Thavamaai Thavam Irundhu - A poetry on silver screen
By a stroke of luck, was able to watch this movie during my trip to Austin 2 weeks back. Luck bcos this movie would have never made it to the theaters in Seattle and I would have probably had to wait a good 2-3 months before the DVD gets released.
I am trying not dwell too deep into the merits and de-merits of the movie - something that has been done in pretty fair amount around the blogdom (If I were to write a full-fledged review of the movie, it would look something like what Balaji wrote here). So, let me be crisp - the movie was very good and easily walks away with the best movie of the year title (I haven’t seen Kanda Naal Mudhal yet). The biggest plus point of the movie of course is the fact that Cheran has shown what happens in most of the households back in India. That is probably his biggest strength – everyone who watches the movie will be able to relate to each and every scene in the movie, either bcos they themselves had experienced the same in their lives or someone they knew had a similar experience. And if you are one of those few guys like me whose dad had to put in a lot of physical work, I bet you would have been able to appreciate the nuances of the movie better. There were at least 3 times in the movie when I was unable to hold back my tears and this has not happened to me in a long time (the last movie that made me cry that many times was Mahanadhi).
Performances-wise as every review has pointed out, Raj Kiran is truly out-standing. I have always believed that he is a very good actor, right from his En Raasavin Manasile days. But then, during those days, he was playing the hero in rural based movies, which clearly were his strengths. It was only when I watched him in Nandha did I come to know of his versatility in doing a convincing job of any role given, no matter what theme the movie was based on. Pandavar Bhoomi only went on to confirm this. So, Raj Kiran's excellent performance did not come as a big surprise to me. But what surprised me was that debut heroine's performance. Though she was kind of struggling in those scenes where their love blossoms during their college days, she was amazing as the movie went on and in fact outdid both Raj Kiran & Saranya in many of the scenes in the 2nd half.
Cheran as an actor has definitely improved from the Autograph days. Though there are scenes where his shortcomings did come to the fore, in many scenes Cheran, the director, has stepped in for Cheran, the actor. Like the scene where he faces his father when his father comes in search of him after his marriage, that was obviously a very crucial scene where one's acting abilities will be put to severe test. Cheran, probably knowing fully well that he might spoil the essence of the scene, conveniently makes Cheran the actor cry with his hands hiding his face and crying in the arms of his father, thereby making sure that his shortcoming was not exposed while at the same time, maintaining the tempo of the scene. That, I thought was a very smart move on part of Cheran.
Though the songs tuned in by Sabesh – Murali were surprisingly good (Unnai Saranadaindhen & the Enna paaarkkirai are top notch), I thought they could have done a much better job in the background score, bcos there were so many times in the movie where you could feel the disappointment deep inside you that the background score could have lifted the mood of the scene much more. I firmly believe that only the Maestro could have done justice to a movie like this. This is a movie like Azhagi which will have the imagination of the Maestro flowing.
Since I knew beforehand that the length of the movie is the biggest drawback for the movie, all through the movie, I was trying to figure out if there was any scene or portions of a scene that Cheran could have cut to reduce the length of the movie. Though there were definitely some scenes in the movie where he could have either cut them or shortened their length, I could fully understand his inability to do so bcos when the subject you are dealing with is so close to your heart, I don’t think any creator will have the heart to cut short those sequences...
The experience of watching this movie reminded me of my experience of watching movies like Lakshya, Swades and Passion of the Christ. The one thing I had in common while watching these 4 movies was that all these movies got so close to my heart. The one complaint against Swades was that it was way too long and in a way, took the preacher’s spot, slightly going about how living abroad is missing an essential part of you. Same with this movie too (actually with all of Cheran's movies). If you thought that Swades was preachy stuff, then chances are that you will feel the same about TTI too.
The other usual complaint that you hear Cheran's movies that there are no subtleties whatsoever in the way he handles a theme in his movies and that he tell things on your face (The accusers are mostly Mani Rathnam fans. I am one Mani fan too but I am not against this on-your-face stuff). That is where my comparison with the movie Passion of the Christ movies comes in. Mel Gibson had stated long before the release of the movie that the primary reason he was making the movie with all those explicit scenes (like the scene where the skin & flesh is shown peeling off Jesus' back) was bcos he believed that it was only when showed like this would people actually fully understand the sacrifice that God has made. And the unparalleled success of the movie only confirmed his belief since that was not the first Hollywood movie that was based in the Bible but POFTC received a response never seen before for Biblical movies. I have been a Christian all my life but believe me it was on the day I watched the movie did the actual magnitude of the pain He must have gone through as part of His sacrifice dawned on me. And in no way, you can call that the movie had subtlety. If at all anything, it was as un-subtle as it could get but it drove home the point. So Cheran actually gets it right by being non-subtle (if I may coin that word)
When the theme/ subject that a movie deals with so close to your heart, you tend to overlook the shortcomings & faults in that movie. By no means is Lakshya or Swades or TTI a perfect movie. But just bcos of the reason mentioned above, we overlook the faults and appreciate them immensely. And that will be the reason I will cite while passing on the easy judgment that Thavamaai Thavam Irundhu is by a long way the best movie of the year and the best we have seen since Kaadhal, another movie that portrayed sheer realism on-screen.
