anything. I believe in social equality for all. I believe in civil rights for all, irrespective of race or religion or birth. I believe actions have consequences. I believe in a woman’s right to choose.
I am also financially conservative. There are some policies on the ‘left’ that seem to me to be slightly la-la-land-ish. But until 2016, I have never had such contempt for the Republican Party as I have now. (Not individual Republicans – I can still understand their point and empathise with the moderates, even if we disagree on several issues.)
Where India is concerned, I am a Hindu. I’m proud to be one. But the Hindutvavadis do not talk for me. Today, I will say India is more intolerant – not because riots didn’t happen under earlier governments, but because it seems they are being incited by those in power. Even if they are only complicit by their silence. The hatred is being fomented by the party in power; the divisions are being exacerbated by them; and the loudest right-wing nuts are being given encouragement by them.
I was in India when the BJP formed a government under Vajpayee – I have not had this issue then. They were like any other party – filled with some good men, and some craven. Vajpayee himself was a man of integrity, someone I could respect. Today, the party is headed by an amoral idealogue, and the party pushes an idea of Hinduism that I – and several Hindus – don’t recognise.
Don’t tell me there is no difference post-2014. Previously, I could have criticised Vajpayee, I could have criticised Rajiv Gandhi or anyone from any party, for that matter; call out Modi today, and I’m anti-Indian, anti-Hindu, pro-Pakistan and why am I not going there? I don’t deify our army? I’m anti-nationalist. I don’t stand for the national anthem? I’m unpatriotic.
Sorry – all this is only because of this one party in its present avatar. Not even the same party prior to 2014.
I see the same surge of fundamentalism in India as I do in the US – there, it’s the flagpole of Hinduism; here it’s the narrow reading of Christianity. And both do irreparable harm to democracy.
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MANK
October 2, 2018
Tambi dude and others, guys this is enough, stop hijacking this thread. Some of us here are very much interested in discussing and hearing about this film. A lot of good comments have been drowned in your bullshit . CNN , Clinton, my foot. I am never opposed to a little bit of tangential thinking, but this is the limit guys. We have a very interesting film from one of the most important filmmaker in indian cinema. You don’t want to talk about it, fine. But don’t spoil it for others
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Anu Warrier
October 2, 2018
@GODZ, thank you for that link. Rahini, lady, you rock. 🙂
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Tambi Dude
October 2, 2018
@Anu – “Dude, I don’t know where you were hiding during the 2016 campaign – CNN went hammer and tongs on Hillary; about her emails, about her campaign, about the diss on Bernie”.
The thing CNN deliberately missed reporting before Nov 9 was that she was deeply unpopular in the rust belt etc and was perceived as being in bed with the Wall Street, something which got confirmed when the audio release of her Goldman Sachs speech was released where she was clear that we (Govt and bankers) had to pretend to be anti bank, but need not follow it up with action.
In other words, Americans who have genuine economic anxiety did not trust her and between the two poison opted for lesser one on Nov 9. The way many Americans saw it, HRC would have been in the Globalization fever, sending more jobs out of America.
For all his words and actions, Trump has stuck to his campaign in some critical areas like putting America first.
Ironically by not reporting all this, CNN / MSNBC did not give HRC a chance to fix that perception and improve her chance of winning. They were arrogant that she will win by a landslide.
You take Jake Tapper, Farid Zakaria, Erin Brunett , Wolf Blitzer , all are anti Trump and they were always. When Obama was POTUS, none were remotely close to being anti POTUS.
Space here to list the name of a well known CNN anchor who is pro Trump.
I however agree that CNN do invite pro Trump in their panel to debate with anti Trump panelists. Same like Arnab who invites both sides for his debate
[ like the one on Lytens Media ]
@madan: “Returning the awards was a response to the govt’s tone deaf attitude to regular lynchings of Muslims.”
Yeah right. Similarly harping on 2002 riots was a response to fixing their own mistake of never going bersek on 1984 pogrom [ note that I used 2002 as riots and 1984 as pogrom ]
“And for the handful of complaints you have compiled, I could build an exhibit running into several posts about the insane and ceaseless whataboutery of Modi fans since 2014.”
it did not occur to you that this whataboutery itself is a result of lopsided heavily biased media prior to 2014, well paid by a certain party. You are getting the cause and effect reversed.
BTW I can list Megan Kelly as a Fox anchor who was and is terribly anti trump.
[ she is with MSNBC now ]. Does that make Fox a balanced news media.
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GODZ
October 2, 2018
@Therag: Terminator Genisys? World of Warcraft? Are they bad examples too? Anyways..This is the bottom line.. the International market is a key factor in the success of a movie and reviews don’t matter much in those case as needs and wants of international audiences are completely different compared to Local audiences.
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Karthick
October 3, 2018
Spoilers ahead..
