Spoiler alert: Sorry, I could not write without some spoilers and that’s why I posted this little late.

This was one of the most awaited movies for me this year just because of a honest director by the name Balaji Sakthivel. For some of my readers who can’t identify him, his movie “Kaadhal” was one of the most venerated Tamil movie by people like Anurag Kashyap. A torch bearer for realistic cinema , Balaji Sakthivel evoked a lot of interest through the trailer of this movie.

Vazhakku En 18/9 is a social commentary sugar coated with a simple love story. A girl gets attacked in a posh apartment complex and the police investigate the crime. A boy who works in a street food shop is wrongly suspected due to his earlier tiffs with the girl. The story travels through the path of finding the real attacker and shows how the case gets twisted at the end.

Balaji Sakthivel has tried to depict the darker shades of the city, to be precise one side of story . Rather trying to understand his motives of this social commentary, I am going to try and review the movie as it is. One of the most striking things about the movie is the way Vijay Milton has handled his camera. Hugely inspired by Iranian camera work, the camera travels inside the movie rather shooting it. Largely shot through Canon 5D, the rawness in the camera work baffles you but at the same time I couldn’t understand the extensive usage of snorricam shots (having the camera mounted in the front).

Although one would feel that the first half has some disjointed sequences, the director makes sure he links everything in the second half. The usage of symbolisms in many places like the used bottle, used plastic cover, thoughtfully used Thirukkural in the police station shows the mastery of the director. At the same time, the director has tried to address a lot of issues that doesn’t gel with the story line. The deviations are more of a distraction to the proceedings of the movie .

The lead actors are adequate and the best casting is the person who has portrayed the inspector role. Natural and brilliant. But using non-actors for other roles has not worked in this movie. They are quite conscious about the camera which defeats the purpose. Both the songs are poignant and makes you think why Prasanna doesn’t do mainstream cinema music. In the background score, they have sampled Prasanna’s music (I waited for the credits to roll), so you can’t expect much from it. But the percussion in the background fits perfectly for the narrative.

Balaji Sakthivel has tried to portray the darker side of Chennai but trying to paint one side as totally black and the other side as totally white shows the creative bias of the man. He stumbles terribly in the climax when he opts for more cinematic climax rather than a realistic one. My movie ended when the guy went to jail and probably would have had another scene where the other guy scouting for the next victim. That’s how a realistic cinema director would have handled it and when the retribution scene came in, I was “damn,you too”.

Kaadhal worked because the stark reality in the climax struck people like a bolt. Vazhakku En has that cinematic compromise that’s painful to watch.

Vazhakku En is not a classic like most of the people claim. And at the same time, it’s not bad too. But the bigger question is, is this the realistic cinema that we want to see?

A 2.5/5 and judgement reserved whether this is realistic cinema.

I want my readers to do a simple exercise when you watch OKOK . If you can’t do the exercise for the first time, try it when you watch it for the second time on some channel (probably in Kalaignar TV) in a few months from now. The exercise is as follows: shut your eyes and ears in the scenes in which Santhanam is not present and watch only those scenes in which he is in. You will enjoy the movie lot better than what you did with the lead actors in it. The only reason I watched this movie was because of Santhanam – Rajesh combination. To be fair to them, they don’t disappoint you in this regard. Punchy one-liners, timely jokes and naturally funny sequences tickle your funny bone a lot more than you expect from a Tamil movie. The flight sequence, the climax story telling scene (you figure out what they are mocking) or every sequence that Santhanam is in, theater bursts in to laughter.

But at the same time, you are bound to have short naps because of boredom in other scenes. Let’s get this straight, Udhayanidhi is not made for acting. A cardboard would have done a better job than him in romance and sentimental scenes. I could not figure out when the lead characters (are they?) fell in love. You don’t relate to these characters like you did with Shiva-Sakthi of SMS. Given the abilities of the actors in question, I don’t blame the director for the mishap.

Saranya shows why she is versatile. But her long standing fight with her husband (Azhagan Perumal) seems forced and trivial. The director should have left the sentimental track as it doesn’t suit the characteristics of his movie. The girl who comes as Santhanam’s girl friend is beyond imagination. Interesting characterization and wonderfully done. Except Venaam Machan, Harris Jayaraj fails to capture your attention. He has become too repetitive to tolerate and it’s about time he changes.

