Interview: Kalaipuli Thanu (&#8216;Karnan&#8217;, &#8216;Asuran&#8217;)

Recently there was interview of PL Thenappan (chai with chitra) where he spoke about Aalavandhan troubles. Apparently while Kamal started with medium budget movie, but Thanu wanted it to be big budget movie. So Kamal rewrote the movie and started shooting and midway during the making, Thanu wanted to scale down. Kamal was pissed off and said it can’t be done now due to logistics. What happened later is well known.

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Am I the only one who feels Aalavandhan has dated quite badly? It is so sloppily made. Yes, the ideas are interesting but the making (and I don’t just mean scenes involving bad CG or animation) is so amateurish. I watched it a couple of years back but I don’t think it would have made for a decent watch even 15 years ago. Some songs just pop out of nowhere, the acting in the cringe-worthy flashback portions is horribly OTT, Kamal trying so hard to make the younger one’s character urban and cool that it is painful to watch, a chase sequence that seemed to belong more in one of Kamal-Crazy Mohan collaborations etc. etc.. Anybody else feels it is ultimately just a silly film with showy ideas and terrible execution?

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vijay

aalavandhan was irredeemably bad, could’nt stand even back in 2001. The climax scene with Kamal jumping around bursting cylinders while having ann imaginary conversation was the icing on the cake 🙂

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I believe Aalavandhan was based on a novel written by Kamal in the early 80s. i have not read it, but from whatever Kamal has said about it, i gather that it was closer to Hitchcock’s Psycho, more of a terrifying thriller. So, It should have been made as a small budget film. In its big budget form, it’s a lot of things, but its never thrilling or scary.

I do like some portions of the film, like the psycho Kamal having that moment of phantasmagoria with all those clocks, but yeah, a lot of the film ended up being unintentionally funny. Not to mention one (or two) of Kamal’s worst performances. His instincts totally let him down him on this one.

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Vignesh Selvan

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GvXLSrLXQvc9ajd88

@MANK, yes Aalavandhan was based on the novel “Dhayam” written by Kamal for a weekly(?). The guy who runs the Moving Images YouTube channel scanned and uploaded the entire book. You can read it here

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karzzexped

April 6, 2021

@madhusudhan194 – Aalavandhan has to be the one movie where everyone’s wrong when they say – “Cha. Kamal sar’s movies are so ahead of their time”.

I only recently watched the movie completely since it’s release and boy Pammal K Sambandham was leaps and bounds better than this 3 hour mess.

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April 6, 2021

“Not to mention one (or two) of Kamal’s worst performances” – I completely agree. It surprises me when people include this film along with the likes of Hey Ram and Anbe Sivam – that they were ahead of time or were failed by the audiences. This was just a plain bad film that doesn’t work at any level. Notwithstanding the fact that Tarantino got inspired by the use of animation or whatever. That’s just one stylistic aspect which is interesting as an idea but again looks so bad when you watch it. It has to be the worst film Kamal ever made. I don’t think choosing Suresh Krishna as the director helped his cause. I don’t think the sensibilities match. Kamal could have directed it himself.

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v.vijaysree

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alavandar_murder_case

There was a real Alavandhan murder case in Madras. It didn’t have anything to do with the film, which annoyed so many of us right away.

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“It has to be the worst film Kamal ever made. ” – Once when SEL were asked about their work on Alavandhan, Shankar Mahadevan joked that frankly they didn’t know if even Kamal knew what he was doing.

Exhibit A:

This has the potential to be a terrific avant garde kind of song but the execution is so badly off it becomes unintentional parody.

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“. I watched it a couple of years back but I don’t think it would have made for a decent watch even 15 years ago.” – I didn’t back in 2001 and I don’t know many who did. Before joining this community, I didn’t realize Alavandhan actually had a cult following because it was, like Baba, Kamal’s version of Ramgopal Varma ke Aag.

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Satya

Madan: Baba wasn’t this disjoint. Surely it was a dry subject and isn’t always watchable. But it definitely has a screenplay which never sags. On a side note, we really did come a long way from there – the way Rajinikanth’s characters are written now, the man is making attempts to suit our times within his extraordinary constraints.

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I think Baba is another case of a good material (at least, a good premise) stuck with people who didn’t have the sensibilities that it demanded. On paper it is so fascinating and Rajini was the perfect guy to play it. Again, it was written and made badly. I would still rate Baba a notch above Aalavandhan. At least it entertains in parts.

