Soodhu Kavvum; Bloody Awesome Movie

This is probably one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. What i found amazing was the fact that all characters keep a straight-face throughout the movie. It is the seriousness with which they go about this script is what makes it the most hilarious. My (biased) view of thamizhs as a culture leads me to believe that the spectrum of sarcasm -> நக்கல் and everything in-between is this civilization's strongest point. This movie is a great example of how that நக்கல் can be on your face but at the same time unstated. Take the first scene for instance where T.Rajendar posters adorn the walls in the house of a character. No one really talks about the poster or even shows it pointedly. But its there. The director has put it there. And this guy who has a T.Rajendar poster in his wall has the audacity to ask his friend as to why he didn't use 1.5 lacs on something more productive than ...well! I wont say what. Just see it for yourself. Its the most amazing display of self-pointed humor.

This movie is so layered that I couldn't place it in one genre as opposed to the other. There are many "Sigamani" (for those S. Ve. Sekhar fans) moments in the movie where one character says as a matter of fact "வெலை செய்யரா அளவுக்கு எங்களுக்கு வயசு ஆகலை சார்".  The four characters couldn't be more far apart. The IT guy is our anchor into this bizzaire world. He is the only real person we can hold on to. One guy, named Pagalavan,  walks through life without a care as if he has all the money and time in the world. Working or for that matter living is optional for him. He has managed to grow up and doesn't really have a purpose in life. One can place a considerable amount as a bet that he probably doesn't understand the concept of "purpose". My favorite character was Ramesh Thilak the ex-chaeuffer. He has that free-flowing x-factor about him that makes him adorable and unpredictable at the same time. 

Finally Das played by Vijay Sethupathi (who is growing in stature by the nano second) plays the most complex role in the movie. You actually dont know what drives him to do the stuff he does. He is mentally deranged. There is no doubt about that. His quest for perfection in a method he has found to make money is a fantastic contrast to his mental problems. The director doesn't keep the truth about Sanchita Shetty under wraps. We are clued in at the start. And from that moment on the movie adds a new dimension to the proceedings. Now the director is at a point where he has the license to play with her character any which way he wants. She could come in a monkey suit and we would still tear our stomachs in laughter. I could feel that at any moment she was going to show up in a Bikini. Her scenes build up to that hilarious payoff. In an English movie she would have appeared naked in the living room conversation between the 4 crooks. The director must've been severely restrained to have her in a swimming dress. Oh Damn you Thamizh sensibilities - there was an awesome potential for that scene. My only complaint was that I wish they had made Sanchita's situation a little less obvious than it was. And  left us to deduce the whole thing.

The new guy who plays the cop Brahma does not have a single line of dialog and his character perfectly builds the movie up for the final payoff.. He is probably more deranged than Das but just happens to be on the right side of the law. The nut case collection is complete with the MLA's son who manages to get kidnapped while he is getting kidnapped and still comes out as      a honorable man among thieves. These characters go on to create one of the most unique movies I have seen in Thamizh cinema. One could argue the end was a little bit stretched but that was okay. The last 30 minutes was about the director throwing a kitchen sink full of ideas at us. A few them are bound to not work. As a viewer I was glad to see some one deliver so much without even appearing to try. More importantly, I respect the fearlessness of director Nalan Kumaraswamy. Many directors mistake irreverence for courage and this movie is perfect example of someone who does not make that mistake. 

Thathuvam #1172: The insular mind

Focus is narrow, exclusive insular, and discriminating.
So is concentration, specialization and dedication.
Dilution is broader, liberal, inclusive and more encompassing.
So is aimlessness, scatter brained and accommodating.
One converges the other concaves.
A true roman in rome is the former.
The latter - his non-roman subject.

Kamal Hasan, Cho etc

I don't think Cho's spontaneous genius can be summed up in simple words. He has the ability to squeeze through a subtle point in-between humor. And I'd like to think it stings where it hurts. He summed up Kamal Hasan perfectly when Kamal appeared in a mock version of reality show "Neengalalum Vellalam Oru Kodi" For the uninitiated this show is a poor man's poor copy of "Who wants to be a Millionaire". Or as I'd like to call the show - Vijay TV's Poverty Porn.. A carefully instrumented show where people's dopamine response is achieved by hearing poor people sing their poverty song, cry often and get alms from the host Prakash Raj. Someone's poverty is our entertainment. And no one can sell this sort of entertainment better than Vijay TV.

Anyway coming back to our beloved Cho. Cho casually described Kamal as "An actor among intellectuals and an intellectual among actors". This is probably as accurate as one can get in terms of describing Kamal Hasan and as close to one can get to insulting him during Vijay TV's traditional lick ass series of shows.

As observed many times in this blog Shakespeare has said two things about life - (1) No God is equal to sabapathy and (2) the world is a theater. In the spirit of (2) this was clearly not a reality show. It was as staged as it can get. If the "Ramanujar birth place" question didn't clue one in. I am sure Mortimer Wheeler and Sambhaji Maharaj must have. One was happy looking at Kamal Hasan's rather poor pretense during the Poornam Viswanathan question. It was comforting to note that even he wasn't interested in pretending anymore. But it will deceive the public nevertheless. This is because the questioner did not 'out' the question paper to Kamal Hasan. The questioner knew the contents of the answer paper Kamal Hasan had written and set the questions accordingly. And hey! cinema icons never lose. Award shows are staged that way in India. The only reason Kamal Hasan didn't win 1 crore was because "time was up". If there was time he would've won the show. How can Kamal Hasan ever be wrong in Vijay TV?