Rajesh (director) would have done better with another lead actor. The bro-chemistry between his lead characters have always been the high point of his movies. When your resources are limited, you try to salvage rather than think about success. He had his important trump card well placed and has used it in the right places. Although he has missed his rummy by a big margin, he has saved himself from the loss. In fact, he has concentrated on his strengths and Santhanam’s strengths rather than trying to help the lead actors to act better. A smart move but it becomes a tough watch for the audience. When I came out of the theater, I could remember 10 different scenes and all of them were of Santhanam’s. That’s how inevitable he was.

Oh the story, like in other Rajesh movies, it starts with Hero trying to find his lover to salvage the situation. The movie pans back in to flashback mode where the hero and his friend are working in Sathyam Cinemas (they never work except for a spilt second scene). Hero falls in love with the heroine (Hansika Motwani) at first sight while waiting in a signal. Heroine, who is initially not interested with the hero is forced to fall in love with the hero through various circumstances. Couple of songs, misunderstanding ensues. A star in the guest role comes in the climax and helps the hero and heroine to come together. Sorry I wasted a paragraph to explain the story!!!

2 out of 5 just for Santhanam otherwise “OKOK” is not “OK”

P.S:

1.Why is the hell of the udhay of the act of the movie?
2.Why is the director is the use is the wonderful is the title is the for this is the mokkai movie?

The sweetest moment of “3″ comes when Janani (Shruthi Hassan) tries to kiss her husband, Ram (Dhanush) good night and he shows the garland that he is on a fast for Sabarimala. Both express their feelings silently with tears breaking down from their eyes. That’s one of the rare moments of brilliance in the movie. “3″ is a love story of Ram and Janani, who fall for each other during high school and get married against all odds. Ram dies in suspicious circumstances and Janani tries to find answers for his death. She finds that Ram suffered from a rare Bipolar disorder.

“3″ tries to be everything – a sweet love story, a story of wife coming to terms with her husband’s demise, a thriller and what not. This lack of clarity has hampered the narration at different levels. After a very long time, you see a honest portrayal of high school romance in Tamil. Dhanush, Shruthi and Siva Karthikeyan enthrall you with their fantastic depiction of school life. It would be a nostalgic trip for people who did their schooling in the 90s.

The same brilliance in writing evaporates in to thin air in the second half. I wish that Tamil directors stop taking this rare disease phenomenon and try to make movies out of it. It’s getting too repetitive and boring. It’s so easy to choose a mental disorder but the scenes show the lack of valid research. The worst part of the whole movie is the way the director has tried to show hallucinations. People like Kamal, Parthiban and Karu.Palaniappan have failed get the point across about hallucinations to the audience and what Aishwarya has done makes the audience to think that hallucinations are ghosts. Thanks Aishwarya, you have done a wonderful work to take the audience back to what they were in prehistoric times.

It’s time for Dhanush to move on from these type of characters, he has become more of a caricature and boy, Shruthi looks absolutely horrible when she cries. I reiterate that she hasn’t inherited the acting talent of her father. Anirudh, although made an impressive debut with his songs (none of them sticks to my mind, but my friends claim they are good) he hasn’t made enough effort with respect to the background scores especially the climax scene and the sad scenes are a mess. Velraj, the cameraman has done a wonderful job with the way he has handled the cinematography. Handheld shots, color tones have helped to show the mindset of the protagonists.

The biggest flaw I felt in the movie was the premise the whole movie is based on. Why doesn’t Ram say about his illness to his wife? The reasons are totally unconvincing and that shatters the whole movie for me. And another reason why I felt the movie didn’t work for most of the audience who watched along with me is the promo that happened because of “Why this Kolaveri” (badly pictured song) and the promos that followed. It definitely didn’t prepare the audience for the onslaught. Its a confused debut for Aishwarya Dhanush. Although her intentions are quite right, she has lost the plot in translation. Better luck next time, if you have one.

A 1.5/5 for the first half that took me for a nostalgic trip down the memory lane. It did make me and my friends discuss about our childhood.