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I guess confusion is the perfect word to describe Aalavandhan. You may like or hate Hey Ram and Virumaandi, but Kamal is very clear in his objectives about those films, and he achieves them successfully. Here, he’s caught between cooking up a big, splashy ‘Shankar’ style spectacle- big song & dance numbers, special effects- from a story that’s too small and intense to carry those ingredients. The entire climax was laughably bad, all that jumping from buildings and playing with gas cylinders.

I don’t think choosing Suresh Krishna as the director helped his cause. I don’t think the sensibilities match. Kamal could have directed it himself.

I don’t think Suresh Krishna had any idea what this film was all about, just like he didn’t had any idea what Rajni wanted to do with Baba. of course, when Kamal himself is so confused, you can’t blame this poor guy. At least on Baba, Rajni was clear about what he wanted to do: he wanted to create something that reconciled his real life, spartan ‘Yogi’ avatar with the stylish, demi-god like screen avatar. It was supposed to be Rajni’s big ticket for his political entry. But Rajni is not a filmmaker, and he doesn’t know exactly how to make this fusion work, hence he had to depend upon SK to properly execute it, it goes without saying that SK was not the guy for this ‘fusion’ business. That’s why the more entertaining portions of the film is where Rajni is playing star to the hilt.

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One thing i have noticed is that Kamal does not direct films in which he plays more than one role. The three films he directed, and the two- Marudunayagam and Marmayogi- which were abandoned midway, has Kamal playing only one role. I think it’s too much of a burden for him to do multiple roles in front and behind the camera at once. Hence he need dummies like SK and KSR to make Aalavandhan and Dashavatharam.

Also, I believe that Kamal is not very good at making big budget movies. Whether it’s Vikram or Aalavandhan or Dasa, he tends to loose his focus. His best movies like Aboorva sahodharargal, Tevar Magan, Virumaandi etc. are all medium budget films. Hey Ram is an exception though, but the big budget of the film was necessitated by the subject, which was not the case with other films

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“Baba wasn’t this disjoint.” – That is to be expected because unbridled Kamalism is inherently disjointed most of the time. He hits the bulls eye on Hey Ram and Virumaandi and literally nowhere else.

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“His best movies like Aboorva sahodharargal, Tevar Magan, Virumaandi etc. are all medium budget films. ” – Also, at least on AS, he got inputs from others. As Singeetham has said, Kamal started with a dwarf idea and it was Panju Arunachalam who pushed him to make it a triple action. Both Panju and Raja asked Kamal to tone down the violence. So…we probably lost a more adventurous outing in the bargain. But we also didn’t land up with an Alavandhan and instead got a very focused film. In a way, you could say Virumaandi’s success spoiled Kamal because after that, it seems like he believes he doesn’t need these collaborators. But he does and he is prone to going haywire without them. Post Virumaandi, at best he could pull off Viswaroopam 1 which was a tight but rather generic action film. At worst…part 2 of that franchise itself.

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” it goes without saying that SK was not the guy for this ‘fusion’ business.” – Like P Vasu, SK is essentially a storyteller rather than a ‘director’. And even his less wild outings like Veera can be pretty flabby. So these sort of projects were just begging for a disastrous outcome.

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therag

@Madan, lol what is wrong with the “kadavul paathi” video man? You can’t just say “bad execution” and leave it at that. Lots of material to choose from if you wanted cringeworthy scenes from Alavandhan, but not this video IMHO. The whole subplot with Urmila (that kaattu puli song, the hotel scene), the extended Balloon fight (Lingaa has nothing on Aalavandhan).

I guess this is like that other thread a few years back when some poster was seriously claiming that Rajni’s performance as Alex Pandian was way better than Kamal’s performance in Apoorva Sagodharargal.

Aalavandhan is definitely an “ideas” film and I don’t think any filmmaker could have executed that script well but I don’t think it is in the same tier of “bad films” as Baba. A perfectly executed Baba is still a pretty mediocre film. Not even Mani Ratnam can make a good film with “Ippo Ramasamy” and Amrish Puri’s Saamiyar getup.

Trim Aalavandhan by 40 minutes and you have a terrific film. All the bad parts are pretty much Kamal-excess (if you want to know what Kamal really gets off on, all you need to do is watch this one) so what we need is an actual director’s cut without any influence from Kamal. Like we’ve rehashed several times, Kamal’s worst enemy is himself.

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Also, at least on AS, he got inputs from others.

Correct. the same goes for Tevar Magan too. he got help in fleshing out the screenplay. On Hey ram too, he was collaborating with Manohar Shyam Joshi. Virumaandi was a one man show, and as you said, perhaps the success of the film gave him wrong ideas.

Like P Vasu, SK is essentially a storyteller rather than a ‘director’.

