Aranmanai Review – Aranmanai is a Tamil horror comedy released in 2014. The owners of a old palace get together in the palace after many years to sell the palace. But things go awry when they encounter an evil spirit in the palace that kills people.
Off late the genre of comedy horror is becoming popular in Tamil Cinema. Movies like Yaamirukka Bayamey did well in the box office. However Aranmanai fails to capitalize on this as it is caught somewhere between a comedy and a serious horror drama. It neither gives you the chills and the thrills not it makes you laugh. The overload of cast and characters leave very less scope for many of them. Only the three leading ladies and Sundar C has some role to perform in the movie. The movie employs plots that would have worked well in the 80s and 90s. Also the length of the movie is very long and makes you very tired and exhausted. If the director had cut down the length, few characters and stayed away from the clichés of age old formula the movie might have been a decent one.
Overall it seems to be a mash up of Sundar C and Rama Narayanan’s movie that may not work well for the present time.
Yaan Review – is a Tamil action thriller released in 2014. Chandru is happily unemployed and enjoys life. When he meets Sreela he immediately falls in love with her, but is forced to find a job if he has to marry her. The job Chandru takes puts him into a life threatening situation. Will he be able to come out of the situation and marry Sreela is the plot of Yaan.
Well Yaan has good casting, brilliant cinematography, great stunts, decent plot but the thread that connects all these together in the form of screenplay and characterization is missing. It takes more than half the movie for the audience to figure out what the conflict is. And still at the end of the movie I was left wondering if it was love or drug trafficking. The climax is absolutely ridiculous. Cinematographer turned director Ravi K. Chandran has a lot potential to make some visually stunning movies. If he partners with some good screen writers he would be able to make very good movies. Some of the visual sequences you would love in the movie are the initial fight sequence, the way the hero recreates his encounter with the heroine, the song sequences and the stunt choreography.
Overall if you are seeing sequences from Yaan in isolation it looks good but when put together in a product it would make you yawn. If you are a fan of stunning visuals and stunts watch this at home or else you would not miss much.
Jeeva Review– is a Tamil sports drama released in 2014. Jeeva is a talented cricket player and aspires to play for India. But community based politics prevent him from getting selected for the national team.
Director Suseenthiran comes up with a sports movie after his much acclaimed Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu. In between he had focused more on action and romance genre in between and his previous outing Pandianadu was a smashing hit. Jeeva is an emotional journey of an upcoming cricketer with amount of things he has to sacrifice in life and the difficulty to get a break due to highly political nature of the selection committee. In the era where people are watching a lot of cricket and many cricket tournaments run with empty stands due to too many matches to be played; it is very difficult to make a movie on cricket and keep the audience interested. Suseenthiran has tried to break this by bringing in the romance angle to the plot. This works well in the first half but makes the script slow during the second half. The length of the movie could have been trimmed to 90 minutes to make it more engaging. Overall Suseenthiran has come up with yet another neat film. It may not be as good as Vennila Kabadi Kuzhu but deals with one of the less spoken community based politics in Tamil Nadu cricket board. The movie deserves a watch for the plot. But due to the slowness of the script you might enjoy watching this at home.
Sigaram Thodu – is a Tamil action thriller released in 2014. Murali fakes his interest in becoming a police officer just to keep his father happy. When his father is attacked brutally by robbers he has to step up to take the police duty to bring the dark forces to light.
Vikram Prabhu is becoming synonymous with action thriller. After his debut movie Kumki he has done back to back action thriller movies Ivan Veramathiri and Arima Nambi. Sigaram Thodu joins the list. Vikram Prabhu’s physique is well suited for action thrillers. However this one does not create the impact like his previous outings. Director Gaurav has just managed to push the bar a little higher than many of the crime dramas you would see on television. The story itself is very small and does not deserve the length it has. One of the weakest points in the story is the villain. The significance of a hero’s purpose is directly proportional to the gruesomeness of the villains. The villains look very weak in front of Vikram Prabhu’s character and it looks like a easy cake walk for him to get them defeated. The element of suspense is broken much earlier in the movie and fails to hold you onto the seat.
Overall this one is an average action drama which can be watched at home for its few engaging parts.
How Old Are You – is a Malayalam coming of age drama released in 2014. Nirupama Rajeev an ordinary stereotypical wife, a mother from a middle class family is losing her identity within her family and then the society. She has to turn her low point around to establish her identity back.
This one is a nicely crafted coming of age movie for a wife, a mother of thirteen year old in a middle class family. Director Roshann Andrews also has used the importance organic food produce and how every household can achieve this right on their terrace as a backdrop for the movie. Particularly after his success of Mumbai police this one is a very different subject and equally very appealing. The use of foreshadowing sequence where in the lead actress is in a traffic block waiting for the president’s convoy to pass by is very effective. Manju Warrier has done an excellent job with her role and is a very fitting choice. Overall this one does not have a single dull moment and engages throughout.