This show was mainly about how big of a "maira pudungi" Kamal Hasan is. The purpose of the show was to tell us all that Kamal Hasan is this amazingly, intelligent, multi-talented, know it all, philosopher, pundit, jedi master and Gandalf. A veritable modern Vishwamithrar whom we better call Brahma Rishi only because we are not Vasishtars and therefore we have no right to not crown him with titles. We are almost obligated to do so. Since we are remiss for not acknowledging the turban'ed Bharathi in his lifetime, we have to compensate by acknowledging this self-proclaimed  "turban podaatha Bharathi". No one pauses to realize that Bharathi was not recognized because he was truly a rebel and didn't agree with the popular thought process  of people around him. The former is not always caused by the latter. But the latter always causes the former. 

One of the biggest failings of Tamils as a civilization in the post-independence era is their glorification of cinema koothadis as messiahs, philosophers and intellectuals. In an ideal world, cinema people will be relegated to the entertainment section. They would have zero voice in politics, religion, philosophy and intellectual thought process of the civilization. The only way a dictator can set right this 'pazha pona' thamizh civilization is to limit the freedom of cinema people to have them not express a view on political, religious or other topics that require careful debate, knowledge and understanding. There should be whiplashes for cinema people who even has a fleeting thought about expressing an opinion on philosophy and politics.

A person like Kamal Hasan is dangerous to the society purely because he is an actor pretending to be an intellectual when people can't tell the difference. There is a risk that he may actually have a social impact. His false narratives of history, unnoticeable inaccuracies, artificial agenda can actually mislead the people. Channels like Vijay TV who have been carefully setting up a narrative to brainwash people use him effectively. Whether he likes it or not they ask Kamal about atheism and other arbitrary historical/philosophical things which he is no way qualified to pontificate about. Yet he and his cinema cohorts are the ones who are the voices of this civilization's intellectual thinking. And the only way one can show their intellectualism or be a rebel in Tamil country is by offering their 2 cents on religion.

No matter what the topic is - Kamal Hasan arrives with his tool kit of "Sivaji Sahab", "Dilip Kumar Ji", "Balachander saar" " I am Sivaji sir's eldest son" " I sat on the lap of MGR, AVM" and performs his "adraa raama" monkey dance in front of an eager public. He appears to roar, growl, and in a "true Gandhian" sense militates against a non-existent straw man institution that opresses, supresses and depresses the innocent thamizhan. Losers who have no one to blame but themselves get an imaginary institution to shift the blame for their own failures. Apparently E.V.Ramaswamy didn't break Vinayagar idols. He only wanted more people to come to temple and pray. One must sympathize with Kamal Hasan though. He is a prisoner of his own image. The fox's paint will only come off when it rains. In a civilization that is going through an intellectual drought, chances of that happening is very low.

The notion of equality

I am increasingly amazed when young kids totally filled with idealistic notions come and tell you that s/he believes in "equality". I am not even sure if they mean this exclusively in a social context. I think they mean it everywhere. I find this kind of "flat earth and the sun goes around it"  brainwash fascinating. I wish I was in a position of power to poison the minds of younglings with arbitrary notions such as the one on 'equality' so that I can push my own agenda. 

Life as a Zero Sum Game Vs Life as an Ever Expanding Pie: There are some who believe that the world is a zero sum game. One person's growth means that someone else has lost. On the other hand, some think the universe is an ever expanding pie and everyone can grow with no cost to other individuals. Strangely 'equality' is a concept that belongs to the former philosophy. If you bring everything in this world to fit within a LHS = RHS construct then the world becomes a zero sum game. So if you belong to the LHS and if you have to gain anything you will have to deprive someone in RHS of that thing in equal proportions. On the contrary, if you believe things are by default unequal and work on an assumption that LHS != RHS (note: "!=" means "not equal to") then you can add or subtract anything from any side and the world is an ever expanding pie. From my observations, a person with scientific mind and liberal thought believes in equality but also believes that the universe is an ever expanding pie. As they say - medula oblangata is boggled.

Interpreting equality literally: Let me start by playing dumb and take the phrase "everything and everyone are equal" in the literal/absolute/non-metaphoric sense. I will pretend that I am an alien visiting this earth and I have heard a human being say "X = Y for all values of X and Y". This is patently wrong. People espousing equality don't really mean it that literally. But is important play this extreme interpretation to drive home the point that there are inequalities in the world that a person assumes, agrees to and accepts/endorses as 'natural' but conveniently forgets it when using 'equality' as an argument.

That things are fundamentally created unequal is the most obvious reality of nature: In my eyes one of the most easily discernible things from nature is that nearly all things are unequal. Living things are not only created unequal but constantly strive to be unequal all the time (think 'evolution'). This includes the fact that some living things are human beings, some are animals,  birds etc etc.  Some people are born healthy, some have retardation of growth, some cant hear or speak, some can run very fast at the age of 7, then there are 9 year old drug addicts, people who fail 2nd standard, rich people, poor people, atheists, liberals, conservatives, birds that can fly, animals that cannot, trees that bear fruit, mammals, eggs, reptiles, calm people, angry people, short people, fat people, tall people, people with vision problems, diabetics, ophans. If there is one thing we can be sure about. It is the fact that there is a inherent and natural inequality that exists and that we all accept as nature. Try telling a person who touts their belief in equality that all human beings are created with equal 'intelligence' or equal 'intellectual horsepower' and they will make a u-turn like you have never believed. If you really want to anger them tell them everyone is equally 'lucky'.