PS: For the record, I loved the pub wedding scene :)

As I always been saying, unlike Hollywood and international movies, it’s rarity for a Tamil movie to be based on a literary work. The making, production and acting becomes difficult when it’s a period movie. Did Vasanta Balan pull it off is a question that’s reeling in my mind for the past one week? I have to get convinced about a movie before writing a review. And it took me almost a week, before I sat down to keyboard this review.
Aravaan is based on an episode in Kaaval Kottam, the Sahitya Academy Award winning novel written by Su.Venkatesan. The novel depicts the life of Tamils in different time periods. (Disclaimer: I am yet to read the novel. I bought it in this year’s book fair. So my review can’t talk about the comparison between the novel and the movie) Aravaan is a story about two sects of people in 18th century who either live on theft or protection. Koombuthi (Pasupathy), the master of thievery in his village meets Varipuli (Aadhi) in one of his pursuits and brings him to his village to join their band. In one of their pursuits together, Varipuli saves Koombuthi but Koombuthi starts doubting about the past of Varipuli because of the incident that accompanies his rescue. Varipuli’s past is explained in a flashback where he is supposed to be given as a human offering in exchange to the death of a guy in another village. He has to be in exile for 10 years to escape from the death sentence. Whether he is saved in the struggle between villages is said in a languid pace?

The best part of Aravaan is the sheer extravaganza that strikes you at the outset. The vivid landscapes, meticulous work with the settings and costumes, minute detailing in the making and the authenticity blow you away. Kudos to the trio of Vijay Murugan, Siddharth and S Rajendran who did the Art Direction, Cinematography and Costumes respectively. I wished the same meticulousness went in to the scripting of the movie. The snail pace narration although needed totally disconnects you from the second half. The screenplay throws more characters in the last 20 minutes than the first 2 hours, which is not quite easy for the audience to gauge given the complexity of the storyline.

The casting except the trio of Pasupathy, Aadhi and Karikalan (magnificent comeback) seems to be heavily misplaced. The two ladies doesn’t have much to offer and Vijay Chandran as the Palayakaran doesn’t match the grandeur the character needs (Kabir Bedi was initially cast for the role). Songs are the biggest speed breaks for the movie and Karthik didn’t sound interesting in background score too.

Aravaan had the premise and ingredients of a classic. In fact, the initial scenes of Pasupathi doing the theft is smartly shot and makes you sit up with awe but later the director lets you down with his lack of intent. Aadhi’s character seems to be contrived and you don’t get the sympathy that the director expects. Somewhere the execution has failed miserably. The movie lacks the nuance and hard hitting reality that has been Vasanthabalan’s strength in Veyil and Angadi Theru. When you come out of the theatre, you feel that there’s something missing in the movie and Vasanthabalan leaves you with a void rather than a sense of fulfillment.

A 2.5 for the attempt and the wonderful technical team of Aravaan

P.S:

1. Aravaan is the character in Mahabaratha, who is given as sacrifice for the victory of Paandavas.
2. Kaaval Kottam is the debut novel of Su.Venkatesan

I always have respect for people who experiment in Tamil movies.Some of the experiments have gone horribly wrong but some have become the forerunner for movies of the future. I wanted to see the first venture of the directing duo Hari Shankar and Hareesh Narayan – Orr Eravu (2010), the first protagonist point of view film in India (remember The Blair Witch Project). But I couldn’t and didn’t want to miss their latest venture in thriller/horror genre of Tamil Cinema.

Ambuli is the first sterescopic full length 3D film in Tamil. Amudhan (Ajay) and Vendhaan (Srijith) are students in a college situated nearby Poomadanthipuram, a village bordered by corn field on one side and river on the other. Amudhan’s beau Poongavanam (Sanam) is the daughter of the Poomadanthipuram’s chieftain and Amudhan stays back with Vendhan in the hostel to find a chance to meet her. Vendhan is the son of the watchman (Thambi Ramayaa) who guards the college. The village people never traverse through the corn field as they believe that Ambuli (a human that looks like an animal) will kill people, who travel through the corn field. Their suspicions are substantiated by the continuous murders in the vicinity of the field. Amudhan, who goes through the corn field to meet Poongavanam is attacked by Ambuli and Vendhan starts to investigate the mystery. The mystery unfolds through a well handled screenplay.