Much has been analyzed about this gangster/family drama. I wish I saw more of the gangster side of Periyavar to begin with. And why not make those gritty sequences gritty. When an assassination attempt happens you get A.R.Rahman’s song to play in the background? Periyavar came of more as a soft rich businessman than a gangster. Wouldn’t Periyavar be furious/angry at the person (even though his own son) responsible for what happened to him and his wife? What is the need for a scene where he is talking to his dog Hitler about a dream? Doesn’t help in any ways. The one sequence between Jayasudha and VijaySethupathi was heart warming but it doesn’t lead to anything. When Jyothika comes to Aditi house she warns Varadan that his life is safe only for 3 days and his brothers are coming. How does she know that his brothers are after him? Does she know at that point that it was Varadan responsible for sending Thyagus wife to jail? And Ethi all the way knowing that it was Thyagu responsible for his wife death is….a BIG HOLE in the plot.
So many questions only tells that the characterizations/screenplay lacked the clarity required to make this story more appealing. Even if you forget/forgive these half baked characterizations, it is not an entertaining action movie at the very top layer either. Outdated throwing bottle in slow motion kinda action. Everyone seems to carry gun and shoot at will. More shots, less impact.
Maniratnam has to reinvent himself and bring us something that has been never tried before. Heck I will be even okay with Thiruda Thiruda kinda movie (minus the Heera character). Light hearted comedy caper.
Karthick.
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Rocky
October 3, 2018
Re.- I see the same surge of fundamentalism in India as I do in the US – there, it’s the flagpole of Hinduism; here it’s the narrow reading of Christianity. And both do irreparable harm to democracy.
But in India Shankracharya jee got arrested overnight, whereas the Bishop was free for more than a month before he kindly surrendered.
The Muslim MP from Maharashtra had to publicly apologize for saying- Ganpati Bapa Morya !!
No one talks about the situation in West Bengal where the Bangladeshis (and now Rohingyas )have taken over WB because it does not suit their agenda.
People are openly calling Modi a Chor , but desh mein Emergency hai ..
If the Hindus are celebrating their festivals with Zor-Shor then they say – arrey this is rise of nationalism . Matlab I fail to understand kee agar Hindus Hindustan mein theek sey nahee rah saktey to kya Rohingya jaaye Diwali par Fire Crackers burst karney ??
Jidhar dekhoon, yeh hee fake tasveer nazar aatee hai ….
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Eswar
October 3, 2018
@Madan “we can at least attempt to separate the creative or technical accomplishments of a musician from our own preferences.”
How does one do this in a creative work like music? For instance, how did you arrive to the point “Mozart was an incomparable prodigy”?
I am interested to know the thought process behind it. Thanks.
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Tambi Dude
October 3, 2018
@anu: “Where India is concerned, I am a Hindu. I’m proud to be one. But the Hindutvavadis do not talk for me. Today, I will say India is more intolerant – ”
That’s one way of looking at it.
Some of us call it as intolerance when law prohibits an education institute to be started by a Hindu with reservation for Hindus only, because only non Hindus are allowed to start an institute and have reservation.
Some of us call it as intolerance when law mandates money earned by Hindu temples to be controlled by Govt, whereas churches and mosques can keep the money with themselves.
What is the politically correct word for all this? I know it but just can’t recollect it now. Oh wait. Now I recollect. SECULARISM. The 60 yr of Congress rule infested a culture in which everyone was first class citizen of India except Hindus themselves. Well some of us do not believe in this liberalism. Pendulum has to swing both sides before it stops.
“not because riots didn’t happen under earlier governments, but because it seems they are being incited by those in power.”
Riots are happening in India after 2014 !!!! Wow. that’s a news to me . So how many died in riots after May 26 2014. Sagarika Ghosh was predicting a riot every day.
My American eye doctor was baiting me with his comment “look at what Hindu radicals are doing in India. Killing people for eating beef”. I replied back “do you know how many people were actually killed in 3 yrs (this was in Oct 2017) for the crime of eating beef or carrying beef. Around 2 dozen. That many blacks are killed in a week in Chicago by trigger happy white cops”. He did not like it.
Also you might want to read about Delhi anti Sikh riots of 1984, Nellii massacre in 1983 , Hashimpura riots of 1987. Then you may stop believing that riots prior to 2014 had nothing to do with govt in power.
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sai16vicky
October 3, 2018
@Anu and @Madan: I am with @TambiDude here.
India has always had communal violence
see a detailed study of the incidents here — https://factly.in/communal-incidents-in-india-statistics-57-communal-incidents-per-month-last-4-years-85-these-incidents-happen-in-8-states/
None of this has changed significantly since the BJP has come to power. Speaking empirically, India has not become intolerant all of a sudden post 2014 and having such a view is pretty myopic IMHO. The real questions are:
Have they enacted any law that has challenged secular beliefs in the country? On the other hand, the govt. has played a great role in regressive laws like abolishing triple talaq and vouched for a Uniform Civil Code (like how there is a Uniform Criminal Code).
Have they explicitly voiced support the fringe elements that were responsible for these incidents? FYI, did you know that the current govt. was instrumental in re-initiating the legal proceedings on the Ram Mandi issue?
The answer to both these questions “No”. Please correct me if otherwise.