Interpreting Equality As a Metaphor: Now, people may actually 'say' something but 'mean' something totally different. So if you pull yourself out of the 'literal' interpretation mode and understand that people can be 'metaphoric' when they use the term 'equality' we find that people intuitively mean something more subtle. So at the core of it people may subconsciously accept that X and Y are fundamentally unequal  but nevertheless require X & Y to be *treated* equally. Here is where I think there is a fundamental disconnect between what people *mean* and what people *do*. These people want everyone to be treated equally but they themselves don't treat any two people equally. For example - a woman who majorly clamors for equality may meet 1000 men in her life who want to marry her but she will choose only one. In effect she treats 999 people unequally when compared to the 1 she chooses to marry. If you think this is an 'out there' anecdote and isn't empirically true, think again. When 2,00,000 people apply for IIT-JEE exams, the board actively discriminates among them and only selects 2500. In that 2500 every single person is treated unequally in terms of preference for groups. Extend this to interviews. In any single interview the job of the interviewer is to introduce an inequality between applicants to select a few and deny the others. The categories where people display their competence by introducing inequality is almost universal and omnipresent. Academics, research, sports, medicine, army, housing, jobs, government tenders, electricity, and basic comforts depend on establishing inequality. Either the individual actively works towards establishing and increasing his inequality with his peers or the judges/governance rewards individuals with high level of inequality compared to their peers. In fact it is hard to come up with examples where 2 things are assigned exactly equal results.

No one treats anyone equally: In a social context a mother or father treats other children as unequal to their own children. A court of law establishes inequality between defense and prosecution. A wife treats her husband differently from other men. You treat your social circle different from an urchin on the slum. For example your friends are people who are in the same financial or educational class as you are. You don't have friends who are construction workers. You actively discriminate and create inequality in choosing your friends circle by consciously eliminating beggars, slum urchins, prison inmates, and construction workers. You may eliminate them indirectly by never even giving them a chance or never meeting them but that in itself is a result of inequality in social status that you endorse and accept. There is a recursive inequality even within existing methods of establishing inequality. Selecting a person as spouse over another one because of a professional, physical or financial inequality is accepted by the certain people but the very same people detest rejecting marriage proposals based on caste inequality.

The Philosophy of equality: What this all boils down to is an lack of understanding of what we really mean by 'equality'. And what forms of equality pass philosophical muster and what don't. There are situations in which equality is the correct approach and there are situations in which inequality is the correct approach. I have almost come to believe that those who make arguments based on an assumption of equality as an axiom do not understand the difference between equality of outcome and equality of opportunity. 100 men may have an equal opportunity to go ask a girl for her hand in marriage. But there will be no equality in outcome. A group or category of people can have an equal opportunity to appeal to the court of law demanding a set of benefits comparable or equal to another set of people. The other set of people can go to court opposing this request. But the outcome may not be equal to both parties. The court - through very fair logic - may decide that one group will not be given an equal set of benefits when compared to another set of people. This does not mean people are bigots or there is unfairness in the system. Inequality in outcomes as a result of a peer validation process is how this world works. You can't expect god to come down and do an interview for you or be the judge in your court case - for you to consider it as a fair process. A peer human being with his biases and capabilities will conduct the decision making process.

Equality of Outcome is Nonsense: This is almost common sense. However, for many many issues people feel a sense of fairness only when there is equality of outcome. People don't realize equality or *feel* the presence of equality when there is only equality in opportunity. A slightly facetious example would be the 'spiritual but not religious' nut jobs who claim puke-worthy things that 'all gods are equal' or 'all forms of prayer or equal'. They will not *feel* the presence of equality if I selected only 1 form of prayer/god and followed just that. They would think I am a fundamentalist. And they wouldn't change their opinion unless they see 'equality in outcome'. I am virulently against 'equality of outcome'. Primarily because I am not a communist. I don't want all the 5 runners in a 100m race to win Gold or all applicants to a job interview be given job offers. That doesn't make me a bigot or a biased person. I am a bigot if I move the "starting point" in below diagram (Image Credit: wikipedia.org) leftwards. People should have an opportunity to take a 'shot' at the outcome they so desire. But I strongly disagree with the people who move the "ending point" leftwards and align it with "starting point" (Example: It is one of the flaws of caste based reservation systems in India - which involves a variant of this approach). Sounds like common sense but pretty much every second or third argument that uses 'equality' does this.

Circular Logic and Consequent Annoying High Moral Ground: Knowing where equality applies and where it doesn't reduces fallacious arguments where people present circular logic. These people say that 'Category X must be treated equal because... they are equal". Well if they are already equal then this request must be totally pointless. Its like saying "you should marry her because she is already married to you" or "You must kill him because he is already dead". An argument that some group of people should be given an equal outcome when compared to another group of people cannot depend on an assumption that the former group is *already* equal. Equality is a conclusion you are trying to establish. You can't use it as a premise. The fact that you can classify the two groups as distinct assumes that there  is a fundamental inequality that exists between them. So an appeal for equal outcome should involve a merit that is something other than 'equality'. Knowing this avoids the unnecessarily high moral ground that people derive by asking a fellow human being to offer equal *outcomes* for all religions (apparently they say the "same" truth in "different" ways), different gods/approaches within same religion, all genders, all races, and all sexual orientation etc. It maybe true that at the end of the argument they merit equal outcomes in a practical world.  But just don't start the argument with an axiom that they are 'equal'.

p.s1: As it is the case with many things the truth could be that the world is a mixture of LHS = RHS and where X != Y . In general I'd like to think that at a universal level it is an ever expanding pie with X + a != Y + b continuing to be true even if you keep adding on both sides. However, at some points depending on values of the four variables you could have exceptions where RHS = LHS.  Though they are  exceptions - they do impact a person's life as a result of  being a 'zero sum' situation. 

p.s2: On a lighter note - The entire intensity of iyengar-iyer god worship debate would be lot less intense if people grokked this.

p.s3: if you give everyone equal outcomes as default - you are not liberal, fair or good. You are actually a bad and unfair person. The whole notion of Satvik and rajo/tamas concept is based on this.