That’s a very good way of putting it. SK can pull off a Satya and Baasha, but not Baba or Aalavandhan

KSR can pull off an Avvai shanmughi, but not Dasavatharam.

Except for his comedies, Kamal needs directors not storytellers.

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“I guess this is like that other thread a few years back when some poster was seriously claiming that Rajni’s performance as Alex Pandian was way better than Kamal’s performance in Apoorva Sagodharargal.” – That was Anuja and she is a hardcore Rajni fan. I am not. Edhavdhu camp-la epoddhavdhu irundhapa only Kamal camp. I am sorry but Kadavul Paathi was super-duper painful to listen and watch. Bad composition, bad singing, bad choreography, bad everything.

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Aman Basha

I think when it comes to Kamal, Singeetham is really under rated. More than as a director, he seemed to have a healthy effect on Kamal and reining in some of his usual tendencies (excursions into whatever topic of the day buzzes in Kamal’s head). Much of the people who’ve worked with Kamal on his better work have either kicked the bucket or retired and he doesn’t seem to have built a rapport with anyone today who neutralizes him as Singeetham and others did.

Also, Appu Raja is in no way low budget, neither is Vishwaroopam (as generic as it was). In fact, it might be the ultimate irony that Kamal might end making bigger hits than Rajni, what with Shankar & Lokesh Kanagaraj vis-à-vis Siva.

As for Abhay, it makes sense why it is a cult film; it perfectly fits all the requirements and with the Kamal fans receiving vindication that Tarantino himself ripped off Ulaganayagan, there’s no stopping them. One thing I’ve never understood is how Baba, a Abhay like big flop, barely dented Rajni while Abhay seemed to completely destroy Kamal’s stardom.

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“One thing I’ve never understood is how Baba, a Abhay like big flop, barely dented Rajni while Abhay seemed to completely destroy Kamal’s stardom.”

I think the news of Rajini compensating for Baba’s losses made people look at him as that ultra-generous large-hearted virtue incarnate that Rajini played in his films before Baba. So the distributors didn’t think twice before buying his films for a huge price. But Kamal continued his experiments in the first half of 2000s and except Virumandi and his comedies, they all tanked at the BO. Plus Rajini made a huge comeback with Chandramukhi that completely destroyed Mumbai Express.

“Aalavandhan is definitely an “ideas” film and I don’t think any filmmaker could have executed that script well but I don’t think it is in the same tier of “bad films” as Baba. A perfectly executed Baba is still a pretty mediocre film. Not even Mani Ratnam can make a good film with “Ippo Ramasamy” and Amrish Puri’s Saamiyar getup.”

Baba was not perfectly executed at all. It was equally bad in execution as Aalavandhan, if not more. Also, if Mani Ratnam had made it, neither would there be a character called “Ippo Ramasamy” nor would Amrish Puri appear in that get up. It had the potential to be a solid masala film but it required a person with Rajini’s sensibilities and Karthik Subbaraj’s craftsmanship. Back in 2002, that person didn’t exist. The whole spiritual angle lacked conviction.

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“Also Appu Raja is in no way low budget” – MANK means in comparison to a film like Vikram. Yes Viswaroopam was not low budget, but Viswaroopam also wasn’t such a spectacular success as Appu Raja nor a classic. I do agree ofc that Singeetham was able to rein in Kamal. I think the combo of Kamal and Crazy Mohan had the capacity to be both hilarious and excessive and Singeetham reined in the excesses. Even he didn’t completely succeed on MMKR (see the climax). But Appu Raja was note-perfect.

“One thing I’ve never understood is how Baba, a Abhay like big flop, barely dented Rajni while Abhay seemed to completely destroy Kamal’s stardom.” – Because Kamal fans are interested in his work rather than in Kamal the person; there is no Rajni-like breaking the fourth wall dimension with Kamal movies though some like BR himself read references to older films in Kamal’s dialogues. If Kamal makes a bad movie, they will slap themselves on the head. If he makes one, two, three more bad movies, they will start losing faith in him. They are fans BECAUSE they expect good things from a Kamal movie. With Rajni, the reaction of his fanbase to the Baba flop was that they would never let another Rajni film flop! 😀 You can’t fight that kind of commitment. It’s almost bordering on masochism.

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H. Prasanna

“Because Kamal fans are interested in his work rather than in Kamal the person …. with Rajni, the reaction of his fanbase to the Baba flop was that they would never let another Rajni film flop!”

