Film Companion South Round Table &#8211;&nbsp;2019

Sir. Pls get an interview with bala😐

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Second promo is up.

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MANK

teaser, promo,…

enna saar ithu , thalaivar padama…?

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Thalaivar BR padam 🙂

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can’t wait..

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December 25, 2019

The video is up…

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Ramesh

December 25, 2019

Lakshmi is the odd woman out. Both literally and figuratively. Empty platitudes, absolutely terrible and shallow understanding of cinema, casteism.

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Arjunn Gopi

Hello Mr Baradwaj Rangan – Thank you for doing this. I have seen such interviews in the West and Bollywood and always wished something like this happened in Tamil too. I had a couple of thoughts after watching this:

I believe TamilNadu and Tamil people in general celebrate their heroes. Be it the 90s kids or the current crop, we all love a mass movie and prefer to watch it on the big screen whistling. Hero worship is something that is here to stay. Be it politicians or actors, we have grown up watching mass scenes or dialogues being celebrated. So it is going to be really hard to do away with that.
Having said that, we have seen good content being appreciated. However we don’t have enough second string actors who can run with content driven scripts. We don’t have an Ayushman Khurana or a Vicky Kaushal experimenting with a Bala or a Badhai Ho. Probably Jayam Ravi and Karthi are trying but not enough. Also we need sufficient producers to back these as well.

Would like to hear your thoughts too. And thank you once again for doing this. If you could do something similar with actors, that will be great too. As an aspiring actor, I would love to know process of actors and would love to hear some of our finest Tamil actors talk about what went behind the making.

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Heisenberg

Lakshmi Ramakrishnan came out like she’s only concerned with politically charged Dalit films in recent times and not bothered about caste glorification films of Sasikumar kind or from early 90s.

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MANK

Vetrimaran is the star, GVM is the tragedy hero , Parthieban is the (senior) character actor and Lakshmi Ramakrishnan is comic relief , others are bit players

comment of the interview : Pa Ranjith is a politician who makes films
Best Analogy : Baasha\Asuran from Parthieban

Most entertaining moment: Brangan’s ‘Norma Desmond’ closeup when GVM expresses surprise at his POV on Dhanush’s image 🙂

usually , i dont find these round-table conferences that enlightening , because it’s either, they all behave like a newly married couple or triple or quintet or whatever, where everyone is dying to agree with each other; or it’s like,the most talkative fellow trying to hijack the conversation. this struck a balance and it helps that the rockstar in the group, Vetrimaran, is the most knowledgeable and the most communicative about cinema; even when he intervenes , he knows what he is talking about.Still i wish the selection of filmmakers could have been different, could have brought Pa Ranjith himself here

P.S. :Hope that GVM breaks out of his mourning over ENPT. oh man!. He looks very very sad.

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Very nice interaction, Vetri dominated the discussion ( not that I mind), but really enjoyed the views of Parthiban and GVM as well. Everyone seems to agree that the Star/Mass system is not going anywhere.

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Voldemort

Parthieban was just so good. Subtle, sarcastic and unapologetically honest. You should do an interview with him BR.

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bart

Vetri rocked, Parthiban made his points quite amicably & convincingly, Gautham ably supported, Ratnakumar shone with his thoughts (and was visibly in awe of Vetri) and Chezhiyan was relatively in a shell. As far as Lakshmi – please refer to youtube comments 🙂

While on the topic, it will be interesting to interview Tiruppur Subramaniam regarding the restriction of screens per movie or small movie release during festive periods or regarding the refund by top actors that is demanded for losses.

Looks like web-series is the way forward. The point that writers will get more prominence has its own limitations. In all these visual mediums, the faces on screen will always rule the roost compared to the ones behind. Many of the tele-serials have shown us this already – Saas bahu, Kolangal, Chithi etc have fetched more recognition for its actors than the writers (with some of these shows having multiple writers at different points of time).

P.S.1 : “Ajnabee” is Albert Camus’ “The stranger”?

P.S.2 : “Sillu Karuppatti” is getting some rave reviews and a woman director at helm to give a rocking end to 2019..

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bala

I have drastically reduced going to theaters. I see one movie almost every two weeks, through amazon prime, or netflix or hotstar or youtube. It has helped me watch not just tamil movies, but other language movies like malayalam and kannada.