Panguni Uthiram

Iyam Sita mama suta
sahadharmacharee tava
prateechchha chainam bhadram te
panim grihneeshwa panina
pativrata mahabhaga
chhayevanugata sada.
These are the words spoken by King of Janaka, on the day when Uttara Phalguni star intersects with the full-moon day, as he offers his daughter Seetha in marriage to Rama. These words are uttered in every marriage that happens in the northern half of India. The translation of this goes "This is Seetha, my daughter. she will follow you in the path of dharma. Take her hand in your hand. She is both blessed and devoted and she will forever walk with you like your own shadow". Velukkudi often says that it is the wife who steers a man towards his dharma by being his conscience. And that is why she is called saha-dharmachareeni.  
This nice article outlines the significance of Panguni Uthiram. One of those days where I wish I was in Srirangam.

Review: Paradesi

How do I compare two categories of bad movies. Category A is a kind of movie that had shit material to start with and then was shittily executed by a nincompoop. Category B has awesome material to start with and an incompetent fool makes a shit movie out of it.  Now is the nincompoop more of a shithead or the incompetent fool? I would say the latter. But thats just me.

I don't know a lot about making movies. If I were given unlimited budget and a awesome technical crew, I wouldn't know how to make the characters speak with an even tone, how to adjust the dial so that the actors don't come off as over the top or don't extremely understate the role either. I'd struggle with quite a few things. Apparently I share all of these traits with Bala. The biggest problem I had with this movie was that it wasn't realistic or believable. Its very ironic given that the story really happened. First lets start with the poorly etched out characters. The hero guy cant act for nuts. For some reason he is not shown as a normal human being. Either he is retarded or that is his real acting ability  - but he is so over the top that I was left thinking if this was a movie from the 70s. Then there is his girl - who is also stupid and really over the top. The story was so explosive that there was no need for these abnormal characters to be around. And whats with the horrible dubbing? Is this an amateur movie?

When you have a great story you need some creativity and imagination to tell it nicely, engage the viewer and maybe deliver a knockout performance. The story should provide situations that makes the viewer empathize withe characters and go on a roller coaster ride. You know - the "Show, Don't tell" policy.  Bala lists each of these departments and botches them up in order. In this movie nothing happens that can even remotely called creative. Its not sincere enough to be called a documentary either. The entire first half is build up to a situation where people get themselves into shit. It has a wedding, a funeral, some hanky panky, and tasteless jokes. All done by some really bad actors with loud over the top voices. The second half is about what that shit they got themselves into looks like. Its bad. But then the movie is not about how bad that shit is. It is about how many people cry and for how long. You know - the "tell, don't show" botch-up. The second half is not about the situation. Its about crying, crying and really more crying. The movie is bloody freaking mind-numbingly boring. I couldn't believe it was 2 hours long. It felt more like 2 years inside a prison. It not about reactions to different situations. Its about same reaction to same situation. One trick keeps playing again and again.

I haven't seen a Bala film after Sethu. I thought Sethu was a tasteless movie for C center audience who don't require refinement in movie making. I stopped seeing Bala movies after that assuming the over-rating that he receives was from people with poor taste in movies. He is not on your face. He genuinely has bad taste. It sometimes appears as on-your-face because we mistake crudeness for boldness. Watching Paradesi now and reading the severe over-rating he is receiving makes me think the theory still applies. Bala makes movies for a strata of society that I would regard as typical C center front bencher crowd.  Dull, unrefined and severely lacking in taste.

Open Book Exam

This news about board exams being open-book exams might appear like good news for students. Well! it is so not good news for students. Its actually a nightmare. There were times in grad school where a bunch of desis would be praying that the professor would announce the exam as closed-book/closed-notes. We would recoil in shock if the prof said open book. If the test had to be meaningful even if you had a book open that says something about the toughness of the test, doesn't it? Its never going to be the case that the answer is in the book and test is about how fast you are able to find the answer and copy it to the answer paper. I am just glad I am done with school. At least once a week, I get nightmares that involve me preparing for an exam that I don't know anything about.

Some movies I saw last month

With 3 weeks of raging flu movies and some internet rants kept me going. Here are some movies that I saw

Kanna Laddu Thinga Aasaiya: This movie was funny, very engaging and had interesting characters. I would have given it 2 thumbs up if it did not blatantly copy  Indru poi Naalai vaa. Indru Poi Naalai Vaa is one of my favorite movies. Santhanam's career arc takes me back to a movie in 1990s where Goundamani acted as a hero. Goundan was at his peak before he acted as hero and that movie where he tried this hero business started his downfall. For some reason I feel Santhanam has peaked. This movie puts Santhanam's career at risk. I wouldn't be surprised if its all downhill for him after this point. It just feels like too high too soon for him. Both Vadivelu and Vivek gestated for 10-15 years before they hit their golden era.