First things first, kudos to the directors for attempting and providing a complete 3D movie and choosing a thriller subject to do so. The biggest strength of the movie is the well written screenplay and the impeccable casting. The use of new faces actually gives the believability in the proceedings and keeps the audience at the edge of the seats because there is always a small string of doubt that the young protagonists will fail. The supporting cast of Thambi Ramayaa, Jagan and the special appearance by Parthiban gives a fillip to the movie.The concept of mixing myth and science is surprisingly convincing in this movie than any other that I have seen.

Ambuli has it own set of flaws. The usage of NIFT campus for showing some of the college scenes is very odd as the story takes place during the 1970s. But otherwise the settings and costume design fits perfectly. The excessive usage of 3D in the initial parts of the movie is an eye sore for people like me but even the normal audience were yelling mindlessly. Songs are the biggest hindrance to a movie like this and the movie lacks thrills during some of the right moments, especially when they find the sketch of Ambuli. The dialogue writer could have avoided some obvious mistakes like the reference to Rekha’s spectacles. The movie happens in the late 70s and Kadalora Kavithaaigal was released in 1986!!! The story writers could have avoided the storytelling title sequence because it allowed people like me to guess the movie, but during the break I understood that I am the only person who figured it out while all of them were suspecting that Parthiban was Ambuli.

Despite all these flaws, Ambuli didn’t fail to entertain. The efforts of makeup man and the stunt co-ordinator is evident during the final sequence and you will definitely like it (children may not!!!). A little bit more care in execution would have made this movie a forerunner for a string of similar thrillers in Tamil. All said and done, it’s worth the watch for the innovative effort.

Ambuli 3D – 3/5 for the first step in Tamil 3D films

P.S:

1. Ajay committed suicide before the release of the movie because of alleged love failure with his co-actress Sanam.
2.Gokul, who does mime in Maanada Mayilada program has been cast as Ambuli in this movie. In a program, he said that he is doing one another similar role. Probably, he will become the Andy Serkis of Tamil movies :P. A brilliant debut.

I am back with the 20th movie of the list and I hope to finish it by this year at least :) As I quipped in the last post, the movie I am going to talk about is the classic of Tamil Cinema. I can confidently say there hasn’t been a movie that can beat the quality of this movie. Mahendran is a master story teller who tried to weave stories that are realistic and he somehow brought the right expressions from his actors.

Udhiripookal (1979)

Udhiripookal is the masterpiece of Mahendran based on the short story titled “Chitrannai” (Stepmom) written by Pudhumaipithan. The movie had Vijayan, Ashwini, Madhumalini, Sundar, Chaaruhassan, Sarath Babu and Bhoopathy with Ashok Kumar handling the camera and Ilaiyaraaja composing the musical score. The movie was produced by Radha Balakrishnan of Dimple Creations.

The story is about a village chieftain Sundaravadivelu (Vijayan), who exploits the village and makes sure that none of them live happy in the village except him. He is married to a good hearted woman (Ashwini), who is prone to illness. Sighting her illness and children as reason, Sundaravadivelu tries to marry her sister too. But her sister (Madhumalini) falls in love with a school teacher (Sundar) who comes to work in a school owned by Sundaravadivelu. The story revolves around how villagers fight against Sundaravadivelu.

Why it’s special?

1. On the first look, the story seems to be a simple good vs evil fight but the specialty of the movie resides in the way the scenes are conceived and directed.

2. Mahendran weaves a poetry on the screen with brilliant screenplay and scene conceptions. He never shows the violence and moves on to symbolism that has far more greater impact than showing the original violence itself. For instance the iconic climax scene where the protagonist is forced to jump in the flowing river is unmatched till date. The viewers end up feeling sympathetic towards the protagonist amidst the rage they have towards his atrocities. The whole movie is filled with such gems of scene conceptions.

3. Mahendran showed that you don’t need pages of dialogues to express the emotions. The film is filled with sharper dialogues mainly uttered by the protagonist’s father in law played by Charuhassan.