Khoobsurat – is a Hindi romance drama released in 2014. A fun loving and spontaneous physiotherapist is invited into a highly disciplined and a highly formal royal family to treat King’s paralyzed legs.
Disney princess stories no matter how many times it has been told is an evergreen success formula. But Khoobsurat has taken the fairy tale and made a below average Bollywood romance drama. They had tried to adapt the 1980’s Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s film for this romance drama. Kirron Kher plays the role of Sonam’s mother, Manju; if you remember Rekha played the character of Manju a young fun loving girl in the 1980 movie. Were they trying bring in connect back? The platform for a nice princess story had been set very well, choosing Jaipur as a backdrop is an excellent choice but the screenplay gets derailed in the first 20 minutes of the movie and the writers seem to have run out of ideas and they started to adapt sequences from many Hollywood romance dramas to fill the rest of the movie. The characterizations are weak; they seem to run out of breath very quickly. Sonam Kapoor looks cute and pretty but when it comes to acting her expressions are between A and B.
Quickgun Murugan seems to be a much better outing for Shashanka Gosh compared to this one. You can give this one a skip.
I Saw The Devil – is a South Korean psychological thriller released in 2010. A psycho serial killer Kyung-chul kills the fiancé of a secret service agent Soo-hyun. Soo-hyun takes a painful revenge on Kyung-chul by injuring him and then let him get treated to get well and then again injuring him.
The film is strictly for those who can with stand gory movies and is not suitable for kids. The movie is shot boldly with very explicit violent scenes. Director Kim Jee-Woon has given a different genre of movie after his star studded The Good The Bad The Weird. Choi Min-sik has performed the role of a psycho killer very well and is very scary. Lee Byung-hun is very convincing as a secret agent out to take revenge. The scene where he sees the body of his fiancé and tries to control his emotion is a notable performance. He has maintained the mood throughout as he is on the run to chase the killer. He is good at playing negative shade character and as this character has the negative shade it had aptly fitted him very well.
The recent Bollywood movie Ek Villain is very similar to this plot. Although the makers have denied that it was adapted from this. There are lot similarities between the two although the Bollywood version is a mellowed down version of this movie. The Bollywood version goes into giving a reason for the serial killing which is not there in this movie.
The Good The Bad The Weird – is a South Korean western style cowboy adventure drama released in 2008. A bounty hunter, a bandit and a thief are after a treasure map in the 1930s Manchuria.
The foremost thing that strikes you in the movie is the ensemble of popular star cast. Director Kim Jee-woon has given a star-studded movie which in every way keeps the audience glued onto their seats throughout. Song Kang-ho in the role of the Weird is outstanding in his performance. Lee Byung-hun and Jung Woo-sung have also done their roles very well. Although the movie is adapted from many western cow boy movies it still has many elements of a Korean movie which makes it unique in its own way. There are two high points in the movie the initial train robbery sequence, what an ecstatic experience it would have been to see the stars in action on a big screen. The other one is the 15 minute long chase and fight sequence on the desert of Manchuria. The stunt choreography is absolutely stunning. The movie does have a very interesting climax. If you are fan of adventure drama this one is a must watch.
Parallel Cinema is a term that refers to the film movement in India during the years 1940 to 1960 wherein new age of film makers emerged and they started to make movies which are very close to reality and not having typical Bollywood commercial entertainer which had all the song and dance. This movement was heavily inspired by Italian neorealism and French new wave movies. This originated mainly in the Bengali movies and then spread across to other Indian film industries.
Satyajit Ray is considered to be the father of parallel cinema. Before he took his first movie Pather Panchali he had assisted Italian film maker Vittorio De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves, French film maker Jean Nori’s The River. He said his first movie had a lot of influences from them. This was the birth of parallel cinema. Post this many able film makers started to make parallel cinema. Some of the prominent film makers of parallel Cinema are Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Basu Bhattacharya, John Abraham (director who made critically acclaimed Agraharathil Kazhuthai), Mrinal Sen, Guru Dutt, Ritwik Ghatak, Girish Kasaravalli, G. Aravindan, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Girish Karnad, J Mahendran, Balu Mahendra and many more. They redefined Indian Cinema and made it shine on global stage. It is during this time when many Indian movies became regular feature at prominent international film festivals like the Cannes. Also movies like Pyaasa by Guru Dutt still features as all-time top 100 movies in Time Magazines movie list. And rightly the period of 1940 – 1960 of Indian Cinema was considered to be the Golden Age for Indian Cinema. Many of these were commercial success as well.
It then prevailed very strongly till the early 90’s. State government used to fund a lot of parallel cinemas which was very encouraging. However post the 90’s the commercialization of cinemas became very prevalent. Production houses had to make commercial success to thrive in the economic conditions and the cost of making a movie started growing high. Thus we don’t see much of parallel cinema coming out as it used to. Hope the government starts another movement to let the artists express their view in pure artistic format thus giving us some gem of movies.
