Not a single frame is distinctive, or shows that a major filmmaker is behind the camera. You get the feeling Bala was forced to direct this with his hands tied.
Spoilers ahead…
Just last year, with Adithya Varma, we said Dhruv Vikram makes a confident debut in a faithful, competent, well-crafted remake of Sandeep Reddy Vanga’s Arjun Reddy. And now, we are faced with another remake that claims to “introduce” Dhruv Vikram — that, too, one directed by a famous filmmaker, Bala. Apart from the trivia aspect of a scrapped film being released on its own, Varmaa is significant for a number of reasons. It’s always of interest when a director with a unique style and vision takes on pre-existing material and makes it his own: think Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which opened up the lean/mean Infernal Affairs into something far more operatic, with far more focus on interpersonal relationships. Plus, the story is right up Bala’s alley. He did, after all, make Sethu, the original “tough college senior pines for demure fresher” movie that transformed Dhruv Vikram’s father into a bona fide star.
Read the rest of this article at the link above.
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Baradwaj Rangan 
Priya Arun
October 6, 2020
Isn’t that so sad? And I thought Bala being who he is, would squeeze every bit of sorrow possible for full effect. Maybe he lost interest when he was asked to stick to the original? Maybe he wasn’t interested at all in the first place?
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madhusudhan194
October 6, 2020
Naachiyar (Bala’s previous film) was also surprisingly bland. Is this a season of good filmmakers making bland / ultra generic films? Selvaraghavan (NGK), Imtiaz Ali (JHMS), Mani Ratnam (CCV), Gautham Menon (AYM and parts of ENPT) and now Bala (Naachiyar and this one). Do they try so hard to make it mainstream that they lose their signature storytelling style?
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brangan
October 6, 2020
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H. Prasanna
October 6, 2020
@Priya and @Madhu
You’re right, there is a pattern here, at least broadly, like that of an actor/star. I feel these types of filmmakers’ styles worked at first though they are different from successful films at that time. Then, their commercial/critical success ensures the themes and quirks gets rehashed over and over by others. Now, they go through the motions trying to replicate the mere skin of their brand for commercial/fan value, rather than dynamically recreating their work to suit their changing perspectives of cinema. But, sooner or later, these types of filmmakers get another chance to reinvent themselves, as long as their brand retains commercial/critical value.
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vsrini
October 6, 2020
@madhusudhan19:
That’s a very astute observation on latter-year auteurs making ultra-generic films. Is it creative block? Is it malaise with the craft after too many years in the studio system? Do these directors need new writers/scripts? What is the antidote, I wonder?
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H. Prasanna
October 6, 2020
@BR When she says she is sorry, he makes her apologise to his “penis”. You have to give the scene this much: it has “balls”. Why, then, does it remain so “flaccid”?
Now there is a penis joke that works 🙂 Haha
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H. Prasanna
October 6, 2020
Or should I say allegory?
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Anu
October 6, 2020
Am a bit confused. Wasn’t Aditya varma a remake of Arjun reddy? N did it not star dhruv? Why another one by Bala starring dhruv again? Is there something I am missing?
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sorenkierky
October 6, 2020
@Anu, yes. The producers weren’t happy with Bala’s output (who was the director of choice first after they bagged the remake rights) so they reshot the entire film from scratch with Giresaaya as director (who assisted Vanga in AR). It’s insane really.
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/debut-director-replaces-bala-arjun-reddy-remake-title-changed-adithya-varma-97004
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Raj
October 6, 2020
@Anu: This Varmaa was the first official remake of Arjun Reddy. But the producer was not happy with the final cut and so ordered for a full reshoot with a different team (except Dhruv). That was Adhitya Varma, which hit the theatres last year.
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praneshp
October 6, 2020
@ madhusudhan19: Another explanation is that these directors have run out of ideas, made a couple of movies in their style that sucked, and are now guns for hire.
@Anu: this was the “original” remake. There were creative differences between Bala and the hero (hero’s father, likely) and they shelved it for the remake titled Aditya Varma that released last year.