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Tambi Dude
October 3, 2018
I realize that this is a film discuss forum and I should have stayed away from talking about BJP Congress Trump, but to me defense I can say that Madan’s remark about NYT/NDTV and Swarajya started all this. And he was not right also about Swarjya. They did write Demo failed.
https://swarajyamag.com/economy/modis-demo-gambit-failed-costs-exceed-gains-and-farm-anger-is-the-final-piece-of-evidence
Subramanian Swamy has given interview (available in YT) where he too mentioned failure of Demo and also claimed that Govt is fudging economic data to show growth. This did not dent his popularity among RW.
Anyhow I am off this now.
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Srinivas R
October 3, 2018
To add to what Madan has said, Yogi Adithyanath, who has made some of the most virulent hate speeches is currently the CM of UP. He has numerous rioting cases against him, but the right wing media celebrates him. Arnab Goswami, the eternal noise pollution on TV was seen going ‘Aap kitne mahaan ho’ while interviewing. Imagine Azam Khan becoming the UP CM and some media channel fawning over him. This govt is certainly the most divisive, openly so, we have seen in Independent India.
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therag
October 3, 2018
@Madan, you’re nitpicking. And as far as I know, NIN is nowhere near EDM and quite some distance from metal. For one, NIN does not sound like EDM or metal, and I’ve only heard their music mentioned as industrial rock or alternative rock. Electronic rock is not electronic dance or house. You could have said Daft Punk, who scored for Tron, or Chemical brothers who also scored for some movie. Both one offs. I never said EDM is not used in movies, it obviously is given that it is so popular, I said critics probably won’t write about it as much. References are very important for a critic, in fact it is probably what distinguishes them from ordinary reviewers. You said jazz is considered high art and has more tradition associated with it. Well duh, that is my point. A corollary of this is that there is more writing material, old movies which have used jazz, and therefore film critics who have written about jazz. Critics thrive on references.
As for the Dalit example, I have no idea what you mean when you say all star films are Dalit films. Madras could have been about anything, but the tone of the film, till just before the ending, was pretty sombre unlike other star films. I said BR should not get blame for not picking up the Dalit angle. But you should have some critic recognize the angle.
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Madan
October 3, 2018
@therag: I never said NIN is EDM. He doesn’t do exactly metal either but his style is eclectic enough to encompass elements of metal and electronic. You cannot have an entire soundtrack with just EDM in most cases anyway. It would necessarily have to encompass non dance electronic too or even non electronic. Now as far as critics making allusions to old jazz tracks goes, they could even be old rock or country tracks. That’s got literally nothing to do with the genre but with certain genres getting old enough to be classic. Metal is still too new for it. You should be happy it isn’t regarded as a relic.
As for Madras, pl read it again. I said IF lots of big name films discussed Dalit culture, it would be fair to expect mainstream critics to spot these references. That is not the case today and it’s the films which need to fix this before critics can.
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Anu Warrier
October 3, 2018
For all his words and actions, Trump has stuck to his campaign in some critical areas like putting America first.
You have to be kidding me! Trump has put Trump first, and damn the nation!
Anyway, I beg pardon for adding to the hijacking of this thread. Sorry, MANK.
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Srinivas R
October 3, 2018
” The 60 yr of Congress rule infested a culture in which everyone was first class citizen of India except Hindus themselves” – look around yourself, every effing insititution of importance, govt. and private is being headed by, controlled by Hindus, upper caste Hindus. I don’t have a problem with that, because in most cases they have followed a system and their is a certain merit in play. So this notion that somehow Hindus are discriminated against is an idea ( an insecurity) cultivated by BJP over the last 20 odd years. It’s working very well I guess.. for BJP.
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Srinivas R
October 3, 2018
Have they explicitly voiced support the fringe elements that were responsible for these incidents – have they explicitly condemned them?. One union minister garlanded the accused in Dadri lynching case. There are elected BJP legislators in Karnataka who instruct the councilors not to work for Muslims. There are elected BJP legislators in MP, who advocate abolishing age limit for marriages to prevent Hindu girls falling prey to Love Jihad. There are elected BJP representatives who repeatedly call for muslims to leave the country. One such criminal has been made the CM of UP. The PM will come on radio every week but will make no attempt to address this issue, at best there will be an indirect reponse on the lines of “hindus and muslims should fight together”, but no condemnation of right wing dolts.
More than law, this kind of silence against bigotry is more criminal. Imagine if Congress had been silent in the face of such behavior from muslim right wing. what would be your reaction?
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Srinivas R
October 3, 2018
I will admit that i know nothing about Nellii massacre in 1983 , Hashimpura riots of 1987. Everyone knows about 1984 riots and to this day I can condemn Congress for this. I can question Rahul Gandhi about his party’s role in the riots. If I raise one word about 2002 post Godhra riots, I know where it will go and how the reaction will be
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sai16vicky
October 3, 2018
@Srinivas R: I don’t see the necessity for the govt. to condemn these actions. Silence doesn’t mean endorsement. There is a difference between the media and the govt. The latter’s duty is to take necessary followup actions to minimize such communal incidents, which they do (see the numbers that I shared above). Imagine the Anti-Sikh riots in 1984. All Rajiv Gandhi had to say was “When a big tree falls, the earth shakes”. The current govt. is many many orders of magnitude more responsible than that.