3. The fantastic acting of the leads especially Ashwini shows melancholy through her expressions. Vijayan as the protagonist evokes hatred. Master Raja and Baby Anju as the children give us a heart wrenching portrayal. Every actor in the supporting cast are perfectly chosen – even the smallest characters like the hair dresser and teachers in the school make a great impact in the movie. Sarath Babu gives a dignified cameo and Bhoopathy as Sundaravadivelu’s brother makes the casting perfect

4. The music. Mahendran has been collaborating with Ilaiyaraaja for all his movies. The songs in his movies go with the narration but he gives challenging sequences for Raaja to play around in the background score and Udhiri Pookal showed why Raaja is a master composer when it comes to background scores and interludes. The second interlude in Azhagiya Kanne song is the best example that blends the magic of Raaja, the brilliance of Mahendran and the acting prowess of Ashwini

5. Udhiripookal is a perfect movie that combines master class writing, direction, acting and music. It can’t get better than this

Why is it in the list?

1. Udhiripookal is an epitome of what Tamil movies should have been. But we got lost in the process.

2. For inspiring a number of directors to come in to movie making. Udhiripookal invariably stays in the top ten movies list of most of the young and established directors.

3. There hasn’t been a movie that matched the excellence of Udhiripookal in Tamil Cinema

4.Maniratnam famously said “If I get anywhere near what Mahendran did in Udhiri Pookkal, I’ll be a happy man.“ Do you need a better testimonial for this movie?

Trivia

1. As I have quoted earlier, the movie is based on the short story “Chitrannai” written by Pudhumaipithan. He is considered to be the father of short story revolution in Tamil Language. He wrote on progressive themes that became controversial during his time. Although his literary life was short, he is still revered by Tamil authors.

2. One of the teacher characters in the movie is played by Anbalaya Prabhakaran. He later became a famous actor/director/producer. One of his famous creations would be Vaigasi Porandhachu that launched Prashanth

3.Bhoopathy is the son of Manorama. Although quite talented, he never became successful in silver screen.

4.Charu Hassan. elder brother of Kamal Hassan and father of Suhasini Maniratnam had done interesting roles in his tenure. He also won a National Award for his role in a Kannada movie Tabarana Kathe in 1987. It’s very interesting to note that there were 3 National Award winners from the same family in 3 consecutive years. 1986 – Suhasini (Best Actress) for Sindhu Bhairavi, 1987 for Charu Hassan and 1988 – Kamal Hassan for Nayagan.

5. Udhirpookal didn’t win any major awards in the following year. No national awards. No Filmfares. The National Award for Best Tamil film had not been announced for 1980 as per records.  No awards for a movie that could have even fulfilled the oscar dream of India. The movie remains as an unsung classic of Indian Cinema.

Have a look at the complete list in the following link
http://www.sylvianism.com/50-tamil-movies-to-watch-before-you-die/

Balaji Mohan is my favourite director. Ok, I can sense that inquisitive look from some of my readers on how’s it possible when the director debuts on the silver screen. It’s possible when the director was a celebrated runner up of hugely popular talent show “Naalaya Iyakkunar” . I am following Balaji Mohan right from his Kalaignar TV stint and loved his short film version of this movie, Mittai Veedu and most of his creations.

Honestly, I was skeptic on how he is going to elevate the short film in to a feature film. Sustenance of interest is definitely possible in a short version but you should have strong writing skills to transform the magic to the big screen. I should say Balaji Mohan has graduated with distinction.

The storyline is pretty simple. The movie startts with the break up of the lead pair Arun (Siddharth) and Parvathi (Amala Paul), who are students in an engineering college. While has loveable perfect parents, Parvathi has to deal with the divorce of her parents who had a love marriage. How the lead pair understands that the characteristics of men and women are different and why love need not be between people who are made for each other forms the crux of the story.