Alex Pandian: what a bad movie! Seeing first day of Aayiratthil Oruvan and seeing the charge Karthi managed to create in the theater, I genuinely thought he had a great shot at becoming the next big thing in Tamil cinema. Maybe, almost reach Rajinikanth levels. He had that charisma. I must've been on dope to have made such a poor prediction. Karthi has gone down the path of choosing movies with crappy storylines that comes with 3rd rate sensibilities and it is hard to see where his next good movie is going to come from. If Sirutthai was a turd, Saguni was vomit (it was certainly not satire or even on the same planet as satire, it didn't have a single element that could be called as satire) and now Alex Pandian is diarrhea.  Karthi has wasted his great start by (a) personally not becoming muscular or athletic hero and (b) by choosing repetitive roles and piss poor movies. While I think Karthi firmly believes in not being elitist and wants to do simplistic time-pass movies that C center people will appreciate, I sometimes can't fathom his strategy of choosing movies and where he wants to go. Right now he seems to flushing himself down the toilet. One can also safely say that hhe can be stereotyped as a rowdy C center hero like Thiagarajan of yesteryear or Sundar C of today.

Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom: There is a lot that is awesome about this movie. This is certainly a good movie. The way its taken and the way it has been presented to us. I can sing praises about this movie all day long. But I'll also say this - the director has been lucky with this movie. It remains to be seen if he can deliver another good movie. The reason I say 'lucky' is because the movie relied too much on a 'one trick pony' of a story. Its the same joke played over and over again. There are  no awesome dialogs or variety in situations that brings the house down with laughter. I'd hesitate to categorize this as comedy genre, which was he expectation I went with. The novelty element of the story made this circus trick work. Balaji better have some other trick up his sleeve as well. 

Neerparavai:  Now this is a fantastic movie. I loved every second of it. Manirathnam should join as an assistant director to learn 'authenticity' from the guy who made this movie. I saw this movie the day after I saw Kadal and this movie is an outstanding example of great casting. Kadal on the other hand is an outstanding example of Manirathnam's consistent poor casting choices. Look athe the hero of neerparavai, the hero's father and all the other characters who support these two. They look authentic. they look like people from that society. Take one look at the church father who appears in Neerparavai. Thats believable. Manirathnam's vision of fisherman society is 'Abercrombie and Fitch' Gautham, Arvindh Sami and Arjun. None of them look like they've even seen a fisherman in real life. Thulasi and Lakshmi Manchu seem like models or convent school girls who wandered off the ramp and were accidentally teleported into this fisherman's place by Scotty. Although I am not 100% sure, it seems like the most un-authentic Thoothukudi/Nellai accent of all time & the worst ever dubbing artist (Suhasini) has dubbed for Lakshmi Manchu. The wonderous aspect about Neerparavai is the way it shows a love story, a comeback-in-life story in a kuppam with beautifully etched out characters. It doesn't overtly mention the unjust shooting down of fishermen by Srilankan army. But that notion is hanging there like a elephant in the room. Its all about it but never about it. Its a story about an epic struggle by a man to make a life of his own that is casually swatted down by events we ignore on a daily basis.

When it comes to dealing with Conflict of Interest

"indha avinaasi oru viswaasi"

p.s: I'd like to collect funds for a social psychology research project that surveys why such an abnormally high number of criticized bloggers resort to this (or why they feel compelled to use the word "really arrived"). 

Maniratnam's Kadal : Movie Review

There is an episode in Seinfeld where George says "I don't have anything to say to anyone". I think Manirathnam should take a cue from that. He really doesn't have anything left to say anymore. Kadal is by far the most boring movie I have seen in the recent past. You get the usual things that the 'The Hindu' newspaper people mention in all their reviews - like great cinematography, good technical aspects, good soud engineering, good back-lighting, good light-boy effects, good still photography and that kind of stuff. But in terms of story this movie is the biggest araicha maavu, I have ever seen. I really wanted to see a good movie. I was hoping I'd get to see a good movie after a long time. However, this movie has absolutely nothing going for it. It has no subtlety or any layers (unless you are Baradwaj Rangan and you are making stuff up as you interpret the movie ;-) ).

The problem with the movie is its poor story and poorly paced story telling. A good movie maker is generally expected to say a good story and say it in an interesting way. If you are Manirathnam you probably need to raise the bar by saying new stuff in new ways. This movie is Thalapathy with a few modifications to the Mamooty character. Arjun plays the Mamooty character and plays it as totally evil person with no shades of grey (He reminds us every 20 minutes or so that he is Satan). Arvindh Samy is the Arvind Samy of Thalapathy (his acting hasn't improved an ounce either) and is a Saint (no I am not kidding). Manirathnam even gives them black shirt and white shirt for fanboys to over interpret. Gautham plays the Rajinikanth character with zero ounce of subtlety or acting ability. The group, I went with concluded that after Maniratnam saw Thulasi act, he probably changed the mental condition of the character to match reality. All-in-All Manirathnam has flogged the 'Nallavana Kettavana' theme until the public begs to Yesu for forgiveness.

Lastly, and I cant stop myself from writing this, the tone of the movie makes me super curious. I have not gone to a mainstream movie and seen this much Jesus (or for that matter any other Kadavul) sshown in a movie (While I havent seen them I excluded the Amman, Ayyapa type movies as non-mainstream propoganda movies). I may have short-term memory loss. But Manirathnam - a professed atheist - making an out and out Yesu propaganda movie is very strange. I guess any director can choose the subject he wants. But if you asked me whether I saw this coming - I didn't see Manirathnam resorting to religion to preach morals coming at all. And make no mistake this is a 3 hour preachathon. The pace of the story was incredibly boring and made one want to shout "enakku thandanai kodunga" like Sarkarai Gounder. On top of it there was this religious thing repeatedly shown on your face. Sometimes its nice to show a cultural aspect of a society but over doing it makes it tiresome. The characters kept using a sanskrit word to say 'hi and 'bye'. This is probably a word that the missionaries in fisherman's society have appropriated (I thought Sanskrit word was Sthothram - but they kept saying it differently). Those things could've been a decent 'culture' tour if they didn't over do it. One could probably appreciate the research Manirathnam has made to make this all sound authentic - but for that the movie needed to have something.