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sai16vicky
October 3, 2018
@Srinivas R: Nobody is stopping you from talking about Ram Mandir issue or Godhra riots. Both these issues have had (and still have) legal proceedings — Ram Mandir is still going on and in Godhra riots, Modi was cleared by SIT. RTI can always be used to get more information on these cases. If you take the stats today, BJP is the national party with most transparent politicians in its top ranks (Modi, Jaitley, Prabhu, Gadkar, Singh, Seetharaman, Goyal, Swaraj, Shah and the list goes on). There are no major standing cases against them (corruption and others), they don’t promote their incompetent kids, leading to dynasty politics. You might now ask is this the standard that we are settling for. In democracy, one can only compare politicians with their alternatives. Seen that way, BJP easily stands tall.
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brangan
October 3, 2018
Do you guys want me to create another thread for this discussion? I don’t mind if there’s tons more you want to say on this topic. But let’s stop derailing talk about CCV?
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Madan
October 3, 2018
@sai16vicky: Jayant Sinha personally met the family of the accused in a lynching case and garlanded him. If that isn’t a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is. And as for reinitiating legal proceedings on Babri, big deal, many of the operators in the current govt were involved in its demolition. What is a legal proceeding now if not an eyewash? They bring the issue back to life periodically just to keep their fanbase interested. As for anti secular policies, BJP got parayushan imposed in all of Mumbai and bullied slaughterhouses shut just to appease the wealthy Jain community. And they talk about minority appeasement! What is Maharashtra’s beef ban but a majoritarian policy? Why should it be banned for all when it is not a taboo for many other religions? I could go on and on. Let me guess, these things don’t affect you personally so you pretend nothing has changed. As did the people of UP look askance from Yogi’s encounter Raj until a Brahmin techie became a victim of the overzealous police.
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Srinivas R
October 3, 2018
Apologies for getting carried away. Will not be adding further comments on this issue.
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Madan
October 3, 2018
+1 to Srinivas R. Didn’t see your earlier comment BR. I am done on this issue.
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shaviswa
October 3, 2018
ROFLOL returned to this post after a couple of days and what do I see? Initially it was ARR-Raja and now it is BJP-Congress? Clearly people do not have anything to discuss about THIS film!! 😀 😀
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Rahini David
October 3, 2018
Thanks Tonks for linking the video. I was wondering where to link it in BR’s blog (never been ashamed of plugging especially in this blog) when I saw you had linked it.
Thank you all for your wishes.
And BR. Like Tonks says, it is this little space that made that little space possible.
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Aadhy
October 3, 2018
I echo with a lot of what Karthik has said above.
” Periyavar came of more as a soft rich businessman than a gangster. Wouldn’t Periyavar be furious/angry at the person (even though his own son) responsible for what happened to him and his wife? What is the need for a scene where he is talking to his dog Hitler about a dream? Doesn’t help in any ways.”
If Senapathy was the most powerful gangster in the city, he would’ve wasted no time after his recovery in taking out the one who plotted the assassination, even if it’s his own son.
“When Jyothika comes to Aditi house she warns Varadan that his life is safe only for 3 days and his brothers are coming. How does she know that his brothers are after him? Does she know at that point that it was Varadan responsible for sending Thyagus wife to jail? And Ethi all the way knowing that it was Thyagu responsible for his wife death is….a BIG HOLE in the plot.
So many questions only tells that the characterizations/screenplay lacked the clarity required to make this story more appealing. Everyone seems to carry gun and shoot at will. More shots, less impact.”
Couldn’t agree more with this.
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M.R. Sharan (@sharanidli)
October 3, 2018
This may be close to the 200th comment on this thread – and hence quite unlikely I will say something that hasn’t been said before here. Just using this space to bolster the numbers in favour of the movie here (especially since it is getting more flak than it deserves here, IMHO):
I found it supremely enjoyable: the plot was gripping and unpredictable, the editing made it super-tight; the music was competent, with some great surges; the acting was almost uniformly terrific, the characters well etched-out, their motivations less so. The direction was the equivalent of a late-Sachin Tendulkar ODI century against a middling opposition: nothing new or flashy, but the craft was evident for all to see.
I found very little to complain about.
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rsylviana
October 3, 2018
that he had a desire to move away from his mother as he entered adulthood.
@Gautham – what makes you say that? I never got this impression from the movie at all. Only that Varadhan was unhappy with how he was being treated by his dad and by extension, his family as a whole. I sensed that he felt a bit closer to his mom and wife when compared to the rest of his family although it does look like his mom didn’t do much to counter Periyavar’s distance from all of them.
There isn’t enough to go on and I wasn’t bothered as there wasn’t an investment made in the first place?