KSY works because of the smart writing of Balaji and the clear control he has on the proceedings. The back and forth narrative with Siddharth talking to the camera actually works although a few would have thought it may be good only for a short movie. Balaji seamlessly shifts focus from the lead pair to the supporting pairs and you don’t find it boring because of the superb humour that runs around in these sequences. Kudos to Balaji for not using Professor Jokes or crude “A’Rated humour which are the usual suspects for any college movie. The humorous takes on different love angles work like a charm. The scene in the restaurant where Siddharth sits without thinking anything, the sequence that explains why Siddharth’s friend could not talk to girls, the frisby and the dam opening sequence are all fabulously conceived

Nirav’s camera work is adequate and Thaman’s music works only in Parvathi Parvathi (credit to MSV for the original :p) and Azhaippaya. He could have made a little more effort on the background score. One of the biggest reasons why KSY works is the casting. The chemistry between Siddharth and Amala Paul is sweet and the team was smart enough to retain the people who played the “friends” from the short movie. They are just brilliant. Above all the more heartening casting is of Suresh as Amala’s Dad. The casting gives you a reminiscence of the late 80s but why use Kamal’s song for Suresh. Although a lofty idea, if they had cast Nadhiya opposite Suresh, it would have been a clincher.

A few of the girls might think that it’s a man’s point of view but the movie does take jibes at men who don’t understand the psyche of a woman. KSY is a 2 hour fun ride that gives moments to laugh at ourselves. If you are married or committed, go with your partner, you will not regret it as you are going to have some punches, some pinches, some sweet chuckles and end up with smile thinking that you are made for each other. If you are single, you would understand why you are happy being single.

A sweet 3.5/5 and a must watch for Kadhalil Sodhappavadhu Yeppadi. It’s definitely not a Sodhappal movie.

P.S:

1. We know the movie was taken in low budget, but could have avoided the obvious references to places in Hyderabad (number plate in vehicles, malls and buses)

2. I have posted the original short movie instead of the trailer or the song for those who haven’t seen it

Movies based on children have always worked in Tamil Cinema. Yaar Payyan, Kuzhandhaium Deivamum, Shanthi Nilayam (inspired by Sound of Music), Anbulla Rajinikanth, My Dear Kuttichattan, Anjali and Pasanga recently have been massive crowd pullers. Some have used children movies to talk about sensitive issues like Achamundu Achamundu (Child Abuse), Mazhalai Pattalam, Kannathil Muthamittal, En Bommukutti Ammavuku,Kannadi Pookal (sibling rivalry, unnoticed brilliance), Nandalala (inspired by Kikujiro), Malli, Nila Kaalam, Kutty (Not the Dhanush movie!!! – that even won a Jury award in Cairo Film festival). Movies on Children are always popular, heart warming and extremely feel good. But when you are taking a sensitive issue to discuss in the movie, you will be running on the thin rope that may twist you in to the web of preachy documentary. Taare Zameen Par of Aamir Khan is the best example of a balancing act. Prakash Raj’s Dhoni is way out of balance.

Dhoni (or Dhoni – Not Out) directed and produced by Prakash Raj takes heavy inspiration from Mahesh Manjrekar’s Marathi movie Shikshanaya Aaiche Go, is a story of a middle class father and his cricket crazy son. Thanks to Prakash Raj for giving original story credit to Mahesh, otherwise this review would have been another Deiva Thirumagal rant.

Karthik (Akash Puri) is a 9th standard student who is crazy about cricket and wants to become a wicket-keeper batsman like his idol Dhoni. Subramaniam (Prakash Raj), his single dad, works as a clerk in Registrar Office and tries to make both ends meet every month by money lending and pickle business. Like every doting middle class father, he believes the only thing he can give his children is education and pressurises his son Karthik to study well. His daughter Kaveri (wonderfuly portrayed by Srijeta) understands her Father’s plight and she tries to be the bridge between her brother and dad. Due to the pressure from School on 100% results in public exams, Subbu stops Karthik from playing cricket against his wishes and coach’s (Nasser) insistence. In a heated argument, Subbu beats up Karthik and he loses conscience as he hits a wooden table. While karthik stays in coma, Subbu understands his son and how the system is flawed against the talented children. How he tries to fight the system and saves his son is said in a languid preachy tone.