But, I feel, the problem with OTT is, amazon and netflix can’t just run with the subscription fees, and hence are more or less, ad-platforms. I am fine with ads in between movies. But, I already see lots of product placements in netflix original movies(english). I feel, one important task for movie makers for OTT is to make sure that they keep the ads and the movies/series separate. I can see the line blurring, ie, movies themselves becoming ads. That I feel will bring down the movie industry eventually.

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Eswar

Nice round up to end the year BR. Looking forward for many more in the new year, and in the new decade 🙂. Thank You.

Bart: I am guessing the Ajnabi Vetrimaran mentioned is:
https://www.panuval.com/ajnabi

So this is probably his collaboration with Surya then.

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vandana lakshmi

vetri, parthiban were awesome. GVM was good too, but hardly spoke a few sentences and of course he looked really sad 🙂 I feel sad for Lakshmi. She was the odd person out, nothing to offer. Good rebuttal from Vetri for her comment on asuran and violence.

BR why didn’t you include Thiagarjan kumaravel , Lokesh. kanagaraj and Pa Ranjith.

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Tina

While Lakshmi is not coherent, why are the points she makes comic?

It is indeed true that there has been a trend towards negative titles. Polladhavan, kettavan, Ratchasan, and in that line asuran is ALSO negative sounding. Evil is evil. Evil in the society is also evil. That doesn’t make the word evil positive. It also, if anyone would have thought about it, has translated into more gore on screen.

I do believe she made some valid points. Isn’t she ridiculed as papathi? That’s casteism too. Just it isn’t as evil as what upper castes have inflicted on others. It was like they decided to just group up. Simple things – like the way Vetri told what Ajnabi was. The only person in that table who dared to ask was her. I bet not everyone in that room knew what it was.

The ignoramus of the table was Vetri. His statement on Ranjith was absolutely despicable. Everyone has a secondary trait. Ranjith is a film maker with strong political views and an agenda. Doesn’t make him a politician filmmaker. Like what Lakshmi ignorantly mentioned about blue, there is politics in everything. Colours included. And to be fair, he made Asuran today riding on the ranjith wave.

Applying Vetris own logic, he is a bookworm who makes movies. And poorly dubbed ones at that.

Veterinarians movies will also flop and languish. When you listen to this same interview that day, what he falls short of will become obvious. Today, his success his helping mask his ignoramus-ness especially about the caste dialogue.

And Parthiban was obnoxious. Bharathiar it seems.

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guhan

@Tina Lakshmi is criticized because she is very murky and vague when she said some things ( whether she is criticizing the dominant caste conscious movies or dalit conscious movies). Why was she very incongruous when everyone in the discussion was open and expressive?

Veterinarians movies will also flop and languish. When you listen to this same interview that day, what he falls short of will become obvious.

How come a person’s individual successes can have gravitation towards the arguments they made? Do you think everyone latching on Kanye West’s worldview since he is successful? This line of thought is illogical and pathetically absurd to associate with artists.

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Tina

@guhan – yes, her views were all over the place. But vetrimaaran also said problematic things. I absolutely disagree with his views on ranjith.

The discussion was SO inward focused. No baahubali or the pan Indian recognition our films are getting, simultaneous trilinguals, etc.

And some of Lakshmys valid points just didn’t get picked in that big boys discussion.

Like Vetrimaarans assessment of reviews and collection for instance was sooo myopic don’t you think. Amazing reviews for a small Budget movie will absolutely make a difference like a sethu. But since he is the star of today and drops names like ajnabi, he is somehow the intellectual who makes most sense. Sadly, he didn’t. And it didn’t get picked.

Look at the acceptance level for a divergent opinion from gvm vs a lakshmy. It was just not equal my Friend.

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shaviswa

You could have invited Balaji Mohan too. He made two refreshingly good movies and then slipped into masala genre. His opinion would have thrown some light on the star centric script discussion.

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Kay

Tina – thank you for those comments. I first read the YouTube comments and then the comments here and started wondering if I’m the outlier.

I felt Lakshmi was repeatedly and subtly put down or patronised every time she spoke. And for people questioning her presence in the discussion, I believe all her films were critically acclaimed. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

She made some really valid points including having a (seemingly) strong female character just for the sake of it. But no one spoke about it.