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madhusudhan194
October 7, 2020
“Do these directors need new writers/scripts?” – I do think that they need to work with new screenwriters. Some like GVM have been repeating the same story with little variations each time. But his craft is still quite solid and is growing with each film. Queen, written by Reshma Ghatala, was so well directed. Even ENPT had some excellent bits of filmmaking. I think he’ll be able to make better films with good material. Directors like Mani Ratnam (since Raavanan) and Selvaraghavan could use talented screenwriters because I feel they take up too much on their plates and struggle to connect the dots smoothly. Again they’re right up there in terms of filmmaking. NGK, Kaatru Veliyidai and CCV are all aesthetically strong and made with a lot of flair. I think Selva also struggled with Surya’s star image in NGK. He’s neither able to play it safe nor go all guns blazing. It resulted in a confusing, indifferent mess. Perhaps Imtiaz and Selva are not good at writing for stars. They have made actors like Dhanush and Ranbir into stars but not good at writing for an actor who’s already a big star. So a good seasoned writer should definitely help there.
I think that’s why filmmakers in Hollywood like Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese have managed to stay strong for so long. They work with excellent writers on stories they connect with and make bloody good films. Despite having made a Goodfellas and a Casino, Scorsese still works with Steven Zaillian for The Irishman. I think that’s clearly missing here.
I don’t know what the hell has happened to Bala. His last two films have looked shockingly listless. Like something seems to have just disappeared. It’s like watching films of two different filmmakers – an assured confident veteran and an amateur.
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brangan
October 7, 2020
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H. Prasanna
October 7, 2020
This is like Oldboy remake by Spike Lee.
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Jallikattu lover
October 7, 2020
Quentin Tarantino said that directors don’t get better with age, they get worse.
While I don’t buy that word to word, he has a valid point. The latter films of a director usually pale in quality. Or, they run out of ideas and repeat themselves. In my opinion, a good director has a 20 year run with a sound mind. If he crosses the 20 year mark without a drop in quality, either he is a great director or he directs terrific scripts but those written by others like Ridley Scott.
Bharatiraja’s Annakodi had the same intention and drive as his other village films, but the craft just wasn’t there. Or his own shortcomings were suddenly more evident like say Sourav Ganguly’s weakness for short balls which reared it’s ugly head at the latter part of his career.
In case of Bala, it’s the crudeness of his films that has been his ‘short balls’. This is not about the crudeness of the material but the crudeness of the form. Strangely, the crudeness would be present in a film like Naan Kadavul but absent in Paradesi, leading us to contemplate if it was intentional.
Seems like Varmaa has answered that question in the negative. Bala, it appears is at the end of his 20-year run. Unless he reinvents himself, he is going to get, as Tarantino puts it, worse with age.
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abishekspeare
October 7, 2020
Has there ever been another case in any industry where the same movie was remade twice around the same time?
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Satya
October 7, 2020
If the ending of Arjun Reddy was opined problematic, Bala’s version made it much worse. I thought Bala would kill him off.
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Aman Basha
October 7, 2020
So Varmaa is less about Aditya Varma and more about how Bala is now turning into the new Ram Gopal Varma?
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sachita
October 8, 2020
“In my opinion, a good director has a 20 year run with a sound mind. ” As a maniratnam fan, it heartens me to see he has crossed that mark. There has been a slump and boxoffice success is elusive lot of times. But no issues with his craft whatsoever.
I am not reading too much into ccv. And Ravananan, kadal – are experiments that failed or didnt hit the mark.
But he is doing very well.
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Pranav
October 8, 2020
“Not a single frame is distinctive, or shows that a major filmmaker is behind the camera. You get the feeling Bala was forced to direct this with his hands tied”
“I would have even settled for a bad “Bala movie”, which would still have made for more interesting conversation than most of our releases”
Though it is true that Bala in this decade is not the same as he was in his staging and shot-making during his “Sethu” times (I have not watched “Paradesi”), his writing still stood up here and there and as BR said, made for interesting conversations
I vaguely remember Mani Ratnam once telling that he would love to JUST direct a film with a full bound script given to him by someone else. With Varmaa’s uncredited screenplay and credited dialogues going to Raju Murugan, probably is that why the writing here does not have the usual Bala-ness & Bala-isms because Bala was not involved in the writing process? Is this how it will be if a visionary director like Bala gets to ONLY direct with the writing material provided by another unique filmmaker?
