etcetera

Gha­jini, star­ring Surya and Asin and directed by A.R. Muru­ga­doss is a remake of Memento. Yes, that Memento. If you have even a pass­ing famil­iar­ity with the film indus­try in India, you will know right away that a remake of a Hol­ly­wood clas­sic means a watered down ver­sion that takes the orig­i­nal premise, and some­how con­trives to wrap it around a “love-story,” five songs, sev­en­teen fight sequences, and sev­eral voice overs that explain cru­cial plot points to the audi­ence. And so, there is a cer­tain recal­i­bra­tion of expec­ta­tions that is required to enjoy such remakes.

Viewed from a lens thus recal­i­brated, Gha­jini is an emi­nently enjoy­able movie. Muru­ga­doss bor­rows the rudi­men­tary plot from Memento — revenge of the amne­siac — and man­ages to Indi­anise it with­out too many holes. The script­work and screen­play are tidy, and the dia­logues refresh­ingly down to earth. Even the two hero­ines don’t seem too out of place in the script and that in itself is an achievement.

Surya and Asin act rea­son­ably well and Nayan­thara has a role that is periph­eral enough that her per­for­mance doesn’t mat­ter too much. Although, I must admit I was a lit­tle trau­ma­tized when I saw her dance to an item num­ber — every part of her lit­er­ally shook, and in a star­tling reminder of Newton’s first law, cer­tain parts kept shak­ing even after she had stopped dancing.

*Digres­sion* If you are a col­lege pro­fes­sor who came to this page through Google look­ing for “Nayan­thara, shak­ing, New­ton,” feel free to ignore my Cre­ative Com­mons license and use this exam­ple to teach New­ton to your stu­dents. You can even take them on a field trip to the near­est movie the­ater play­ing Gha­jini. *End Digression*

Sur­pris­ingly enough, the best part of the movie is the flash­back — the manda­tory sequence to explain how Surya lost his mem­ory and hair. Muru­ga­doss is very com­fort­able han­dling the roman­tic scenes between his lead pair, and the casual humor that per­vades the romance between Surya and Asin is a treat.

The songs are atro­cious, and the stunt sequences are a lit­tle too long, but over­all Gha­jini is one of the bet­ter masala movies out of Tamil this year.

The Fly On The Wall:

Reg­u­lar read­ers of this blog (can you laugh a lit­tle less loudly, please?) are prob­a­bly aware that we have sources all over the place. A cou­ple of them were will­ing to talk to us (off the record of course, what do you think?) for this review.

A con­ver­sa­tion between Har­ris Jayaraj, the music com­poser and Muru­ga­doss, the director:

“So Har­ris, what do you think about the movie?”

Har­ris mum­bles, then stops, grins, scratches his hair, picks his nose and mum­bles again.

“So Har­ris, what do you think about the movie?”

Har­ris mum­bles again. “Do you think my hair is long enough?”

“Let us get this straight man — you do a pathetic Rah­man imi­ta­tion. Now answer my frickin’ question.”

“Hmm, it is good. Grunt. Umm. The flash­back is funny. But the rest of it is very seri­ous. Need more comedy.”

“You think so? I asked the pro­ducer for more money to shoot some funny scenes, but he said no. Now I am worried.”

“Hmm. Umm. Hmm. Umm. I will take care of it with my back­ground music.”

“Huh?”

“Wait and watch.”

Watch we did. And we are glad to report that Har­ris was very, very suc­cess­ful in his endeavour.

When­ever Surya shows up on screen, a voice screams in the background:

“Bo Zo.…. Bo Zo. Booooo.… Zooooo.” The speed of the chant varies accord­ing to the need of the scene (nat­u­rally). To ensure that the same joke doesn’t get repeated too often the next time Surya shows up, the same voice chants:

“Zo Lo.. Zo Lo…Zo Lo”.

I have to admit, it had me in splits. Great job, dude.