Retire already Mani!

Dowser Kazhandu pochuda

Kamal: "Indha paapathi ma! chicken'la uppu kaaram ellam correct'a irukkannu sollungo"
Paapathi 'Amma': "Indha court order banning your movie. Sariya padichu 'sa'ku badhila 'sha' irukaanu paarthu Shollungo"

Viswaroopam - Review

Strangely, I am at loss of words on how to describe this movie. It is certainly not a great movie or anywhere close to Kamal's best. At the same time I wouldn't say he did a bad job with the movie. Its just that nothing much happens in the movie. The entire movie seems like a build up to potential second movie he may or may not release. Specifically in the 2+ hours he has spent on the movie Kamal Hasan  paints a nice picture of life in Afghanistan and the lives of the people there. I thought he brought out a very good capture of the 'human beings' who lived in Afghanistan. He showed that they aren't machines who just killed for pleasure. but were people with thoughts and feelings who are into this because of religion or forces they don't really control. Another area where he did really well was the way he set up the Kathak dancer's effeminate'ness to a splendid retribution moment. It was a mini-movie within itself where you could see him wind this coil up for that specific catharsis moment. I would like to think that the area where he has failed - was the part where the movie had to deliver us the payload. In the sense - what is the payoff to this movie? What the culmination point where it all starts to make sense and all the lose ends are tied together? There is no such point. There is no high or adrenalin rush. Nothing really happens.

For one thing Viswaroopam lacks soul. The key part of a movie that would connect us to the characters and make us feel for them. It has a pretty decent first half where it was building on to something. But then like I said - nothing big really happens. the climax is a whimper and some parts of the second half (where American FBI agent ask some arbit Indian woman for advise on nuclear stuff - as if they couldn't bring in their own experts) was just nonsense. And things like 'Faraday cover' etc could not be pulled off without losing credibility. I was wondering why I didn't expect a soul from - lets say - Thuppakki. I guess Kamal Hasan has a nature of peeping into places in the heart where other people do not look. And it shows when he does so in a half-hast manner. Thuppaakki was much better movie purely because of its simplicity. The story had a clear beginning, middle and an end. It defined the problem being solved correctly and there were no layers. Vishwaroopam lacks that clarity, seems have layers but then doesn't do justice to that. As a viewer I am not engaged.

Lastly, the question of whether someone should be offended by the movie. Kamal Hasan has built or tried to build some sort of a trust with the muslim community over time - partly by openly sympathising with them and partly by criticizing Hinduism to the best of his ability. He has tried to cash in on that trust ticket in this movie and that has sadly backfired. If you are one of those paarpana paradesis who think being an atheist or eating chicken mutton inspite of being a paarpanan is a big 'perumai' - it is quite understandable that you may not get the point of the muslim objection. There exists another world - a very normal world like one in which these kudigaara parpanargal live - where people have not drunk the koolaid of 'irreverence towards religion is cool'. In that world  this movie could be offensive. To me the muslim parts of movie sounded true. But I was thinking in the first few scenes 'no brahmin be it in Chennai  or in New York ever talks like that'. Given that I wouldn't be surprised if the Muslims felt the opposite.

I actually thought the religious parts about muslims in the movie was shown in a positive context - that they were basically god-fearing people who have been misled. But who knows how it appears to them -  they may question the presence of religious rituals in these scenes. I was debating as to why Jayalalitha's government managed to create one problem or the other for Kamal Hasan's release and maybe thought of ascribing a political motive to the ban. But part of me thinks they are doing the sensible thing of playing to  vote-bank politics and let the courts handle it. Its a win-win. They can always claim they banned it and are helpless if courts over turn it. Then I was thinking whether Kamal Hasan was this innocent pioneering artist who was facing 'ahead of his times' type issues. But I could not bring myself to believe that. He has repeatedly made fun of and bullied weaker castes of today's society. Life is a jungle and he is an animal getting mangled by other animals. I have no sympathy for him. This movie  has the potential to be interpreted as offensive. I think it gives people enough grey area to hijack it to their own purpose. And that is as ok as kamal hasan being allowed to make this movie. Both views have an equal chance to duke it out in the movie. Just because you don't think religion is important doesn't mean shit. If you are a kudigaara paarpana thaazhi who takes pride in not wearing poonal and think 'freedom of speech' is non-negotiable, I can help you empathize with the muslim objection. Think of your religion as 'freedom of speech'. If you feel offended that someone uses their religious sentiments to infringe on your religion then you know exactly how they feel when you use your religion to infringe on theirs.

Update: Other Vishwaroopam Reviews

1. Amas (who drove 6 hours back & forth from Madras to bangalore to watch this)
2. Harini
3. Maxdavinci
4. SriKrishnan

All Squares are rectangles but all rectangles....

While anecdotal evidence is very impressive, one definitely wonders whether empirical evidence will show that at least a significant proportion of rape cases happen minus influence of alcohol.

The recent Dilli case is a starting point. Then you have the Bombay case that says- 

"a young man — who raped a pregnant woman and killed her grand mother-in-law — on the ground that the accused was drunk and not in a normal state of mind."