I found Vetrimaran defending himself especially when she said something, even when she didn’t particularly mean his movies. Why didn’t he open his mouth when Parthiban said small movies should be given their space and that too when he pointed out that Asuran was released at the same time as otha seruppu?

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I should have probably made this clear at the opening of the discussion — these filmmakers were chosen because they — each one — made a film in 2019. We wanted them looking back at the decade.

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Odiyan Hater

@Shawishwa

Also, Balaji Mohan was the first mainstream filmmaker to enter the OTT space…he indeed would have had better perspective than all the people sitting there but the panel was limited to ppl who made movies in 2019 I guess…

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krishikari

This was an interesting and revealing roundtable. It was uncomfortable to watch their unease with the format. Lakshmi being the only woman was unfortunate. As Tina said she was ignored even when she made a valid point about lack of women characters. This was a question the “manel” should have addressed. (It didn’t help that she expressed herself in a very oblique and cryptic way otherwise. What on earth was her point about caste?) It reminded me of the absolutely horrible way Aditi Mittal was treated in that comedians roundtable some years ago. I really lost some respect for these directors, I wonder how women on their sets are treated. Maybe the props department is in charge of them. There’s an SNL sketch on that.

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Anu

Tina thank you for your comments. I was also wondering if my interpretation of what lakshmi said was wrong after having read the comments. Her flaw appears to be that she is not very adept at conveying her thoughts clearly. However she made some valid points.

I found Vetrimaran very defensive, bearing in mind lakshmi was answering a question on what she felt about the decade that had passed. She was merely articulating a trend she had Noticed.

Plus, is it mansplaining when a female says the movies in the earlier decade had better female characters and the male goes not at all?! I don’t profess to have a thorough knowledge of either but that did cross my mind.

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krishikari

Was this the first FC South roundtable? Question for BR, would you do anything differently next time? Gender balance, drawing out the ones who don’t speak at all?

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Iswarya

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Wrote this thread on twitter so that LR can see it directly. Sure enough she responded and quite gracefully at that:

It's sad that Lakshmy Ramakrishnan squandered the opportunity to raise important questions about the lack of ICCs in the cinema industry, the responsibility of the other men around her to ensure decent female participation as well as representation. Unfortunately, her views on…— Calling Out Stalking (@CallOutStalking) December 26, 2019

She gets too much hate (disproportionate to the flaws in her arguments) both on YouTube and other social media. She did mention that her reverence for the fellow accomplished filmmakers had been mistaken for weakness. There was A LOT of mansplaining, speaking over, bullying and downright ignoring her happening there.

It would have helped if Halitha Shameem had been on the panel too. She checks all the boxes. BR could consider not repeating this experiment of putting one single woman in the room amid so many men.

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Eswar

Tina: I felt Vetrimaran’s observation about Pa.Ranjit was spot on. I didn’t see it in a negative light. And I doubt if Pa.Ranjit would find it offensive. Around the 37.00 mark in his interview with BR, BR asks if Pa.Ranjit is a film maker or a social activist. Pa.Ranjit says he basically tries to be an artist. Without a passion for cinema he couldn’t have entered this field. But what he says through his art is what he finds very important.

When BR turned the question around and asked if he would ever do a movie, without any social activism, as a pure art form. Ranjit insists that his works are indeed art. But then he goes on to say, there is no event in this society without a political background. If something is art only when it is without politics, he calls it Ayyogyathanam. To him, every scene, every idea, every dialogue has an importance. It is a social responsibility to understand this importance. If one understands his society better then he would be able to handle the problems in his stories better is what Pa.Ranjit says.

I view Pa.Ranjith as someone who is very much aware of the politics surrounding his society. It’s possible there are flaws in his world view. Nevertheless, every movie of him is likely to reflect this. From this view, I see Pa.Ranjit as an activist who has chosen Cinema, a medium he is passionate about, to express his politics rather than as a director who occasionally uses political overtones.

—

Regarding the negative titles, I am not sure if it is a new trend. Pollathavan itself is a 1980 Rajini film. Villathi Villain, Pokkiri Raja, Raavanan, Naan Mahaan Alla are other film titles that comes to my mind. It’s probably happening in a cluster now, but not too sure if it’s a new trend though.

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bart

Since I pointed to the Youtube comments on Lakshmi, I thought I will make myself clear and will not try to defend or expand on this further. Its just my thoughts on what I saw when I saw and that’s all to this.

