This March, we are doing a series on films that are half good and half bad. Or the other way around. I picked Selvaraghavan’s ‘Aayirathil Oruvan’, from 2010.
Plot:
Indian archaeologists have been looking for a lost Chola tribe (yes, those Cholas), believed to have gone into hiding someplace near Vietnam. When one of these archaeologists goes missing, the government puts together a search party, consisting of Anitha (Reema Sen), Lavanya (Andrea Jeremiah) and a ‘coolie’ named Muthu (Karthi), who brings with him a band of mercenaries…
Why the first half doesn’t work:
The search party follows a map and experiences a series of dangers, and all we seem to be seeing is a very derivative Indiana Jones-style entertainer. The creepy-crawly snake attack from Raiders of the Lost Ark is routed through the graph of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where an archeologist-father goes missing, causing the archeologist-child to embark on an expedition retracing his steps….
Read the rest of this article on Film Companion, here: https://www.filmcompanion.in/silly-first-half-great-second-half-aayirathil-oruvan/
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Baradwaj Rangan 
MANK
March 16, 2020
Ayyo this is very small. just an appetizer. i demand a main course on this fascinating film
btw, i don’t agree with the first half bad, second half good logic. the selvaragavan eccentricity that produces brilliance in the second half is also responsible for all those underwhelming stuff in the first half as well, gotta take the bitter with the sweet boss.
I liked the beginning of the film very much; i like Karthi’s introduction scene; the superb re-imagining of atho andha paravai song form the original Ayirathil Oruvan; i also like the unapologetic sexuality, you know the two girls thirsting for Karthi’s body heat and getting it at the same time ; and the dialogues: It’s not wrong if i take off my shirt, it’s wrong only if i take of my pants. Hi hiii
Obviously its derivative; apart from Indian Jones, there are references from Mackenna’s Gold, King Kong, Apocalypse Now, But Selva found a good enough alternative tamil myth or legend to localize the borrowed ideas.The setpieces were rather generic and could have been better. And the climax was very very excessive; god i still find it hard to sit through the rape & murder orgy that is unleashed on screen But the utter crazy brilliance of Parthiban portions and the technical virtuosity are a true standout.
The heroines are terribly miscast , no questions about it, though i have a feeling that no heroine would ever do what Reema Sen does in this film and that may have driven Selva to cast her.
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Anuja Chandramouli
March 16, 2020
I like Selvaraghan but Aayirathil Oruvan has to be one of his weakest films as far as I am concerned. The first half was a joke and the second half was a mess. Sure there were Indiana Jones and other Hollywood actioner references but it seemed to me that the movie was modeled on Wilbur Smith’s sweeping epic adventures complete with gory action, gargantuan stakes and heated sex scenes. What was missing was coherent writing, character development and heavy duty research without which everything suffered.
It is always silly to waste time on inanity if you have heavy duty themes in mind. The fantasy world Selva was trying to build and the history meets legend mythos he was trying to evoke was sloppily done and it shows. The problem with Selvaraghan is that in the early days with films like Kaadhal kondaen, 7G Rainbow Colony and even Thuluvadho Ilamai he showed immense potential even though the films themselves weren’t as good as they could have been and the auteur started to develop a massive artistic ego complete with an unshakable faith in his so – called genius. Ever since he has been making increasingly mediocre, extremely self – indulgent films if he is making them at all. Such a pity! And a complete waste of a real and raw talent.
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anannats
March 16, 2020
@MANK – You can have your main course over here:
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KS
March 16, 2020
@Anuja Chandramouli “…the auteur started to develop a massive artistic ego complete with an unshakable faith in his so – called genius. Ever since he has been making increasingly mediocre, extremely self – indulgent films…”
I couldn’t agree more, and we see this in other directors too. This is exactly my complaint about Myskin. His early movies- like Anjathey or Yuddham Sei- were artfully made, despite possible flaws. They were raw, original, and had atmosphere. He still has the aesthetic sensibility, craft, and that nonchalant humor, and those were always his main strengths. But when it comes to ideas and content, he has his head stuck up his own ass these days. We get it- he’s an arivu jeevi who reads only intellectual stuff (Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Joseph Campbell) and watches only intellectual stuff (Bresson, Kurosowa). But nanga kadaisiya patha english padam sholay. His gratuitous name-dropping has become a meme. But his movies nowdays are just incoherently assembled collages of flashy gimmicks for shock value, and arcane Christian imagery that don’t have much context in our society. As if we don’t have our own relevant home-grown myths and folklore to borrow for symbolism. These guys try to have it both ways- when it suits them they chant “thamizhan da”, but the rest of the time its all “america-la michael jackson kupdango, japan-la jackie chan kuptango”.
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Amit Joki
March 16, 2020
Oh My Kadavule is a very strong contender, though it is by design. You wonder where this all leads to and the echos found in the second half just gave me goosebumps every damn time.
Baddy, I desperately wanted your take on it. It has some beautiful performances by Ritika, Ashok Selvan. A thoroughly enjoyable romance which needed your nuanced review.
The one that’s there on Filmcompanion is devoid of any heart. It is just brains. I think you’d have found lots to write about.
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Kay
March 16, 2020
Link to the article redirecting to Error 404 page, BR
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rsylviana
March 16, 2020
I second Amit Joki. I was waiting eagerly for BR’s take on OMK and Kannum Kannum Kollaiyadithaal too.
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Akash Deep
March 17, 2020
Problem with the link.. desperately want to read the full article.. kindly check..
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brangan
March 17, 2020
Have fixed the link now. Does it work?
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Akash Deep
March 17, 2020
Working, yes! Thank you.
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N Madhusudhan
March 17, 2020
I remember watching this film in theatre when it released in 2010. Back then, we weren’t exposed much to Hollywood. Honestly, we didn’t think the VFX was tacky. In fact the first half was so much fun and all the commercial elements worked big time. Including the songs – Oh eesa in particular. They were so much fun to watch, man. Un mela aasadhan was just an icing on the cake.
It was the second half that was hard to digest because none of us were exposed to the amount of violence, unapologetic sexuality and rawness that was unleashed upon us. We had seen Selvaraghavan films before but this setting made him go further crazy, i suppose. The imagery-driven storytelling just didn’t register at all. We didn’t understand what the hell was going on. It took a while. Only when we understood that, we got to take a real look at the film’s beauty. What once looked like an incoherent mess suddenly came across as a mad masterpiece. We hadn’t seen anything like it before. It was probably that tectonic shift in the film’s tone and how different it was from the other tamil films of that time, that threw the audiences away. Of course, now when you look back at the film, you can see that all the drastic developments in the second half were carefully hinted at in the first half itself.
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