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Pranav
October 8, 2020
BR’s review on Thaarai Thappattai:
“Foremost among my issues with this director: the jagged cutaways, the oddly spliced in reaction shots, the vague-looking foreigners, the painfully one-note villains, the naked desire to shock the audience…… and most of all, the utter lack of finesse……How can a visionary who’s been making films for so long give us such crude frames? Then again, the Bala apologist in me wonders if this lack of polish is deliberate. Maybe this kind of filmmaking is as much an act of violence as the endings of his films”
LOL I know its unfair to compare thaarai thappattai with Varma (BR after the above passage goes on to say what also made him find thaarai thappattai worthwhile), the bala apologist in me is sorta finding Varmaa slightly worthwhile though hugely imperfect, in a different way
Though most of the scenes in Varmaa covers the main plot lines from Arjun reddy faithfully (the teaser and trailer gave that away) including many of its dialogues being directly translated, I feel the kind of mood and ideology in Varmaa is way different than the original. Sandeep Vanga seemed to say “I know he has issues and he’s a brat, but there is still pain in him which is relatably universal to all, so please empathize”, while Bala is like “He has issues, he’s a brat and he will reap what he sows (albeit in a kinder way than my previous films)”. This is so anti-Arjun Reddy but why not? It is just another different perspective and it properly fits the narrative too
Also one very main thing I like is how Bala never made us root for someone like Varmaa, even during his pitiable moments (the execution was off-mark but that’s a different story), but where Sandeep Vanga did for Arjun reddy ideology wise. Probably Varmaa’s mood and filmmaking mode deserved to be this antagonising and crude respectively, for telling the story of a character & his situations in the most realistic way like this did, rather than glamourising his pain he had brought himself from his infamous and problematic antics in the original. I have not heard of any film being faithful to original plot but having an entirely opposite ideology and mood like this one
Maybe after looking at Bala’s recent films it seems that his crudeness has become his new style perhaps (I have not watched paradesi). I wouldn’t blame him much that he has not brought in his Bala-isms here, since he isnt a part of the film’s writing department. I feel its too much to ask from him in this scenario, however heartbreaking it is compared to his Sethu days
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vijay
October 8, 2020
In terms of longevity, out of the directors who were mainstream in the 80s, only Mani has survived(in the sense he is still able to make movies that can relate to current audiences to some extent), a lot of his 80s contemporaries faded away in the early 90s itself. Pallavi Anupallavi came out in 1982. 38 years and counting..that’s a fabulous Clint Eastwood-esque run. Hope his Ponniyin selvan doesn’t get derailed because of Covid. Not a fan of his films from the last decade, but he seems to be incapable of making outright bad films the likes of which KB/Bharathiraaja made in late 90s/early 2000s
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madhusudhan194
October 8, 2020
“Not a fan of his films from the last decade, but he seems to be incapable of making outright bad films the likes of which KB/Bharathiraaja made in late 90s/early 2000s” – Oh, absolutely! Even in his most unsatisfying films, there are some excellent stretches of filmmaking that puts him on a different league altogether. Like the first half of Kadal, Arjun’s characterization, pregnancy scene in Kaatru Veliyidai, scenes involving the whole family in CCV etc. It’s very hard to dismiss him because you think it is just a matter of time before he gets it right overall.
Like he did in Ok Kanmani. That way, he is right up there with the likes of Clint Eastwood and Roman Polanski. But I think he can work wonders with a good screenplay writer because I feel most of his films in the last decade have failed only on the screenplay front. Fingers crossed for Ponniyin Selvan. Man, if that film bombs, it could end careers.
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vsrini
October 10, 2020
@madhu19:
I’m sorry but as soon as I saw Polanski’s name, I thought “wait, when was Mani Ratnam caught with an underage girl?!”
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madhusudhan194
October 11, 2020
vsrini – I was only talking about his abilities as a filmmaker.
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Jallikattu lover
October 16, 2020
Maybe, it was easier to fire Bala because he was just a director for hire on this.
If Sandeep Reddy Vanga, the original director made this version and it sucked, the producers would have been hesitant but given the money involved they would have been like “Sandeep Reddy Ponga”.
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