I felt that Lakshmi’s points were either diluted or focused around herself. When Parthiban points to Srinivasan being able to make fun of Mohanlal, she brings her “Aruvi” imbroglio (instead a better comparison would be a Tamizh Padam 1/2 or even Comali which made fun of our Superstar). Her wish to have more female directors (without expanding on it – herself, Sudha Kongara, Pushkar-Gayathri, Halitha Shameem or V. Priya still exist but aren’t mainstream enough perhaps or aren’t given enough chances) or the confusing point on casteism behind the screen (?! – her “blue pillow” explanation wasn’t effective or appeared as an over-generalisation) or even the mentoring (she gave examples of collaboration in malayalam instead) request or the previous decade having better female characters written (really?!) were all superficial or appeared so (to me).

Though she made some good points on women being given namesake importance in commercial movies and increased violence (in titles or in the movie), the sum effect of her trying to appease everyone (by pointing out what she liked in each and everyone around etc) before making her point made the point itself meh.. She didn’t make any striking points compared to what others made – Vetri on web-series and its future; Gautham on multi-casting & web-series; Ratna Kumar on what CV Kumar, Studio Green and Nalaiya Iyakkunar did in past decade; Parthiban on small-budget movies being released in festive time (even there she made a weak counter point on big budget movies & economics which was shot down). So their weaker points got covered up as well.

Her previous image created by her reactions to both “Aruvi” and “Ennama ipdi panringalemma” also contributed to those comments in Youtube I would think. Personally, my interest levels in watching her movies were never great (though I’ve seen couple of her earlier movies) and this interview only strengthens that…

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Senthil S

Surprised at the reactions to the director’s roundtable. Thought lakshmy ramky was very generous and clear in her thoughts, and that Vetrimaaran was unnecessarily condescending and pretentious. It’s obvious that she was talking about the audience reaction to a title like “Asuran.” No one is asking about your interpretation. I also honestly believe that Vetrimaaran’s behavior would’ve been called out and not celebrated it it came from a female director.

I thought this panel desperately needed another female director.

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Varsha Ganesh

Enjoyed the roundtable. Didn’t enjoy the bullying that Lakshmi R was being subject to, especially by Parthepan. He cut her off so many times, unnecessary snide remarks like ‘rowthiram pazhagu’ and ‘ Vijaykanth’ when she is trying to contribute. His contempt was a little too apparent and I was astonished that BR didn’t really step in. Really wish she had bothered to read the room and thought through her talking points instead of rambling on.

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Odiyan Hater

Vetrimaran is obnoxious in interviews… he always acts holier than thou, does a lotta name dropping and gives random references (“I have read a lot and seen a lotta movies so I gonna somehow shoehorn them into the conversation”). Also, he’ll always somehow say some anecdote/incident from his time with Balu Mahendra to intimidate the interviewer or in this case other members of the round table…

Lakshmi Ramakrishnan seems to have a narrow world view and she does one of those horrendous shows on TV but here she was shut down even when she made valid points… Like how big producers are not happy with the returns due to returns from so called blockbusters…hadn’t this been an issue pre release of Bigil as Mersal was seen to have caused loss to thenandal despite being a huge hit…all these things were discussed on this blog itself in the comments section…. yet when lakshmi raised the issue it was seen as such a non issue at the roundtable… And regarding actors salaries… isn’t that also an issue? And Parthiban goes full retard by saying no star asks for more money…. yeah right!!!!

Again, if she feels that there is emergence of caste based geoupism in the industry due to expression of caste on screen it must be addressed… it is possible that all the traditionally dominant castes feel threatened and have grouped up together and all the traditionally marginalized castes have grouped together as both of them fear the other…and Lakshmi had a valid point when she said that the end result of all the caste discussion must be that all the people should be equal/there must be no discussion and it should not be that you wronged us so we gonna wrong you when we get some power…

And regarding Sreenivasan being able to crack a joke on Mohanlal’s Pickle business…. Mohanlal and Sreenivasan aren’t on talking terms till date… they haven’t collaborated since udayanaanu tharam except for oru naal varum… even priyadarshan has openly admitted the feud… Mohanal fans still abuse sreenivasan online (he doesn’t have an online presence i think but he’s abused under links pertaining to him on social media)…

The rift was caused by Udayanaanu Tharam… though Mohanlal was a part of some of the scenes mocking him… he wasn’t told abt many of the scenes beforehand…also he is not a part of some of the scenes mocking him… so with udayanaanu tharam mohanlal underwent the misfortune of having to act in scenes which mocked him without realizing they were mocking him, acting in scenes which mocked him cause it was too late to back out of the movie, and having scenes abt him in the movie that he didn’t know abt until the completion of the movie…. But the movie went on to become a much needed hit for him at the time. Though Sreenivasan and Mohanlal aren’t on talking terms, roshan Andrews who directed the movie seems to have escaped unscathed and has further collaborated many times with Mohanal and has managed to work with him even after giving Casanovva….