I am trying not dwell too deep into the merits and de-merits of the movie - something that has been done in pretty fair amount around the blogdom (If I were to write a full-fledged review of the movie, it would look something like what Balaji wrote here). So, let me be crisp - the movie was very good and easily walks away with the best movie of the year title (I haven’t seen Kanda Naal Mudhal yet). The biggest plus point of the movie of course is the fact that Cheran has shown what happens in most of the households back in India. That is probably his biggest strength – everyone who watches the movie will be able to relate to each and every scene in the movie, either bcos they themselves had experienced the same in their lives or someone they knew had a similar experience. And if you are one of those few guys like me whose dad had to put in a lot of physical work, I bet you would have been able to appreciate the nuances of the movie better. There were at least 3 times in the movie when I was unable to hold back my tears and this has not happened to me in a long time (the last movie that made me cry that many times was Mahanadhi).
Performances-wise as every review has pointed out, Raj Kiran is truly out-standing. I have always believed that he is a very good actor, right from his En Raasavin Manasile days. But then, during those days, he was playing the hero in rural based movies, which clearly were his strengths. It was only when I watched him in Nandha did I come to know of his versatility in doing a convincing job of any role given, no matter what theme the movie was based on. Pandavar Bhoomi only went on to confirm this. So, Raj Kiran's excellent performance did not come as a big surprise to me. But what surprised me was that debut heroine's performance. Though she was kind of struggling in those scenes where their love blossoms during their college days, she was amazing as the movie went on and in fact outdid both Raj Kiran & Saranya in many of the scenes in the 2nd half.
Cheran as an actor has definitely improved from the Autograph days. Though there are scenes where his shortcomings did come to the fore, in many scenes Cheran, the director, has stepped in for Cheran, the actor. Like the scene where he faces his father when his father comes in search of him after his marriage, that was obviously a very crucial scene where one's acting abilities will be put to severe test. Cheran, probably knowing fully well that he might spoil the essence of the scene, conveniently makes Cheran the actor cry with his hands hiding his face and crying in the arms of his father, thereby making sure that his shortcoming was not exposed while at the same time, maintaining the tempo of the scene. That, I thought was a very smart move on part of Cheran.
Though the songs tuned in by Sabesh – Murali were surprisingly good (Unnai Saranadaindhen & the Enna paaarkkirai are top notch), I thought they could have done a much better job in the background score, bcos there were so many times in the movie where you could feel the disappointment deep inside you that the background score could have lifted the mood of the scene much more. I firmly believe that only the Maestro could have done justice to a movie like this. This is a movie like Azhagi which will have the imagination of the Maestro flowing.
Since I knew beforehand that the length of the movie is the biggest drawback for the movie, all through the movie, I was trying to figure out if there was any scene or portions of a scene that Cheran could have cut to reduce the length of the movie. Though there were definitely some scenes in the movie where he could have either cut them or shortened their length, I could fully understand his inability to do so bcos when the subject you are dealing with is so close to your heart, I don’t think any creator will have the heart to cut short those sequences...
The experience of watching this movie reminded me of my experience of watching movies like Lakshya, Swades and Passion of the Christ. The one thing I had in common while watching these 4 movies was that all these movies got so close to my heart. The one complaint against Swades was that it was way too long and in a way, took the preacher’s spot, slightly going about how living abroad is missing an essential part of you. Same with this movie too (actually with all of Cheran's movies). If you thought that Swades was preachy stuff, then chances are that you will feel the same about TTI too.
The other usual complaint that you hear Cheran's movies that there are no subtleties whatsoever in the way he handles a theme in his movies and that he tell things on your face (The accusers are mostly Mani Rathnam fans. I am one Mani fan too but I am not against this on-your-face stuff). That is where my comparison with the movie Passion of the Christ movies comes in. Mel Gibson had stated long before the release of the movie that the primary reason he was making the movie with all those explicit scenes (like the scene where the skin & flesh is shown peeling off Jesus' back) was bcos he believed that it was only when showed like this would people actually fully understand the sacrifice that God has made. And the unparalleled success of the movie only confirmed his belief since that was not the first Hollywood movie that was based in the Bible but POFTC received a response never seen before for Biblical movies. I have been a Christian all my life but believe me it was on the day I watched the movie did the actual magnitude of the pain He must have gone through as part of His sacrifice dawned on me. And in no way, you can call that the movie had subtlety. If at all anything, it was as un-subtle as it could get but it drove home the point. So Cheran actually gets it right by being non-subtle (if I may coin that word)
When the theme/ subject that a movie deals with so close to your heart, you tend to overlook the shortcomings & faults in that movie. By no means is Lakshya or Swades or TTI a perfect movie. But just bcos of the reason mentioned above, we overlook the faults and appreciate them immensely. And that will be the reason I will cite while passing on the easy judgment that Thavamaai Thavam Irundhu is by a long way the best movie of the year and the best we have seen since Kaadhal, another movie that portrayed sheer realism on-screen.
p.s: Seems like TTI follows the path traveled by Sethu & Kaadhal – in that, all these 3 movies were released during the fag end of the year (both Sethu & Kaadhal were released in the month of December in 1999 and 2004 respectively) but went on to become the best movies of that particular year.
posted by Filbert at 2:41 PM
2 Comments:
very nicely written. i especially liked the part about the lack of subtlety and the comparison to 'passion of the christ'. i wrote in the comments in response to someone who said the film took tamil cinema back because of the details. what u've said was what i wanted to convey too :)
Wish you a very happy new year...
Yeah Balaji, that was the first thing that stuck my mind on seeing the movie. I was tired of all the bloggers who kept complaining that Cheran's movies are not subtle.
Thanks for the new year wishes and wishing you the same too!! Looking forward to a new year of great posts & reviews from you :)
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