Kudos to the premise taken by Dhoni and every middle class parent would relate to the situation of Subbu. The strong questions the movie asks are imperative to the current education rat race and Dhoni could have created a debate like what Taare Zameen Par or 3 Idiots did. Dhoni fails miserably in sustaining interest in the matter. The repetitive dialogues of protagonists, stereotypical melodramatic sequences and overemphasis on 17 tables – I meant the overemphasis on such scenes (I dunno which 9th standard student reads 17 Tables) gets you bored. Even the strong characterisation of Radhika Apte (How beautiful she is!!) seems very stereotypical in this mayhem. When you have such a strong musical genius to back up, why Prakash you can’t think about subtle scenes to portray the sadness instead of never ending dialogues. The final dramatic sequences looks forced and doesn’t gel with the movie, especially the Neeya Naana part.

It doesn’t mean that Dhoni doesn’t have any positives. The simple and restrained acting of Radhika Apte, Gnanavel’s brilliant dialgoues in few moments (“Kanjikke vazhi illa Ranji ada poranam”) and impressive tiny little characters. Prakashraj has scored brilliantly on casting except for Akash Puri. I felt Karthik’s character needed to be little more emotive and at least know the basics of cricket (!!). Prakash Raj got one more thing right, the situations for song sequences and Ilayaraaja has had some wonderful time doing music for this movie. The power of silence in his music shows up brilliantly in apt places. Na.Muthukumar’s words makes you think, laugh and cry. The situation, camerawork, music, rendering and words are in perfect sync for the “Vilayatta padogotti” song

Dhoni, overall lacks the subtelty and focus that other above mentioned children movies had. Prakash Raj could have made an inspiring debut but his overdoing of the script leaves us lot to desire. Expecting more from you Prakash.

A 2/5 for the wonderful thought and few performances

P.S: I am adding the Dhoni Audio Launch video instead of the usual song or tralier. I feel everyone should see this program.

There are only few movies in Tamil that take a place as the main lead of the movie. I am counting out the innumerous spiritual movies about temples. Pandiraj showed immense promise with his Pasanga and winning a National Award on debut is not a mean achievemnt. A special thanks to him for choosing Marina as his story back drop but did he win over the hearts is debatable.

Marina is a story about the bunch of boys in the beach who live their life by selling sundal to the visitors of the beach. Ambigapathi (Pakada Pandian of Pasanga fame) drops in to Chennai in a mortuary van and slowly joins the gang of boys after initial tiffs. Aargh, I could not write any more about the story because it doesn’t have a central plot and that’s the biggest let down. The movie is filled with innumerable sub plots like the love angle between Siva Karthikeyan and Oviya, the old man who was thrown out from the house, a boy who hit a SP’s son on the head, a dancing girl and her father and a mentally deranged man who claims that he owns Marina.

Pic Courtesy: Wikipedia

All the characters are interesting, lovable and even some moments are hilarious but the lack of central plot that needs to stitch the sub plots leaves a big vacuum in the proceedings. Pandiraj has once again proved that he is a man of words with his sharp witty dialogues and one-liners. The one-liners of Siva Karthikeyan’s friend about love will make rounds in text messages and facebook updates for some months.

But one-liners and quirky comic scenes will not make a great movie. It was said that it’s a portrayal of lives in Marina but the movie categorically refuses to go in to the darker side of Marina. There lies the difference between a typical Tamil movie and a world cinema classic. It would have helped a great deal to the movie if the director showed both sides of the coin. Except for Vanakkam Vazha Vaikkum Chennai, Girish’s music doesn’t make the mark including the background scores. A big kudos to the director and cinematographer for using real locations and even the horse race scenes were taken in the Chennai beaches. A lot of effort has gone in to the picturisation of those scenes

I am not saying that Marina wasn’t funny or quriky but the big plot hole makes the movie dull and uninteresting, especially the second half is extremely dragging and pointless. Pandiraj had all the ingredients of a classic and that would have fecthed him few awards nationally and internationally but he chose to falter, miserably.

A 2/5 for Pandiraj’s vision and I wish he did well than what he had done.

Every year, since 2009 I have been part of the IQL team to host India Unplugged, a quiz on India. As we usually do it on the Republic Day, we play the National Anthem before the start of the quiz. As the presentation slides are my responsibility, I am the one who finds or decides which “version” of the national anthem to be played.