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guhan

@Tina Her points about women representation? She said before 2000, women representation was better, the century known for putting archetypal femme fatale and silku sumitha. Only handful of movies can escape from that century. Most of her points are silly and refuted properly. What’s your issue?

This mam calls herself as feminist which is about inequality between genders and speaks for their better representation, yet she criticizes representation of dalits in cinema which is also cuts the same cloth of inequality. This reeks hypocrisy. Also, that comment of her saying ‘I like ranjith films, but..’ feels like ‘ I have a black friend, so I can’t be racist’. She needs to understand that patriarchy and castism goes together. Intersectionality is the way to go.

Your comments about vetri’s views is your own opinion but he atleast tried to give the reason to his views unlike her. May be someone like Pushkar gayathri or kongara wouldve been better.

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https://www.filmcompanion.in/tamil-directors-roundtable-lakshmy-ramakrishnan-on-a-missed-opportunity-vetri-maaran-parthiban-rathna-kumar-chezhian-gautham-vasudev-menon-baradwaj-rangan/amp/

Lakshmy Ramakrishnan writes about the round table:

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Jeyashree

It was an interesting..but it was a terrible show from vetrimaran who is all out to put out all that he knows …he cut in many times when others were speaking..we get that you are good in your art and that you are well read…but he couldn’t help jumping up like the annoying first bencher keen to show off….and boy that smirk on his face when speaking to LR..I am no fan of LR’s interviews or her avatars besides as a director and actor..it was her mistake for not being able to get her points across…may be she hadn’t aligned her points in her head well or she was too carried away with pleasing the others…but she deserved as much tolerance as was meted out to the moodiness of gvm, the shy silence of chezhiyan, the deliberately quirky repetitive points of partheiban and the fanboy statements of rathna Kumar…..

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krishikari

Re. This article by Lakshmi Ramakrishnan.
Now, I’d like to see one of those men at that table explain as honestly their rude and dismissive attitudes towards Lakshmi. That’s not going to happen because they don’t get trolled or called out. Even here, very few seem to have really seen the bullying for what it is.

Please don’t put women in this position on panels in future! It was really unfair. FC should have learned this lesson after the Comedian roundtable. But it gets more eyeballs or whatever the cynical term is.

Sorry but I am really sad and angry that she felt she had to write this. Most of all that she had to couch each of her statements in appeasing tones because she has to go back and struggle to get films made in this industry. And she is a woman from a rather privileged background, imagine women with less “social capital”.

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Tina

Thank god there are others who felt that there was a bullying air in the discussion.

Krishikari: leave alone a statement. Honest to themselves, they wouldn’t even realise that they were subtly bullying. That’s the bigger issue I have. The biggest is that most of the comments troll her. Ok, she didn’t make a whole host of valid points. Yet, the behaviour from these seemingly civilised, look-at-how-strong-my-women-characters are directors boils my blood. No more of my dollars for these directors.

Rangan sir, I ageee with Krishikari – please don’t put women in such position in the future. Oru basic respect kodukka mudilaina ivanga-laan enna padicha manushanga.

I sincerely wish continued flops for this breed.

Yours extremely angrily.

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Rajesh Arumugam

@BR – The roundtable was good. On a side note w.r.t the point made by Lakshmy Ramakrishnan – What is your thought on Lakshmi’s comment “Celebrating a movie like Aruvi which has flaws like usage of caste words like Paapathi without a solid justification” ? Do you see it as just one of the important flaws of the movie? In the future if such things repeat, would you think twice ?