A con­ver­sa­tion between Surya and his Dad:

“Dad, I have this role in this new movie and I am sup­posed to be an amne­siac for good two hours. Any advice?”

“Drink coconut water, don’t smoke, don’t drink, do Yoga and get out of your rela­tion­ship with Jothika.”

“Dad, I asked for act­ing tips, not this crap.”

“Oh, ok. Have you seen me act angry in movies?”

“You mean where you keep your body erect, roll your eyes and shake your head robot­i­cally back and forth?”

“Yes. Exactly. Do that.”

For once, Surya lis­tened to his dad.

PS: Hemant has a more con­ven­tional review up on Instant Kaapi, and I agree with most of what he says.

Pon­niyin Sel­van is film­maker Radhamohan’s sec­ond movie, com­ing on the heels of his suc­cess­ful debut ven­ture Azhagiye The­eye. The movie stars Ravi Krishna — the no can emote son of the biggest pro­ducer in Tamil, with Gopika, PrakashRaj and Revathy play­ing sup­port­ing roles.

Rad­hamo­han has an affin­ity for feel-good tales about young men from mid­dle class back­grounds — Azhagiya The­eye was an odd­ball romance between an aspir­ing actor and a girl who wants to shake off her arranged mar­riage. It was sim­ple and hon­est, funny and touch­ing — the kind of sub­stance over style movie that Bol­ly­wood will never make. The movie wasn’t flaw­less: it empha­sised words over visu­als, an unfor­tu­nate throw­back to the Bal­achan­der days and the old fash­ioned direc­tion did noth­ing to dis­pel the stage drama feel that parts of the movie had. But, a neat script and some good per­for­mances glossed over the short­com­ings, and the movie was emi­nently watchable.

Pon­niyin Sel­van though, has no such luck. What­ever chances the movie had of suc­cess, are ruined by insipid performances.

It’s the story of a dis­fig­ured young man liv­ing with his wid­owed mom. He has learnt to live with his dis­fig­ure­ment and the accom­pa­ny­ing dis­ad­van­tages, and seems fairly con­tent with life until some­one sug­gests to him that maybe he should try fix­ing his face sur­gi­cally. Turns out that the surgery costs a for­tune. End hap­pi­ness, begin obses­sion. He works hard to make money, for­get­ting the sim­ple joys of life in the process. It’s not a bad premise at all, and with bet­ter per­for­mances and less mush, the movie could have worked.

Ravi Krishna sports the same blank expres­sion through­out the movie, and his monot­o­nal, dron­ing dia­logue deliv­ery makes him unbear­able. Prakash Raj tries his darn­d­est to act enough for every­one else in the movie, while Revathy, sur­pris­ingly, deliv­ers a con­trolled, effec­tive per­for­mance as Ravi Krishna’s mom. Gopika is com­pe­tent as the goodie –goodie girl that doesn’t care much for looks, and there is another girl that doesn’t care much for the way the hero looks.

The other big draw­back is an over­dose of pithy one lin­ers in the dia­logues. The occa­sional smart repar­tee livens up things, but to have every exchange between every char­ac­ter end in some type of wit­ti­cism is dis­con­cert­ing. (Also the fact that some of the lines are quite inane.. “It’s ok to live in a com­plex, but don’t let a com­plex live in you”). Rad­hamo­han doesn’t seem to get the “cin­ema is a visual medium” thing still — there are a few peo­ple in the movie that seem to exist to just sit on benches and exchange “There was a Sar­dar once.. ” type of jokes.

Through­out the movie, the strug­gle between the direc­tor that prefers real­ism and the direc­tor that is obliged to make a star out of his producer’s son is evi­dent. There are point­less dances (Ravikr­ishna can add leaden footed just below wooden faced on his resume), and given the lack of suit­able sit­u­a­tions for the hero to beat up a few peo­ple, there is a ridicu­lous dream stunt sequence. Surely, that’s a first.

And so, one more film­maker with poten­tial promises to deceive.