Today you can see many of these movies digitally restored free at http://www.cinemasofindia.com/. This is a great initiative by NFDC.
Velaiyilla Pattathari (VIP) – is a Tamil drama released in 2014. A civil engineering graduate is jobless for 4 years since graduation waiting for a civil engineering job rather than taking up any other job that is available.
VIP is touted to be the 25th movie for Dhanush and they have taken the safest route of making a run of the mill entertainer. Mostly we brush off run of the mill entertainer but it still takes a lot of effort to get it right. Cinematographer turned director Velraj has created a decent entertainer for Dhanush fans. The first half of the movie would appeal to a larger audience but the second half is only for the fans of Dhanush. Overall VIP wouldn’t bore you and you can watch it on TV or DVD
The recent Tamil movie Kathai Thiraikathai Vasanam Iyakkam covered many aspects of Indian Cinema and there was an interesting piece on Interval blocks in Indian Cinema. The movie mentioned in this context was a Tamil movie Namma Veetu Deivam released in 1970. The husband (Muthuraman) kills his wife (K R Vijaya) in the outskirts of his village and returns home. As he approaches the door he finds his wife open the door and is shell shocked. This is where the interval break is. This raised some thoughts around interval breaks in cinema and how they have influenced the grammar of script writing.
In the Initial years all movies across the world had Interval breaks. The reason was the operator needed time to change the reels in the projector. In the modern days with the advancement in film and projection technology this time is non-existent. However the concept of Intermission or Interval break for 10 – 15 minutes is still prevalent in Indian movies and possibly Italian movies. Also in early days as the film roles were expensive two theaters could screen the same movie with a time difference and exchange the reels during the breaks. The reason it is continued still is for commercial reason. The break is an opportunity to attract the audience to the snacks counter and increase revenue.
Though the reason is commercial it has a heavy influence in the script writing for Indian cinema. The structure of the screen play is not the traditional 3 act structure but has an interval block in it making it a 5 act structure where the interval block is one of the peak points of the build-up phase and post the interval there is a revised context leading to the climax. The script writers make the interval block with high impact to raise the interest levels of the audience.
Let us look at some of the high impact interval blocks in Indian Cinema.
3 idiots
In the movie 3 Idiots the two guys go in search of their closest friend after years of graduation. As they reach the town where he lives in which is exactly at the midpoint of the movie they find an entirely different person in the name of their friend and they are also shocked to see their own photographs with this new person.
Baasha
In the Tamil blockbuster Baasha, Rajnikanth is introduced as an auto driver who stays away from violence and undergoes torturous punishments to save his loved ones. But around the interval block when his brother and sisters are in danger we see him beating up the bad guys and it is revealed that he is a terrific don who is in hiding, his soft voice turns into a commanding voice that echoes through the hall “Naan oru thadava sonna… nooru thadava sonna mathiri…” (If I say it once its equivalent of saying it 100 times) It is one of the most powerful interval block for a Rajnikanth starrer.
Eeram
In the Tamil movie Earem the first half has a series of murders happening and at the interval block it is revealed the murders are being committed by the ghost of the ex-girlfriend of the investigating cop. When I was in the theater watching this movie during the break a kid sitting in the cinema hall exclaimed with excitement “Wow! This is a ghost movie…” Interval blocks should contain such an excitement. The recent blockbuster Jigarthanda also had a very dramatic interval block.
While interval block is significant part of a script sometimes over hyping it has a danger of spoiling the movie. When the audience is left with a high expectation and they are down in the second half, the movie would fail. That’s where the audiences say only the first half of the movie was good. In general in a good script the tempo of second half of the script is higher than the tempo set at the interval block.
Old Boy – is a South Korean suspense thriller movie released in 2003. A man named Oh Dae-su is abducted and imprisoned in a dark room for 15 years. In the meantime he learns his wife is murdered, he is the prime suspect for the murder and his daughter is adopted by a Swedish family. After 15 years he is released on the roof top of a tall building. He is out to find the reason why he has been tortured to this extent and vows to take revenge on his abductor.
The movie is known for its unique plot. It is strictly for mature audience for its content and it is gross in parts. The tone has been set like that to give the impact of the torturous life the lead character has gone through. As the movie progresses Oh Dae-su discovers the identity of the kidnapper and the story unfolds. The screenplay is done brilliantly and the climax would leave you dumb stuck. It is a movie that has the potential of keeping you disturbed and at the same time give a feeling of having watched a brilliant movie. The plot of keeping a man abducted in an unknown room for unknown reason has been used in various movies which had released later including the recent Tamil movie Ivan Vera Mathiri. Overall this is a must watch if you have open mindedness and have a strong heart.