Again, I’m not so sure. For eg when Chitra enters into Parvathi’s house and tries to belittle her upbringing/guilt-trip her, I wanted Parvathi to retort ‘My parents are dead so they wouldn’t care’ just because it would make for such a juicy comeback. But her backstory makes more sense and actually gives their affair more credence since both Varadhan and Parvathi don’t seem like the kind of people who would get romantically involved just for the rush of it.
In KV wasn’t the fact that beneath the overlay of confidence and bravuda in VC there was a layer of self-loathing concealed, well-established in the scenes where he refuses to bring his kid into the world ? So the scene which you mention just acts as an add-on to that right ? When that scene happened I, for one , was more looking forward to Leela’s reaction after she finds out that it wasn’t something serious that kept him away from their wedding. So yeah, for me Leela was the one who ruined KV for me not VC.
When Jyothika comes to Aditi house she warns Varadan that his life is safe only for 3 days and his brothers are coming. How does she know that his brothers are after him?
@Karthick – Didn’t she do that after she watches her husband torture his brothers or am I messing up the timeline ?!
@Rahini – Congratulations !! I have been meaning to congratulate you here for the past couple of days but got diverted because of the discussions around CCV. I actually stumbled on the video on twitter and was pleasantly surprised to see you there. Is that the entirety of the discussion or are more parts yet to come ?
@BR – Please do start a separate thread for the other discussions happening around here. It’s getting really difficult to sidestep the comments with words like Trump/Clinton/CNN et al.
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Enigma
October 3, 2018
The most entertaining Mani Ratnam film since Guru, wondering how much of that can be attributed to the new writer that he has engaged. Only wish that he had cast Vikram in place of Arvind Swami. Not that Arvind was not good, just that Vikram would have been more effective.
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Aadhy
October 3, 2018
“How does she know that his brothers are after him?”
rsylviana : “Didn’t she do that after she watches her husband torture his brothers or am I messing up the timeline ?! “
Only after she says that thaali dialogue Varadan says he’s made all the arrangements to stop them at Kathmandu, and then they watch together as the brothers get beaten up.
Thinking of it, a possible explanation for Karthik’s question is that Chitra did suspect it coming. Remember all the info about Thyagu that has been fed to Chitra. Renu says “avaruku rendu mugam iruku ka” . In another scene she finds Thyagu sitting on the Periyavar’s throne and warns him that Varadan might not like it. He replies ” Annan ta solladeenga” . My guess is that she ended up telling Varadan about it, and also planted the whole idea of sending him to jail into Varadan’s head. The plan misfired badly as Renu became the baliaadu, making Thyagu furiously bay for Varadan;s blood. The minute she knows about the misfire, she could’ve seen what was coming and rushes to her husband, even when he’s at his mistress’s house. Chitra has never done this before, but she can’t wait now, as her misfired plan could cost her husband’s life.
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Kay
October 3, 2018
It’s been 4 days since I watched the movie and I’m still not able to decide if I liked it or not. Planning to watch it once more to process all that happened.
What did the Thai guy tell that clued Ethi in on Thyagu’s involvement? Was the chinnapadas character necessary? Is there any scene that indicates that Varadan tried to frame Thyagu? If he did, then why does he have that self pity scene after Chitra is wounded?
Is this the most confusing of all MR movies?
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Rocky
October 3, 2018
Re.-Do you guys want me to create another thread for this discussion?
LOL !!
Allow me to post this # peace :
As part of the 150th Birth Anniversary Celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi, artists from over 124 countries have contributed musically in paying homage to Mahatma Gandhi through his favourite bhajan ‘Vaishnav Jan To Tene Kahiye’
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MANK
October 3, 2018
What did the Thai guy tell that clued Ethi in on Thyagu’s involvement?
He didnt say anything, Ethi just guessed it from Thyagu’s reluctance to talk about chayya’s death. as he says at the end , He(The thai guy) didnt say anything, but now you are saying a lot
Was the chinnapadas character necessary?
He is more or less used as a red herring. But also to set up senapathi’s ecosystem,otherwise we would have wondered, isnt there another Don in town?. He is also a vehicle to show how bad Varadan can get, that he is willing to murder an innocent guy just to cover up his sins. Unfortunately thyagarajan’s performance is very poor , he looks very weak for the role.
Is there any scene that indicates that Varadan tried to frame Thyagu? If he did, then why does he have that self pity scene after Chitra is wounded?
My guess is that she ended up telling Varadan about it, and also planted the whole idea of sending him to jail into Varadan’s head. The plan misfired badly as Renu became the baliaadu, making Thyagu furiously bay for Varadan;s blood.
Wait a minute, Wasnt that Ethi’s doing. the scene of the drug bust is inter cut with Ethi’s ‘seduction’ of Thiyagu. So that has a relation. But the other side is also true. If Varadan was not involved in either of the tragedies that befell his brothers , then he had nothing to fear about them turning on him. Or is it something else the matter, seeing Jyotika’s reaction or overreaction to the whole matter. Or did she imagine that Varadan was behind the death and imprisonment.
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Tambi Dude
October 3, 2018
“You have to be kidding me! Trump has put Trump first, and damn the nation!”