Then we go back to the famous Sarika Shah case (not a rape but molestation) that changed a lot of things in Tamil Nadu and we read

" the drunken, autorickshaw-borne gang, returning from a Youth Congress meeting in the city, splashed water from sachets on Sarika and her friend Kavitha, who were walking along the road. Going a step further, Hari fell on Sarika who lost balance in the impact and fell, sustaining severe head injuries. "

The Pongal Song

A nostalgia search triggered led to unearthing of a poor print of this song that was shown by DD on every single Pongal day - Thai Pirandhal vazhi pirakkum thangame thangam..". Watching SSR and Raja Sulochana was generally regarded as recipe for proper chinese prison torture stuff . But this song somehow managed to lend hope..

When does a movie becomes a Kamalagasan movie?

A country can be called England only when any young boy can dream of growing up and becoming the queen of England [1].

A movie is a Kamal Hassan movie when any ambitious and self-respecting Srinivasa Iyengar, Ramunja Iyengar, Agnihothram Thathacharya, Vemuri Ranga Raghava Iyengar can dream of growing up and becoming an islamic terrorist. That too a terrorist in a jihadi organization that firmly believes in secularism, communism and freedom for women. 

[1] - M*A*S*H

Adiye

Here is A.R. Rahman's 'Adiye' song from Manirathnam's upcoming movie 'Kadal'. As soon as I heard it mind began wandering into "where have I heard this before" mode (No! its not the Aaromale song from VTV). Here is the Adiye song:

(After lot of head scratching)

Maybe there is a better "original" song in the same genre. But Boyz II Men was the closest that came to my mind:

But there were these boy bands from the 90s who have had a song much closer to 'Adiye' than I can remember. I searched Color Me Badd, EYC but couldn't get an exact match. I am pretty sure there is an exact match that I cant get hold of. Maybe its a case for my old buddy Karthik to crack.

update:

some head scratching later Alicia Keys 'fallin' also has aspects that I like in Adiye

Rape, Rajo Tamas etc

I checked my twitter feed today morning and the first 30 or so tweets all had the same topic. It was people expressing extreme outrage on the Delhi rape situation.Twitter is a miniature, easily accessible version of main stream media. Smaller in scale but very representative. Both are just subjective opinions of and knee jerk reactions to some incident. So it was an interesting experience learning about what happened purely based on twitter reaction of people. I hadn't read a single news article on this issue at the time of logging into twitter ( I later read some news items) and I don't have cable TV. A lot of tweets were from men hurling expletives and wanted the rapists to be castrated and hanged (in that order). Deep down inside my heart - I couldn't help but feel a little suspicious about some of the men who appeared to be very outraged. A woman feeling this level of outrage - I get it. Somehow after reading some extreme tweets from some men (not all), I felt they were putting on a show. They were more interested in letting others know that they were outraged as opposed to being genuinely sad. And that is what this post is about. Not so much on those incidents (there is a little bit of that) but on the twitter reactions to those incidents.

Why did I feel so ? For example, one guy said he was brought up by strong women in his family (listed his grandmother, mother, and sister) and claimed that it was a reason why he always learned to respect women. Quite a number of other guys said stuff that was a variation of this. I felt that it was total bull shit. Let alone big time TPT (in an attempt to raise their personal brand value). I don't believe there is a man out there who does not view women as a sexual object. The statistics on number of men who watch porn (and the kind of porn) is a more accurate indicator of how respectfully men view women. The porn industry is built on forcing women to do things worse than rape.Its not like women study in some college aspiring to have a solid corporate career as porn stars. It is exploitation of women.  (Almost) All men watch porn and encourage the growth of the industry. Cognitive Dissonance anybody? If lack of respect was the sole reason to commit rape - you'd have 1000s of rapes everyday. The importance of 'respect to women' leading to a rape situation and the extent of how *constantly* a man respects *all* women has been severely distorted. This 'respect' factor does not have a stable value in a man. It changes depending on the situation, time and context.

Why is this reaction of the desi male in twitter is revealing? Lets say a man was murdered in a gory fashion because the murderer wanted to rob the victim's wallet and the victim resisted. It wouldn't evoke this kind of reaction. But lets assume it did. How would you feel if the reactions were "I respect life so much. My mother has life. My father has life. I would never take someone's life.". Really! What an irrelevant thing to say!  Why is this suddenly about you and what you wouldn't do? This song ain't about you brother. A murder is heinous and objectionable stand-alone. It has no relationship to the moral uprightness of the observer. If the observer inserts his own moral uprightness into the picture it looks more like - Unga appan Kudhiru kulla illaya? But in a rape situation people talk about how much they respect women. And I am also sure there a rapists whose mother or sister were actually good, honest upright and strong women. One doesn't lead to the other.

Since everybody is allowed a theory. Here is my theory on why people rape. Some are necessary conditions. A subset of others could combine to lead to sufficiency. But they are in the order of importance. 1. Opportunity to commit rape 2. Influence of Alcohol 3. Mental Illness 4 Poor Cultural/family Upbringing, family values  5. Lack of Education and so no fear of retribution (It could be Law or Police or Karma or God) 6. Viewing women as sexual objects 7. Repression due to lack of sexual satisfaction and many more. Like having small amount of poison in your body almost every man has small amounts of at least one or many of the above. While it is in moderation everything is ok. It is only when they grow to extreme levels and certain deadly combinations of the above factors occur does a man commit rape.