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Aadhy

I too felt a condescending vibe from VM and Parthiban, as though Lakshmy crashed into their locker room talk. Vettri’s defense for the title ‘Asuran’ was unnecessary, as it seemed like she was only making an observation about the trend of traditionally unconventional sounding titles, not exactly making a good vs. bad judgement on them. But the same can’t be said about the other two issues she raised – violence and casteism in Tamil cinema, in which i found a bunch of her comments to be problematic.

1) Her opinion about violence indicates that she’s repelled by it. Fair. But when she adds ”from a woman’s point of view” , It makes her sound like she’s making a sweeping generalization that women are averse to on-screen violence. Isn’t this just reinforcing the familiar & sexist ‘women and family audience won’t like it’ drivel that directors make when talking about pushing boundaries w.r.t depiction of violence and sex? It is also problematic that she refuses to address intersectionality when positioning herself as a champion of women’s representation in cinema. I wouldn’t have found this problematic if not for her comments on casteism, which brings me to the next issue.

2) Her comments about casteism in the discussion, as well as her follow-up explanation in the FC article, sound vague. It’s still unclear whether she’s worried about the casteist groupism behind the screen or representation of castes on the screen. On one hand, she gives an example about blue cushions being misinterpreted as promoting Ambedkarite politics. On the other hand she makes ‘I have black friends’ kind-of disclaimers (“I love Ranjith’s and Mari Selvaraj’s movies”), and considers naming a character in Aruvi as “paappathiyamma” (meaning brahmin woman) to be brahmin-bashing. I don’t understand how that is an attack on brahmins, or a personal attack, or an attack on anyone at all. That character is never ridiculed or judged for her name, nor shown to be all evil. If the problem is that of giving the name “paapathiyamma” to a character that plays personal assistant, then this view is infact what is problematic. I believe her objection is more to the depiction of the TV show and its host in Aruvi, which is a barbed parody on her show Solvathellam Unmai. She has expressed her discomfort about the parodying of this show even when Aruvi had just released. Now Solvathellam Unmai is a ridiculously regressive show, which tops in both classism and misogyny. Taking a holy high ground and issuing moral directives to the less-privileged while simultaneously exploiting them for show ratings, she repeatedly character-assassinates/borderline slut-shames middle & lower-class women, advices them on ‘loyalty’, reinforces patriarchal notions of the ‘man’s role’ in a relationship. At the cost of sounding a mansplainer, I can’t take her seriously as a feminist transcending class, caste and sexuality spectrums, even if she is the only representative of women on that table. And mocking this ‘katta panchayat’-like show isn’t attacking her caste, but rather calling out her caste&class privilege.

Next, Aruvi isn’t about caste, atleast not mostly. Asuran, and Ranjith’s films (directorials and productions) are. So when she is talking about having problems with ‘casteism creeping into cinema’ and her assistants being influenced by it, and gives a time-context by adding the word ”recent”, people would think she has a problem with the new-wave Dalit assertion in the narratives of tamil cinema, even with all her disclaimers. Because of her time-context, she removes any possibility of interpreting her critique as one on dominant-caste-glorifying narratives like Chinna gounder, Ejaman, Periya Marudhu or Sandakozhi, but rather on only the dalits-fight-back narratives like Asuran, Maveeran kittu etc, which are a post-Ranjith phenomenon. As BR brought it up, with how dalits have historically been portrayed with a dominant-caste gaze in tamil cinema, there’s bound to be a strong counter voice to call out the oppressor (‘punching up’ in comedy), which to her might seem like ‘reverse casteism’, but is actually a call for equality, claims to their rights and representation.

As I said, I also found Vettri ‘schooling’ her about the title to be patronizing, when she had barely completed making her observation on the recent trends in titles. I don’t think Vettri has a sound understanding of the caste-critique in Tamil cinema either, and I have my problems with his commodification of atrocities on dalits in Asuran. Overall, I wish they’d spent more time on discussions on these topics as well as their crafts so that they could articulate better, instead of so much about OTT platforms, release dates and heroes. Though how many in this table would be willing to engage in such discussions is a question that still remains.

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Varsha Ganesh

It was all too familiar and a little heartbreaking to see that response article by LR. Women have time and time again had to apologise for taking a seat at the table and bend over backwards to prove to others that they belong there. This incident is no different. How is it that when we understand the need for D&I when it comes to underprivileged caste groups but not for women? Inclusion means being a little patient and empathetic with those who haven’t had the sort of access (to opportunities/resources/mentors) while they catch up. It’s funny that it’s exactly those who would consider themselves ‘woke’ when it comes to caste have trolled and bullied her. ‘Wokeness’ is just performative if it’s not universal and extends only to one subgroup.