Version? I think we are only country in the world that has so many versions of our National Anthem. There is that extended Aalap version of AR Rahman with music stalwarts, the wonderfully shot “Silent Anthem”, the extremely patriotic slow instrumental version with Siachen Glacier soldiers (my most favourite) and even an intolerable rock version.

But this year, fed up with multiple versions, I searched for the original official choir version. All that I could find is a low quality YouTube video through my short search. I played it to see how many in the auditorium sing it. Half of the crowd genuinely joined the choir and sung the whole anthem. I was convinced a good quality original will make every one to sing.

What is this original version?

Our national anthem or any national anthem comes with a set of rules or guidelines to reproduce it in a public gathering.  Singing of the Indian National Anthem comes with giuidelines that has been published in various places including the official site of the Indian Government

http://india.gov.in/knowindia/national_symbols.php?id=6

It even gives the video version and the mp3 version of the Indian National Anthem and are of low quality – no different from the version I downloaded. If you read the guidelines carefully, mass singing of the national anthem is what the government expects the people to do be it in public gatherings, schools and colleges. In fact, schools have compulsory singing of National Anthem in the morning so that it gets popularised among the young children. But,  the question is are we singing? Are we encouraging our children to sing it?

Why someone should sing the National Anthem?

I still remember a moment from my school days when I warned one of my classmates as he was not respecting the national anthem and the flag. I love to sing my National Anthem loud and clear, wherever it’s played. It gives me immense pride and unquenchable trust on my country men that we will succeed against all odds. I am also not for blind singing of the National Anthem without knowing the meaning of it. It has been written by one of the greatest poets that India has ever produced and has a very simple tune so that every one can sing it without any training. In fact, the harmony that the song takes when it’s sung in a chorus, just mind blowing.

There are people who don’t sing it at a gathering but respect it. There are people who don’t sing it because they have their own principles. I respect each one of them. But if you think singing the national anthem is an “uncool” thing to do, you have lost my respect. Singing the national anthem is a matter of pride and our anthem definitely qualifies to be one of the most beautifully written poems in the world.

Why I love and hate the versions?

When AR Rahman and Bharatbala set out to have an album on the National Anthem, I was extremely happy about it.  No doubt, it was a wonderful video and brilliantly orchestrated. But I expected AR Rahman to do the original 52 second version too, alas he flattered to deceive. Most of the “versions” of our National Anthem that spawned because of this video,  have been reasonably good except for a few like the rock version.

The point I am arriving at is, people started playing the longer versions of the National Anthem in public gatherings especially the AR Rahman’s version because of the quality, popularity and the fantastic performers. But it did one horrible thing, it stopped us from singing the national anthem. I can’t do an aalap like Hariharan or Lata Mangeshkar nor the slow version allows me to sing with the fervour that’s connected with the song. I actually tried to sing the song along with the video and I sounded really really pathetic in a public gathering. And I found, none of them were singing. It’s not because they don’t know the song, it’s because the song is slow and sung by the experts in their own way. A search in the internet gave me a startling fact that even a few Indian embassies abroad are using the AR Rahman version. Are we losing the originality of the song that was written and composed by Tagore?

I believe in some years even the official version will be changed to any one of the above mentioned versions and probably the original version will be in archives.

What can be done?

1.The Government can come up with an official choir version (good quality) or even get one of the celebrity singers to do a perfect 52 second version

2.The instrumental version is brilliant. But provide a high quality version to be played in public gatherings.

3.Encourage mass singing without the aid of any visual or audio medium . Nothing sounds better than 100 people singing our beautiful anthem.

4. Stop playing other versions in public gatherings of any importance. No Rock versions, no aalaps and not even the silent anthem. They can be watched million times on YouTube and shared in Facebook on the days of national importance

5. Start singing our national anthem.. Please

Although a low quality video, check out the harmony that fills when a crowd sings the National Anthem – This is the world record effort from the people of Aurangabad

P.S: Did you know that the first AR Rahman version had four ‘Jaya he’s in the penultimate line? Check it out here -
http://youtu.be/AjEwxedLoa4