@Madan As a Rajni fan at that time, Baba was a pretty satisfying movie for me in the sense you mention here. In fact, I still believe Baba is the most personal movie Rajni has made and because of that it is an important movie for his fans. The movie tried something Rajni has not tried since: trying to make his fans/people understand the psyche behind his entry into politics, his relationship with spirituality, and fulfilling his perceived duty to his people using political clout/power. It was executed badly and other areas of the film sucked, but that did not take anything away, at least for me, from the movie.

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therag

@Madan, Whatever man. All I’m hearing is “I don’t like anything about this song so this song bad”. I’m not a Kamal fan or “Aandavar” fan as he seems to be called nowadays. If you told me Viswaroopam 2 was a hot pile of garbage I’d wholeheartedly agree with you.

I didn’t say Baba was perfectly executed (lol). I said, “In the alternate universe where Baba is perfectly executed by a ManiRatnam calibre director, it is nowhere near the great masala classic you guys are making it seem.” I also said, “In the alternate universe where saner forces prevailed and Aalavandhan was more constrained, or hey, if an editor were tasked with making a better cut of Aalavandhan in this very universe, he/she/they could make a pretty solid film out of it”.

On another note, Baba, after the events of last December, can be viewed as a comedy. If that is the angle you are going for, I can see your point.

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therag : I don’t know what elucidation you require from me here. I find the very concept of Kamal giving voice over to himself singing this mad cap rapping and doing awkward jump steps repulsive. Or rather I should say, unintentionally amusing, in a who tf thought this was a good idea way. And as if that is not enough, without warning, the song segues into a high Shankar Mahadevan part and a group of male dancers appear. Almost like cine artist union demanded at least one scene for the group dancers! From start to finish, the song is both composed and picturised in such an amateurish way the mind boggles to read who all have contributed to it.

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Venky Ramachandran

@Madan Have you and others considered how inconsiderate you have been to my “Aaalavandan” feelings :)? When the movie was released in 2001, I was in my teens. I was so gobsmacked by this song that out of impulse I went to the nearby barber and tonsured my head, simply to revel in the “abhay” zone. Do you know the titanian wrath I earned from my conservative father during those times:) Till date, I can sing this song as an exact carbon copy of how kamal sang this song and emoted it. I recently taught this song to my year old son, much to his amusement of his clown dad, who was named “Abhay Bharadwaj” for different reasons:)

I went and watched the movie with such fervor that I thought to myself that it was a remarkable movie. Actually, now that I look at it dispassionately, it was to the brilliance of kamal that I could empathize with abhay. The emotional core of the movie was solid. And in those heady teenage days, I loved it to pieces:)

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“who was named “Abhay Bharadwaj” for different reasons:)” – shirley, shirley, you jest. 😉

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I thought Baba had a rocking soundtrack. Though ARR was criticized by Vairamuthu and others for phoning it in from London, it thought it was very innovative for a Rajni film. Also, having guys like Shankar Mahadevan and Kartik sing for Rajni was novel, may be not all that commercially viable, because Rajni’s image is so married to SPB’s voice. I like all the songs in the film, and am particularly quite high on Maya Maya and Sakthi kodu.

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“I thought Baba had a rocking soundtrack.” – I am so glad someone finally said this. I still listen to Baba songs once in a while. Maya maya is a vintage Rajini karuthu song that Karthik Subbaraj paid a loving tribute to in Petta (Ullala). Sakthi Kodu is a rousing number that hints at Rajini’s political entry. It is one of those good Rahman albums that didn’t get its due because of the film’s commercial failure.

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therag

@Madan, now that we know your comments offended the sentiments of the people of the Abhay zone, a retraction of your comments and an apology would suffice. \s

Funnily enough, Riyaz Khan was in both films. He was in a lot of films back in the early 00s. What happened to him? Didn’t see him much after that.

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Aman Basha

In all honesty and although this may piss all the Kamal and Abhay fanboys, Baba was a much better film than Abhay. For starters, Rehman gave a very interesting album and the Maaya Maaya is a favorite. Abhay lacks even that. For all the lack of logic critique Rajni could get, Kamal landing on a hot air balloon from a building and then landing safely was the spiritual predecessor of Linga’s hot air balloon moment. More importantly, I could get what Rajni was aiming to do with Baba: to try make a spiritual masala movie, have the Rajni take the hero’s journey as well as the ascetic’s. Plenty of meta references and throwbacks to Rajni moments of yore are icing on the cake. Admittedly, lots went wrong in the film, but wtf was Kamal smoking the same time? For all his atheism, Kamal does have a God delusion here (of himself as god, of course).

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“For all his atheism, Kamal does have a God delusion here (of himself as god, of course).” – Yes, I am afraid somewhere the self-professed reluctant actor has become a megalomaniac when it comes to his work.

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Anonymous Violin