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therag

This whole discussion felt pointless to me because there was a lot of ranting and wishful thinking but very little analysis. I’ll give some brownie points to Lakshmi Ramakrishnan because she raised some interesting points at least, which the others mostly ignored.

Pathiepan, as usual, kept harping about “chinna padangal” and how the big films are ruining his dreams.

GVM was totally not interested and was probably wondering how many houses he had to sell after ENPT’s failure.

Chezhiyan, mostly mute. He did support OTT because his films have a better chance of being seen which is a fair point.

Rathna Kumar, I don’t remember what he contributed to the conversation.

Vetrimaran, hijacked the conversation completely. Wasted a lot of time defending himself and his film. I really like his films and even like his interviews with BR (all of them), but a roundtable discussion is not the place to defend yourselves. If he felt LR’s comments were pointed towards him, the smart and mature thing to do was to shut up and then take it up with her afterwards. Or you know, just consider it as an opinion of a peer and leave it at that. After all, Asuran was one of the biggest blockbusters this year so he didn’t need any validation.

LR, I liked some of her tangents but she was not able to articulate them well. For example, when the others were bashing the star films that release on festival days ( How does Vetrimaran get to do that? His last two films were with Dhanush and they released in October close to Dussshera, a great time for Tamil films), LR rightly pointed out that the bigger films don’t always break even. Implicit was the point that the fate of the industry was tied to the performance of the big films, roundly ignored by the table.

What this table needed was a truly commercial director like Muragadoss, Atlee or Siruthai Siva, or even Karthik Subburaj to represent the other side. Even Selvaraghavan might have been a great choice since he had a very interesting decade, making some truly audacious films and ending with the very commercial NGK.

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Rajesh Arumugam: usage of caste words like Paapathi without a solid justification…

A character in ARUVI uses the word “pappathi” to disgrace a Brahmin.
A character in KADHAL uses the term “eena jaathi payale” to disgrace a Dalit.

I don’t see that there’s a difference. These are deliberately chosen words used by those specific characters.

Are these “caste words”? Yes.

But should they not be used in cinema, by fictional characters? I guess that’s an individual call.

I have no issues with anything being shown on screen as long as the narrative (the characterisation, etc) supports it.

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shaviswa

I agree with some of the comments above. LR was let into a pack of dogs let loose. That was sheer bullying of a lady who is not a well established film maker. She has been making some small films with the limited resources at hand. She was clearly feeling intimidated and the attitude of the other directors especially Vetri Maran and Parthiban was not helping her in anyway.

I have found her to be usually very articulate. But in this she seemed cornered and she was clearly struggling to think clearly.

BR – maybe you should have had a different criteria select the panel. What is it about having a film released in 2019 to be part of this panel? Sudha Kongara could have been included as well given that she had a very successful Vikram Vedha and is now directing another big film. And LR would not have felt left alone in the crowd.

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vogon

Someone commented on YT that at least there was no Arjun Reddy reference, but that could be because this video itself is the new Arjun Reddy.

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Purple Sky

I understand completely about the imposter’s syndrome and being the only woman on a meeting table. No matter what you do, you will always be categorized as someone on the either spectrum of extremes. Either you are too aggressive (never assertive) or you are accused of not contributing enough. In this particular scenario looks like madam’s reputation to stir a hornet’s nest preceeded her. Right from the beginning it looked like the entire table was wary and was on the defensive even before she started speaking a word. And madam was also on the defensive overexplaining her points and being apologetic for every statement she made… Her points (taken as points alone) are very valid statements and concern. How many parents would have voiced this opinion in a dinner table discussion? (regarding violence). Like another commentor or said it is necessary to have more than 1 woman on the panel. But if there are only two movies directed by women in a year, what can BR also do?

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lapogadnan

@shavishwa: Sudha kongara had nothing to do with Vikram vedha..

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krishikari

@aadhi I quite agree with you on some of the things Lakshmi said. She showed a lack of awareness of the nuances of caste power balance.