Priyasaki, star­ring Mad­ha­van, Sada, Sada’s waist. Directed by K.S.Adhiaman.

Mad­ha­van, Sada engaged in roman­tic ban­ter. Sada play­fully punches Maddy on his (recently)well devel­oped, cor­pu­lent chest.

Him: “Hit me any­where but there.”

Her: “But why?”

Him: “Coz you live in my heart.”

Inane Music. End the most strained courtship ever.

Hero, preg­nant hero­ine seek divorce. Judge invokes one year sep­a­ra­tion require­ment. But grants request from boy to be allowed to stay in girl’s house until their baby is delivered.

Him: Kisses her on the waist.

Her: “What are you doing? Take your hands off me”

Him: “I’m not touch­ing you. I’m actu­ally kiss­ing the baby inside you.”

Her: “Oh! Ok.”

’nuff said.

The crowd hath spake on Shankar’s Anniyan : big hit in Tamil, big hit in Tel­ugu. Hindi Movies with Long Names, Chan­dra­mukhi, Anniyan … makes one thin­keth that movies might be your Achilles heel, Mr. Surowiecki. In case you are won­der­ing, I can­not fig­ure out for the life of me why I have this incur­able urge to write in fake old English.

Set­ting that aside for a moment, let me talk about a cer­tain scene in the movie. But first, to set things up, here is the premise: Mul­ti­ple per­son­al­i­ties come out of the docile hero, and do mul­ti­ple things. Since I hate spoil­ers, I will just say that the mul­ti­ple things he does may or may not include cre­at­ing arti­fi­cial stam­pedes with buf­faloes, fry­ing peo­ple alive, eat­ing live mon­keys, talk­ing in a hoarse whis­per and cop­u­lat­ing with snakes. And yes, I must add that it was all done in a grandiose man­ner, so if there were buf­faloes they were pretty big.

One of the per­son­al­i­ties that emerges out of the weak kneed lead char­ac­ter is a wannabe cool dude, decked up with all the accou­trements that go into mak­ing some­one a wannabe cool dude. These include, but are not restricted to the following:

1. Col­ored Hair.
2. Trans­par­ent cloth­ing.
3. Gaudy Sun Glasses.
4. Ter­ri­ble Fake Accent.
5. This Name: Ramp Walk Remo

The girl that refused to fall for the docile hero, falls for the wannabe. Nat­u­rally. For how can you not fall when wooed with roses? Ram­p­walk sends roses to the girl. (Sorry if the sen­tence con­struc­tion sounds funny, but that’s his name. Also notice how I took the lib­erty of assum­ing Ram­p­walk is his first name, unless Ram­p­Walk is actu­ally two words, in which case he should be called Ramp W Remo…). So where was I?

Yeah, Ram­p­walk send­ing roses to the girl. Rose bushes, if you care for detail. An obscene num­ber of them in pots. Along with an audio tape. (a Com­pact Disc maybe? The direc­tor dis­dains cheap stuff) As the girl stares at the roses, look­ing suit­ably sur­prised, fake accent plays out of the tape and asks girl to smile. She obliges, and behold: ama­teur­ish spe­cial effects make all the roses bend down in uni­son. Fake accent explains to a bewil­dered audi­ence: The roses were ashamed. Duh. Some­thing a good edi­tor would have chopped, and flushed down a toi­let. (If you ever do that, make sure you have some Drano handy).

Why is this scene spe­cial, you ask? Because I hap­pened to see an inter­view of Shankar, and he talks about this scene in par­tic­u­lar: Appar­ently, the first time they brought the roses in for the shoot, the roses sucked for what­ever rea­son. And so, Shankar chose to wait four months for the roses to bloom. Four months the pro­ducer spent mak­ing inflated inter­est pay­ments. Per­fec­tion­ism, à la James Cameron.. Or cal­lous dis­re­gard for the real­i­ties of a reel­ing industry.

You think Shankar knows what the title of my post means?