(by G Waugh)
In one interview to an American Journalist in 1958 to a question on mankind’s relationship with technology, Jawaharlal Nehru spoke about a curious incongruence that came to characterize man’s attitude in the last century– the speed of technological progress far outstripping the pace of his spiritual development that had resulted in the demonstration of absolute immaturity when it came to the question of his handling of the grand, earth-shattering inventions that he had so painstakingly brought about. I was reminded somehow of a scene in the 2010 Hindi film Shor in The City where a little boy toys with a plastic explosive with the wonderment and intrigue a boy of his age would associate with something like a remote-controlled car.
Endhiran, released exactly a decade earlier, talks about this crucial enigma of man’s inability to handle his own burgeoning intelligence and for a multi-crore film starring Rajnikanth and Aishwarya Rai, to pick a tricky subject as this, was itself a great achievement. But more than what it tries to say, what struck me odd with Endhiran is the way how it tries to. It needs no reminding that Endhiran is the rarest among Shankar’s films (apart from Boys) that doesn’t have a flashback and is one of the very few among commercial entertainers to employ so much linearity in the narrative- sometimes to a fault.
The film talks about Artificial Intelligence and its far-reaching capabilities including that of accomplishing life-saving tasks that require precision and quick foresight. All of these are still new concepts to the Tamil audience even a decade after the film released, but what baffles me most about Endhiran is the completely old-fashioned approach that it brings to its screenplay.
Every single scene of Endhiran, if you notice has a ‘defined purpose’, a beginning, a core part and a conclusion.There are virtually no abrupt cuts or loose ends in any of the scenes that are left to be tied later. No flash-forwards or jumps or parallel scenes can be spotted and I am reminded of the MGR-Sivaji era dramas where films were pretty much photographed stage-plays with no use for cinematic skills such as ‘editing’.
When Vaseegaran introduces Chitti to a Science Exhibition, the scene begins when all the audiences have assembled, filled with intrigue and anticipation (beginning) continuing with questions asked by them to test its intelligence that follows displays of sporting and dancing skills (core/middle) and culminates with a question on God where Chitti points a finger at its Creator Vaseegaran to confirm its ‘belief’ (conclusion). Almost all scenes in Endhiran follow this ‘pedantic’ approach to screen-writing like how a non-Hindi speaker trained in Hindi through the Prathamic-Visharadh-Praveen route would address an audience for the first time in the newly learnt language.
When Vaseegaran takes up the task of drilling the Robot with ‘feelings’ after it gets rejected by Prof. Bohra, a montage of Chitti’s ‘metamorphosis’ begins with a crash course of books in the British Council library, leading up to the installation of ‘software’ hormones by Vaseegaran. It continues with scenes that show the passage of time indicated by Vaseegaran’s growth of beard, lectures that happen with scribblings on all four walls of his laboratory with a final one-on-one session on a meadow located outside Vaseegaran’s place at night time. It is here that Vaseegaran tries to define what is meant by ‘life’ giving examples like Sodium and Bacteria and the next day, Chitti’s ‘rebirth’ happens completing its successful transformation into a Robot with ‘human’ feelings. If you notice, even this montage does not move smoothly with a simple segue to the final scene of the next day, where Vaseegaran in the company of Sana, is surprised to find out that Chitti has somehow made it through-to become a ‘human’ finally. The night scene at the meadow is simply thrust with a ‘conclusion’ which is not needed at all, in the form of a lightning that strikes an unsuspecting Chitti from the skies, out of the blue. And during this montage that compresses the passage of a lot of time, the screenplay is so focused on what is being shown, that the lives of others such as Sana and Bohra, both of whom form an integral part of the film’s core narrative, are not given even a few diversionary glimpses. It is this obsession to structure the sequences ‘properly’ with all its ‘sub-components’ in place throughout the film, eschewing any ‘rebellious’ attempts to parallelise the narration that struck me curious with Endhiran. When there is so much fun to be had in what is being told in Endhiran, a complete lack of it with respect to how it is being told, made me suspect whether the dull martinet, Vaseegaran too was consulted in the writing of the screenplay. However this paradox in some ways even mimics the core philosophy of the movie – man’s intellectual cretinism when it comes to handling high-end technology reflecting Shankar’s outdated technique to narrate a story with new, ground-breaking high-concepts.
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But Endhiran cannot be faulted for what it is, since it knew exactly about what it was doing then. Shankar is a film-maker who wants to reach every corner of a heterogenous State like TN and this old-fashioned method was the reason why it did well all over the state, appealing to almost all ages. And to add further, this old-fashioned method is the very reason why this film still holds a bit of ‘charm’ for people like me who were increasingly being repelled over the last few years by the ‘Hari/KV Anand’ brands of cinema that preferred ‘pace’ and ‘shock’ over basic things such as character development and tonal consistency.