Your vacuity is quite astonishing. I am talking about Trump’s campaign statements on going hard on China in trade, re-dealing NAFTA , tough on immigration etc.
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Karthick
October 3, 2018
@rsylviana – you did mess up the timeline 🙂
@aadhy – we can all keep guessing and imagine what might have happened between the scenes but does a viewer have time to guess these things while watching the movie? When there is a gap like this it is confusing. I am all for ‘connecting the dots’ but when the dots are so far apart it is difficult to catch the ‘who knows what’ thread. A good screenplay is a clear screenplay especially for a story like this that has so many players.
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therag
October 3, 2018
@Aadhy and others who are examining plot holes, I guess plot holes assume importance when the film does not work for you. The film worked for me so I couldn’t care less that Jyothika could not have known about the brothers plotting revenge or that her husband was responsible for the fracas. As far as I am concerned, she knew because the script wanted her to know, and that is good enough for me. For this particular film.
The plot is very generic, and in places where the script could have created some doubts/suspicions, the director went out of his way to make it clear what was going on. Example, Varadan shooting that second assassin who was hung onto the gates, Ethi standing on the edge of the cliff, Rasool getting reprimanded in the beginning coupled with his monologue in the end. The plot was superficial and not supposed to hold up to scrutiny. A plot of convenience that could support the director’s pyrotechnics and the actors’ histrionics.
Kaatru Veliyidai also had its share of plot contrivances which threw off the general audience while the blog was fine with it because they mostly liked the film.
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Gautham
October 3, 2018
@rsylviana
I just meant that as one of many other possibilities. I think Parvathi said that her mother had passed away when she was 3/4 and she decided/wanted to move away from her father when she turned 18. If she mirrors Vardan, then Vardan’s father has been unavailable to him since his infancy (and thus explaining the assassination attempt as an extension of his mental construct) and he feels a need to move away from his mother (it could be interpreted as carrying positive/negative/neutral overtones). Every scenario requires a bit too much of Freudian/Jungian or your own psychobabble for my liking.
“In KV wasn’t the fact that beneath the overlay of confidence and bravuda in VC there was a layer of self-loathing concealed, well-established in the scenes where he refuses to bring his kid into the world ?”
Yes. I am sorry, I guess I skipped over a lot of parts for this comment. But this scene shows that Leela is somebody of substance to VC, which might not have been the case with his earlier fling(s).
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Gautham
October 3, 2018
@rsylviana
And I didn’t really ‘like’ KV, but found it more rewarding comparatively. CCV might have also been easier to like/had individual elements that are likeable, but a lot more disappointing too.
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Karthick
October 3, 2018
I am waiting for what BR has to say about this after his 2nd viewing. I watched it twice too hoping I might like it better the second time knowing what is in it but I actually came out with more questions about the intentions of the writer/filmmaker. Let me leave it at that.
Couple of thoughts also came to my mind, just thoughts not arguing or questioning anything –
I wish the assasination attempt on Periyavar was purely Rasool’s work and Varadan was not involved in it.
I wished Rasool planted more seeds to aid in the misunderstandings/feud between the brothers leading up to the brothers killing each other and it is all part of Operation Red Sky. These seeds are all reveled in the end credits.
Unfortunately I am not remaking this movie in Hindi.
🙂
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Sutheesh Kumar
October 4, 2018
There is more to the Chithra and Rasool equation especially when she asks why didn’t he marry and he responds that she doesn’t have a younger sister. When he says Periya veettu raja kumari Inge enna pannreenge and she says chitthi upma enna koopittchi, these lines convey a history and bonding between them.
Jayasudha is simply terrific, that scene where she slaps Ethi and breakdowns, pitch perfect.
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Aadhy
October 4, 2018
MANK :
” If Varadan was not involved in either of the tragedies that befell his brothers”
One of them has to be Varadan’s doing, with Chitra involved. As you said, he wouldn’t be otherwise concerned about stopping Thyagu and Ethi. Or why would Chitra worry about her Thaali when they have done nothing. She almost feels gratified watching Varadan’s brothers getting beaten up.
My other doubt is : what was Thyagu’s incentive in killing off Chaya? How does he know that this incident would spark off a feud between Ethi and Varadhan? It’s a very far fetched prediction and the risk he’s taking based on this prediction is quite high as well, as it turned out to prove costly in the end.
Therag: This might sound like nitpicking but this is about the emotional logic. I did admit that I enjoyed the bloodshed. This is just me trying to scramble through the blood-y clutter to see if there’s something to take way, a sort of internalization. Otherwise we wouldn’t be having this discussion at all. Wrt Kaatru Veliyadai, I had a lot of issues with the emotional logic of that movie as well. So I’m not going to compare, though I think KV was a bit superior in visual storytelling, and just that. CCV is more of a talk-y film.
Karthik : ” but does a viewer have time to guess these things while watching the movie? ”
I agree. I couldn’t connect any of the dots during the movie. My comments are only an attempt to see if there’s something beneath the shallowness I felt while watching, as I had mentioned in my reply to Therag above.