Aruvi was a rarity, an exceptional film with so many interesting female characters. Maybe LR meant more visibility for female characters, regressive or not, in the past whereas now there are barely there in most films which center on groups of men doing things. (I’m not sure, this is my impression, I actually only watch the rare highly praised films)

Her opinions should have been discussed not ignored and that basic disrespectful attitude was the problem with this roundtable. I did not have such a problem with Vetri Maaran because at least he engaged. I was just surprised to see him interrupt and trying to hog all the screen time because in one on one interviews he comes across as such a personable guy.

Anyway roundtables can be a lot of fun to watch and dissect but I see that they can be quite tough to plan and moderate.

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Rajesh Arumugam

Thanks BR for the reply.

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shaviswa

@lapogadnan

My bad. I meant to say Irudhi Sutru. 🙂

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romanticrealistchronicles

Commenting here after very long to say that if you are the only brahmin/UC in a roomful of non-brahmins you don’t get to play the woman/victim card esp. when as one of the comments above mentioned, her own show is chockfull of bitchy savior-syndrome casteist misogyny.

I was as incensed as vetrimaran when she said asuran represents evil. and I will tell you why he cut her off because literally EVERY. SINGLE. REVIEW. (except one by a dalit for silverscreen and one by dhanya for news minute) of the movie so far talks about how asuran represents inner evil and how this is a blood debt of violence that you will give to your children no matter what cause you are evil/violent on the inside no matter how much you try to run from it.

Completely ignoring the nuance that reciprocal violence of a bahujan is incomparable to atrocities perpetuated by the UCs. This is like the right-wing people who are currently obsessing over “public property” and that one bloody burning bus instead of the reasons and causes for the NRC+CAA protests and the kids and old ppl who are shot at by the police opening fire.

If somebody kept tambrahmsplaining MY movie’s title to ME I sure as fucking hell would cut in and tell her to STFU. That vetrimaran was patient enough to smile and explain (while I am sure bubbling with anger inside) is an achievement in itself.

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Voldemort

Varsha Ganesh : It was all too familiar and a little heartbreaking to see that response article by LR. Women have time and time again had to apologise for taking a seat at the table and bend over backwards to prove to others that they belong there. This incident is no different.

Word!

I thought Parthieban was not mansplaining, it was his usual, quirky nature from what I’d seen in interviews, award functions, and the like. It seemed very much in line with the character of the man. And when he interjected with Rowthiram pazhagu, I thought it was genuinely very funny.

Vetrimaran too was respectful in the beginning, methinks, when he disagreed about women’s representation. It was only as time passed he began becoming dismissive. I am all in for respectfully disagreeing with someone, but one has to be careful on where to toe the line between discussing the subject and dismissing the person because they don’t agree with your worldview. It was mansplaining, there’s no two words about it.

Also, Iswarya, can you share a picture/as text, the tweet from you to Lakshmi Ramakrishnan and her reply to it for those of us who aren’t on twitter? Thanks in advance.

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Tina

Romanticrealistic: inner evil is not a positive thing. The word is still negative. There are WAY more movies in this decade with negative words for titles. Vetrimaaran didn’t give her a chance to finish.

Ok, you know Lakshmi is a Brahmin. But it looks like you know for a fact that no one in that table is a UC. Caste sniffing much?

STFU-nu sollirkalamaam. Illa, try daan paanirkatume.

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Amit Joki

I feel bad about criticizing Vettri but he should have done what VJD did with the Actors Adda. If VJD had gone on full defensive, this interview is what we would have got.

Kudos to VJD on that. I felt LR was slyly targetting Vettri with her points while saying she respects him. Vettri should have not gone on defensively but this proves he is only human.

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Iswarya V

December 31, 2019

Voldemort:

Hi, here’s the whole of my (rather long) thread compiled together: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1210284642919600129.html

As for her response, it’s all screenshots because her reply was in fragments. It’s a format problem with Twitter’s QT feature. I have no idea how to post images here. Can mail them to anyone who wants it if you drop a “Hi” to antistalkingpetition (AT) GMail. Sorry if that is too much trouble.

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romanticrealistchronicles

December 31, 2019

@Tina: “inner evil is not a positive thing. The word is still negative.”

Um that is literally what I am saying?

Caste sniffing? what sick language is this? I was caste neutral for the first 30 years of my life before I got shocked into reality. Everyone sees caste. In everything. All the time. Why shouldn’t I? lol.

If I meet Lakshmi I will surely tell her to STFU don’t worry.

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