Even if the method is boring and outdated, Endhiran’s screenplay is still good in the way that it respects the content as well as the audience to whom it is speaking to. MGR- Sivaji era dramas too still hold up well for the same reason – they never took for granted the masses that had assembled in throngs to witness them and made sure they gave one thing or the other for them to munch – songs, good dialogues , performances and sometimes even the stunts and the set-pieces. And all of this points to only one factor that is a rarity in Tamil cinema nowadays- the writer. Almost all yesteryear films of the black-and-white era had influential screenwriters who transitioned from stage-plays into cinema and this factor ensured that the audience always got the respect they deserved.
All Shankar’s films up to Vikram’s I had Sujatha sharing credits with him and even a terrible film like Sivaji had some nice ‘writerly’ moments here and there. Endhiran was Sujatha’s last association with Shankar before his demise and from then on, it is only getting too evident that the latter is trying to make up for the loss with his obsession with gimmicks like ‘make-up’ and ‘graphics’. We all know too well that Shankar is fast getting outdated and without a grip on his ‘basics’, it is simply too difficult for him to stage a comeback.
Guru
September 21, 2020
Endhiran still has the charm and nostalgic factor associated with it, whereas Shankar’s latest sequel to it has been already out of everyone’s minds, at least mine. I wish Endhiran was Rajini’s last movie, where he retires on a high note. All movies of him after Endhiran (except Petta to some extent) were middling affairs. I don’t want to even think about his next with Siva.
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KayKay
September 21, 2020
Thanks for another interesting Article GW! I’ve waxed lyrical about Enthiran in so many other posts I’ll refrain from doing it here. My fav Rajini film in the last decade, and I’ll only disagree with you on it’s linearity being boring and outdated. I found it refreshing because the only thing more abused than slo-mo in Tamil movies is the flashback! I find it as tiresome as screen text and voice-over narration in Hollywood movies.
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Madan
September 21, 2020
Similar views as KayKay. The linearity, thoroughly composed scenes and great soundtrack all make it like a Last of the Mohicans. May not be India’s answer to ET but still a fairly professionally put together coherent movie. Even that’s rare now. Just watch Darbar and see the difference. As I said elsewhere, rapid inter-cutting of scenes is now a fashion in Tamil mass movies to the point where it gets distracting. Endhiran feels like a tale well told, a fairly predictable one told with a predictable arc but a tale nevertheless. And the ambition of the concept itself is worth saying a lot about.
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ravenus1
September 21, 2020
I think Shankar was so worried about the hugely expensive Endhiran going over the heads of the blue-collar core Rajini audience that he deliberately simplified the screenplay to the maximum extent possible. Considering they already had to deal with references to terahertz processors and petabyte RAM, and jokes about IP addresses, it was probably justified.
My only problem with the film was the dead in the water romance angle (Rajini comes across as so avuncular and asexual, you might as well have cast the lady as his daughter / niece) and the abundance of snoozefest song numbers. The best part of the film for me was the casting of Rajini in a gray role, where he got to relive his early days of playing the bad guy in movies. It was also the sole saving grace of 2.0 (‘Your kaal is disconnected’ LOL)
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Bala
September 21, 2020
I remember thinking endhiran was bland, and unimaginative, as the story was predictable, and some science was basic at best. Until I saw RaOne. My respect for the movie went several notches high after seeing how bad it could have been.
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Jeeva Pitchaimani
September 21, 2020
KayKay
“When there is so much fun to be had in what is being told in Endhiran, a complete lack of it with respect to how it is being told, made me suspect whether the dull martinet, Vaseegaran too was consulted in the writing of the screenplay”
“Even if the method is boring and outdated, Endhiran’s screenplay is still good in the way that it respects the content as well as the audience to whom it is speaking to.”
I don’ t think we disagree anywhere here. Only the method is boring and not the film as such. As Madan says, I too liked the ‘professionalism’ in the narration even if it was old-school. As you people say, the way KV Anand-Hari movies have played havoc with the way today’s masala films are made, Endhiran is really refreshing.
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Ravi K
September 21, 2020
I didn’t find the screenplay “boring” or “outdated.” It’s linearity and structural efficiency is a strength, not a weakness. It had none of the typically distracting elements. No interval flashback, and even the presence of Santhanam and Karunas is restrained and doesn’t feel intrusive (and Santhanam’s character advances the story). The only annoying digressions were “Kadhal Anukkal” and “Kilimanjaro” songs. I do agree about the romance having no spark, but that’s a problem with latter-day Rajini films in general. The romance isn’t that interesting in and of itself, but it works because it’s crucial to the plot, and for once not a distraction or an obligatory element. And, of course, Rajini as a scenery-chewing villain in the 2nd half was a fun surprise, not just in the story, but in the sense that we hadn’t seen Rajini in this mode for a long time.