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Sutheesh Kumar
October 4, 2018
BR, just curious, how come there is no promotion of CCV on Film Companion South. No interviews with the stars or the technicians, when the web is chock full of them. The closest you got was with the MR filmography ranking. Is it because of conflict of interest?
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mrinalnarayan
October 4, 2018
@brangan Question 1 – Did you get to watch it again?
For me, the experience was better during the second time. Its not perfect, though I liked it. I am not denying the overall genericness in the first half. Second half became very interesting – predictable or not predictable. Connect your own dots and fill things up is unsettling and interesting at the same time. With Kaatru Veliyidai it was just easier to fill things given the focus was only on two characters.
Question 2 – If Iruvar were to release today, given the number of female artists involved in that movie, will there be complaints that the women in the movie were not fully used except Aishwarya Rai’s role – and I think only because it was a double role. Will we get a Aditi Rao kind of a character if Tabu’s role was pushed a bit? just that in Iruvar there was an implicit explanation on how Prakash Raj’s and Tabu’s wavelength matched and he loved to be there….Revathi’s / Gauthami’s character would have tried to get some utharavadham for the Thaali if Prakash Raj’s / Mohan lal’s character was in a hopeless situation there? and also there they came to terms with their husband’s affair.
Hmmmmm…..The things with the male centric gangster / political drama..
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therag
October 4, 2018
@Aadhy, It became pretty clear to me sometime during the second half that the plot has no importance at all. There were so many red herrings (the entire Chinnapadas episode, Jayasudha asking for the gun, the weird blocking in the elevator when Prakash Raj was being discharged, VJS’s dialogues in the baby naming ceremony) that I kinda guessed that the director was just screwing with us. The movie never allowed us to get close to any character and the second half basically conveyed the fact that this was by design. That allowed me to disengage emotionally and adopt a “what does MR have in store for us next” attitude. I was not rooting for any character or looking for motivation, I just had a bird’s eye view of the carnage, and I really enjoyed it.
I liked Kaatru Veliyidai (not watched Kadal though) and defend it quite vociferously but I have to admit that CCV is hella entertaining, his most fun movie in years. It is true that CCV is not as ambitious as KV visually but that is a feature, not a bug as far as commercial films are concerned.
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mrinalnarayan
October 4, 2018
@therag – “a bird’s eye view of the carnage, and I really enjoyed it.” That’s how I saw it too. In the grand scheme of things, does it even matter to emotionally connect with every character.
Idhil enge ketkum kuyilin satham….
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Anon
October 4, 2018
@therag: your comment is exactly it. I think that’s how Mani intended it. I also enjoyed watching it while not rooting for anybody, content to just watch things unfold.
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brangan
October 4, 2018
Karthick: Watched it last evening. Had pretty much the same (distanced) reaction. Like I said in my review, the lack of a “before” between the brothers affected my involvement with the “after.” I could not buy the scene where Varadan watches (on video) his brothers being beaten up, or the scene where Renu is framed with drugs. And like Aadhy says, I wasn’t sure how Thyagu intuited that his hit would light a spark in Ethi about Varadan. Yes, none of this is “illogical” and one can certainly make a case for these happenings, but I wish the FILM (the writing) had made this case for me.
Sutheesh Kumar: Well, we did ask for interviews before the release, but Simbu was in Georgia and we’d already interviewwd Arvind Swamy. Couldn’t get a hold of Vijay S. Weren’t sure what do ask Arun Vijay. And post the release, it was mainly Siva Ananth giving interviews — I didn’t until late. Plus, he’s a friend (yes, even after this review 😀 ). So the arguments we have about the film are better saved for a beer session 😀
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Jaga_Jaga
October 4, 2018
@Gowtham and BR:
What I see as the greatest positive from this movie are your statements:
(a) Gowtham – “But that would be more my story than the director’s, right ?”
(b) BR – “Yes, none of this is “illogical” and one can certainly make a case for these happenings”
That someone could afford to leave it so open-ended and yet not give the scope for any action in the movie being illogical – that is fantastic!
In that sense, I see parallels between this film and Dhruvangal Padinaaru, also.
The running time was a choice MR made. Within that constraint, this was the best way to pack-it all in. And in the first place was the decision to have a curtailed running time, a problem? Definitely not for me. Everything was etched with aplomb.
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MANK
October 4, 2018
If Senapathy was the most powerful gangster in the city, he would’ve wasted no time after his recovery in taking out the one who plotted the assassination, even if it’s his own son.
Hmm, i doubt that. A son plotting to kill the father is very different from a Father killing his son. Its just not the same, even if he is the most dreaded don in town.And to an extend He understands what drove his son to commit this dastardly deed .perhaps its his own fault
BTW good nes for Mani,The film is a record opener for the director. Hope he continues his winning streak
https://www.filmibeat.com/tamil/news/2018/chekka-chivantha-vaanam-box-office-collections-6-days-277934.html
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Vimal
October 4, 2018
So many discussions here, but none on WTH was Mansoor Ali Khan doing in the movie !!!! 😛 😛 😛
And, if this was a Sundar C film, Vadivelu wouldve played Chinnappadas, shouting at the top if his voice “Ennadaa idhu pudu kozhappamaa irukku….daiiii, naan onnumey pannalayedaaaaa” !!!!