#1 is a necessary condition but need not be sufficient (although in significant number of cases it may have proven to be sufficient). What pisses me off is that #2 listed above is pretty close to being a necessary condition. A combination of #1 and #2 in many cases is pretty close to the sufficient condition.No one talks about the influence of alcohol in this incident. In the case of the Connecticut shooting the very same people rejected the notion that 'guns don't kill but people do'. They agreed that the nature of the person alone isn't the only reason. A lifeless object that enabled the person was the reason. In this incident they take the total opposite view. Why? because most of these people in social media are kudigaara pannadais. They don't want to blame alcohol because it risks their personal brand. However, cheap liquor/arrack available to uneducated/poor/shift-job people has become a menace to the society. It makes them animals. Have you seen how people in front of TASMAC behave. Have you walked with a girl on the street and crossed by a TASMAC after 9PM?

To conclude, I strongly believe that notions such as 'progress' and 'safety' have a life and inherent qualities of their own. We overestimate our ability to manufacture, customize and create these two concepts according to our wishes. You can't have everything you want and still have safety. It may never be possible. The world is a jungle. Life is a jungle. You can't control tumors appearing in your body and killing you. You can't prevent many diseases. This world is like that. No matter what happens to this world, you can never stop rape. It will never go away. If the world is filled with excellent mothers, sisters and grandmothers - there will still be rape. If everyone got educated in the best universities with the best ethics and humanities counselling - there will still be rape. That is the reality of this jungle. A view that assumes this to be the case is practical. Rape has existed for 1000s of years. Why would it go away now?

The key thing here is progress and safety are notions that has a subtractive quality. This means the quality of this concept gets better when you remove things from the system. Cutting off, stopping and removing the things we do help a lot. Safety becomes worse if you add more things into the system. Cutting junk food, beverages, stopping to overeat help prevent diseases better than adding more medications after getting ourselves into trouble. Doctors can't remove diseases from your life as fast as Drug mafias, alcohol mafias, tobacco mafias and fast food mafias can add them into your life. Similarly police cannot remove criminals from the society faster than the number of criminals added to the society by vulgar movies, loose moral standards and alcohol mafia. So - 'progress' and 'safety' phenomena is achieved by cutting things off and stopping a list of things we do. There is some humility in knowing that there are evils we cannot eradicate. The least we can do is reduce our personal probability of getting exposed to them. The government will still have their job cut out. But personal actions and government actions are not mutually exclusive. You can't have free flowing alcohol, party hopping couples hanging out in unsafe places at night, thinly stretched police force and still have safety. Feminists and certain groups argue that it is the duty of the government to guarantee safety of women under all circumstances. It maybe the theoretically right thing for the civilized society to have. But it is utopia and it will never ever happen. 

If parents feel that they should stop their daughters from staying out at night. They bloody well have the right to do so. They are removing #1 reason for rape - opportunity. Its not the ideal solution. But no one has the right to tell parents that they shouldn't do that. What some devious people do is play out the "removing #1" to its extreme case (i.e. they ask "are you suggesting women never leave the house and wear burkhas like in Saudi Arabia"). This argument tactic is deliberate, evil and detrimental. What is safe and unsafe is a subjective decision. One uses common sense and their knowledge of the local conditions. But mocking people who take a slightly conservative tact is pretty judgmental of these feminists in my opinion. The police may have to do their job of keeping the city safe. But that is separate from parents trying to keep their children safe. A girl child is not a bait for the society to test its law and order situation or its moral fortitude.

Dei Gautham Menon!! 1990s called they want their love stories back!

When I wrote that I really liked VTV, I was told by my friends - who went to engineering college in 1990s and had this thing called girl friend (back then it was called 'lover' as the concept of casual dating didnt really exist) - that only people (i.e. me) who had no idea of love or romance would really like VTV. They might be on to something. VTV was probably an excellent love story for losers from 1990s.  

I am guessing Nee Dhaane En Pon Vasantham would have been a great movie for the lovers from 1990s. Just that it should been made and released in the 90s itself. It looks kind of outdated now. It does not have those "50 edits per second" kind of artificial pace, it goes about in its own pace, sets the mood and tells a story that has been told since the days people learned to say stories. The problem is Gautham Menon has done the same movie before. Actually he has done it twice before. In Vaaranam Aayiram and VTV he had squeezed in every little bit of moody love moments that would have resonated with people who went to private engineering college in 1990s. There is just nothing more left to be said on this topic. Trying to draw from the same dry well has made him give us a rather vacuous movie in which nothing really happens. And really, Gautham Menon needs a dialog writer for his upcoming movies. He is a really bad at dialogs.

The sad part was there were pieces in the movie that I actually liked. I am a Jiiva fan. And Santhanam was really funny in this movie. I don't mind it when directors take off on their own trip and do a  movie which is essentially a 3 hour ego masturbation. Unfortunately, it becomes painful to watch when Gautham does it 3 times in row. I actually found that checking test match score during the movie was a useful distraction. And the scoring rate of Dhoni and Kohli was 2 an over.

The manner-less Seattle crowd was at its mokkai best again. I really wish there is a flyer given out to Thamizh people who watch movies in Seattle just to let them know in advance that they are neither cool nor funny. A bunch fat idiots started making inane comments that sadly evoked a few giggles. This encouraged them enough to make them assume that they were awesome and cool. So they started making mokkai comments throughout the movie. In fact 90% of the theater crowd were mannerlessly making noises. I didnt pay $10 to listen to these idiots. There was a bigger idiot who had mailed in a movie from India to pain me. I didn't need local help. 

Kiruba apologizes for not apologizing enough

Chenthil tells us why - among people who offer deep apologies - Kiruba's apologies are the deepest?

Vadivelu, International Politics, 24 x 7 news etc

I can describe the analogy but I'll let you draw it.