The action scenes haven’t been beaten, except perhaps by Bahubali. Sure, the quality of VFX has improved in Indian cinema since 2010, but the action sequences are so insanely inventive and epic in scope, that it’s easy to forgive some wonky VFX work here and there.
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kaizokukeshav
September 22, 2020
Enthiran was pretty good at being honest to its genre which I loved. The movie was a perfect mix of Sci-fi and Masala … balancing on a thin line of becoming paradoxial (wink). Credit should also go to Sujatha Rangarajan.
There was never a digressing moment from storyline, movie did a good job of differentiating life with AI and robots, there was Shankar’s style entertaining screenplay and the paisa-vasool ‘World Tour” songs in Shankar movies. The big turnoff was the loud Background music in the second half, which is probably Rahman’s weakest moments I know of.
And also the veteran casting (Comparing Sivaji where Shreya was a fresh choice) was a bit turn off even though Aish gave 200% dedication. Movie had fun moments, whenever I hear the lyrics “En neela pallalae…. Unnodu sirippen..”, (“neella pallalle” aka bluetooth) makes me smirk.
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Madan
September 22, 2020
The interesting part about the screenplay is even though the movie Artificial Intelligence had already been made, the mainstream discourse at that time wasn’t about AI and it didn’t yet evoke the jitters it would by around 2014. So Sujata framed the issue as phenomenal cosmic powers being vested in a super-robot and what can happen if it exceeds the power of man himself (Frankenstein). Which is actually a far sighted reference to super-intelligence. AI is expected to exceed the intelligence of man by 2040 or so. Sujata ended the screenplay on a cautionary note similar to what tech gurus like Musk or Gates have been saying too in recent years. In other words, we watched the movie more as sci-fi fantasy then and the deeper AI implications became clearer only a few years down the line. It is very, very rare for a Tamil movie to achieve that prescience, especially on the subject of science & technology.
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Enigma
September 22, 2020
My favourite two Rajini movies in the last twenty years or so happen to be Sivaji and Endhiran. The former is not rated highly both by his fans and critics, but for me it remains the ideal ‘Rajini padam’. Similarly, Endhiran was a brilliant combination of Rajini’s charisma, Shankar’s vision and Sujata’s science fiction. I agree with Guru above, Rajini should have retired after Endhiran. It has been all downhill for him after that.
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Voldemort
September 22, 2020
One of my most favorite scenes in the movie is when Chitti is introduced in a conference, he is asked “Kadavul irukara illaya?”
Chitti- “Kadavula na?”
Random person – “Namma ellarayum padachavar.”
Chitti – “Enna padachathu Dr. Vaseegaran. Kadavul irukaru”
An allusion to the god-like superstardom of Rajini.
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Ram
September 23, 2020
Few scenes/ instances I particularly liked in Enthiran – at the end of the scene where Chitti says ‘Kadavul irukkaru’, Vaseegaran is flattered (Rajini’s reaction here is equally impressive)and they hug each other. Chitti hugs Vaseegaran a moment after Vaseegaran initiates the hug, seeming to suggest that the AI decides on reciprocation as a reaction after it ‘learns’ what is happening to it.
And the scene in saloon where Chitti goes through the telephone directory and greets a person with his name, when he challenges it to say his name out.
And I can almost visualise the words ‘Centrifugal force’ written in Sujatha’s screenplay in the scene where Chitti starts running faster around Vaseegaran when commanded, circularly over the wall, before attempting to stab him.
Classic Sujatha touches!
I have always considered Shankar as, kind of a task master, a project manager, than a creative head or a film maker. More often than not, you would have heard other people from the industry saying about him that he gets what he wants in the end. But that’s about it. He is certainly ambitious, aspiring for perfection in producing a visual grandeur that is unique to him, and for this reason, he is certainly a cut above the rest of his peers. For this reason, I have always reasoned that Dasavatharam would have turned out to be a much better film in terms of visuals and CGI, had Shankar directed it. I think Sujatha and Shankar had a unique camaraderie that made their films click, also as is evident from Shankar’s other films post the demise of Sujatha. In one of a homage speech that Shankar gave in a Sujatha memorial event, he abruptly ends his speech saying how much he missed him. We too miss him dearly Shankar sir, especially in your films.
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