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therag
October 4, 2018
The casting assumed extra importance here because not much time is allocated to each character. So, when a Mansoor Ali Khan is cast, without any character establishment you fallback on the default character that he’s known for (the sly villain). That said, I didn’t really register his presence much in the film except during the “Senthamizh Then Mozhiyaai” scene . Thiagarajan OTOH had this “I can’t believe I’m in this quagmire” vibe and that really fit.
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Balu
October 5, 2018
@brangan – Interesting comment about “what to ask Arun Vijay?”. Before watching the movie, I assumed that Simbu will have the meatiest role and Arun the least with the other 2 heroes somewhere in between based on their market status and kind of roles they agree to(There might be an argument that VJS is more popular today but there was no way Simbu was ever going to agree to a 2nd hero role but VJS might accept it). But after seeing the movie, it didn’t turn out so. All 4 heroes had similar screen time(Arvind Swamy probably had the most) and Arun had equivalent role to Simbu. A case of director being bigger than the heroes I guess.
Anyways, does your comment indicate that pre-release, you had also assumed that Arun wouldn’t have much of a role and not worth interviewing or just that he doesn’t a great past filmography to talk about?
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anon
October 7, 2018
I didn’t see ANY interviews from Mani this time around. Did he just think, “Enough stars – will open decent, let me not do the grueling promotion tour”? BR, why not Mani, if not VS?
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anon
October 7, 2018
Also, while VS is prommoting 96, he wasn’t around for ccv. Feel like promotions were low key only. No Simbu, VS, Mani, ARR
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k1rithika
October 7, 2018
I did not see the Ponniyin Selvan connection at all. But I did see a Mahabharatha connection, in a different light – the characters are there but with opposing nature. Like a power struggle within the Kaurava clan with a non-scheming, loyal Shakuni, a disobedient Dushasan, a double crossing Karna.
1) 3 brothers and a sister in place of 100 brothers and a sister
2) Simbu mentions in one scene to Jyothika’s father that he may have a motive since his father has suferred great injustice at the hands of Senapathy – Shakuni; remains loyal to Senapathi though
3) VJS is long time friend of Varadhan, he is adopted – Karna; doesn’t like the bad deeds of his friend. There is even a scene where Jyotika and VJS have a friendly banter indicating the camraderie between Karna and Bhanumathi
4) The usually highly obedient Dushasan is replaced by Thiagu – who is willing to overpower his brother. He doesn’t want to harm women as is established in the lodge shooting scene.
Of course, these may just be coincidences and I’m reading too much into this. But the characters may well have been derived from Ponniyin Selvan, Godfather, Mahabaratha and who knows where else?!
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mrinalnarayan
October 8, 2018
@k1rithika In this interview, co-writer Siva Ananth says, the spark came from the war of succession fought during Shah Jahan’s reign — how his three sons fought for the throne after he fell seriously ill. But guess one can still make interesting connections with a lot of things like Ponniyin Selvan / Mahabaratha.
http://www.historydiscussion.net/history-of-india/results-and-causes-of-war-of-succession-fought-during-shah-jahans-reign/2812
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k1rithika
October 8, 2018
Thanks for that video @mrinalnarayan. This makes more sense. Dara was supposedly Shah Jahan’s favourite. He kept him within his eyesight all the time, so much so that Dara did not have any administrative power or exposure to warfare. Dara totally resented that. As mentioned by Siva Ananth, Aurangazeb persuaded his other brother to wage a war against Dara with the promise of making him the king only to betray him later. Madan’s Vanthargal Vendraargal has a more detailed account of these things.
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aravind
November 25, 2018
Did we just witness the very first instance of a Tamil hero vaping?
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Unknown
December 7, 2018
https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Unknown
December 7, 2018
Just found this hilarious tweet about you
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Anand Raghavan
December 23, 2018
Saw CCV only this week..I felt it was a captivating gangster drama where everyone seem to be in a shade of grey. Mani has deviated from his usual style and utilizes the strengths of the lead actors to the hilt.. equal screen space given for the male leads and Jyotika, which is a positive but it also has resulted in very short and crisp scenes. It’s a tight script, and there were no digressions. There were some logical loopholes but it did not hamper the movie.. This is ARRs best in recent times, and the chopped usage of songs with apt lyrics. It has actually heightened the situations where it was used. Surely Bhoomii, Mazhai kuruvi and Praptham track prove why ARR is still relavant.
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R. Kailasham
November 13, 2021
Watched the movie in theatre the same week it released. What I remember almost 3 years hence is the electrifying camaraderie between Rasool (VJS) and Ethi (STR). Every frame in which they appeared together, and especially the bottle-throwing scene in the beach, seem superbly crafted. Wishing to see more of this combo!
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