Weekend movies - Anjali & Five Star
Back to my weekend movies routine :)
Anjali - Wanted to revisit this classic for a long while and just got the time to watch it. Though most of the scenes involving the kids in the first half irritates you to no ends, it is all compensated by everything that happens in the 2nd half. Watching this movie, the first question that came to my mind: Why in the world did Mani Rathnam part ways with the Maestro? (The only down side of such a thing is obviously that ARR would have never come out. But I am sure given his potential & talent, he would have come into the limelight some way or the other). Reason for the above statement - the background score was just awesome, to put it mildly. We all know that he is just too good at re-recording. But he reserves his best for Mani Rathnam. Many of those emotional & heart-warming scenes in the movie, Mani only deserves half the credit for making us love them. The other 50% credit should go to Mottai. Particularly, the 2 scenes where Raghuvaran & Revathi reconcile with each other after Raghuvaran is caught lying & then he convinces her that it is nothing to worry about. One word to describe his BGM would be - sublime. No matter how many amazing songs ARR has scored for Mani, nowhere has he even come remotely close to the feeling that Mottai makes us experience with his BGM in movies like Anjali.
Apart from that, excellent performance from just about everyone involved in the movie - this is true in most MR movies and hence didn’t come as a surprise, with a star cast which includes the likes of Raghuvaran, Revathi & Prabhu. (For Prabhu, this was his second best cameo of his career IMO, after Priyanka where he was just outstanding.) But to me, Revathi was the best of them all. She was just too good, especially in the scenes with Anjali, the way she craves for her love & attention and the way she reacts out of helplessness when Anjali does start recognizing her as her amma. Couple of sour points, other than the irritating kids behavior – first up, there were some ordinary scenes that one would not expect from a Mani Rathnam movie. This scene for example - when Anjali arrives in the household, the other little ones in the house hate her presence & there is this scene where the kids are shown praying to God. The sister asks her brother on what he is praying and he says that he is asking God that Anjali should die. After they start loving Anjali, a similar scene is placed just to show their transformation, which I thought was an amateur scene and something which you don’t expect to see in a Mani Rathnam movie. Secondly, there is this 3-minute fight scene towards the climax which is shot completely in glaring lights against a pouring rain backdrop and that can only mean one thing - we do not have a clue as to who is hitting whom. Then of course, there are the childish looking graphics, which can be forgiven bcos of the fact that the movie was made some 15 years ago. Mani has gone on record saying that this was his most difficult movie to make to date and watching this movie, you understand why. Bcos at the end of the movie, though Mottai’s songs and Revathi impressed you, it is Shamili’s performance as a 2-year old autistic baby that will endear to you the most and Mani deserves full marks for bringing out the same.
Five star - this movie always has a special place in my heart bcos of so many reasons. Reason 1 - the director of this movie Susi Ganesan is my college Senior. Reason 2 - the heroine of the movie is a junior from my high school in Madurai. Reason 3 and the biggest of them all - almost all the college related scenes in the movie were shot in my college premises. I always thought that it is an beautiful idea to pay tribute to your alma matter by shooting some scenes of your first movie in your own college, which is what Susi Ganesan has done and I admire him for that. So, every time I see this movie, I get transported back to my college days and hence all my views about this movie will carry a heavy bias. Five Star is a movie that is so refreshing and which has a very novel storyline. Though the movie follows the standard pattern that the Mani Rathnam assistant directors have adopted in their first movies to some extent, Susi Ganesan stamps his own unique class with his interesting characterization. I am sure almost all of us would like to get settled with our close friends in the same house even after marriage. So, you start loving the characters all the more bcos they are doing something that we all love to do.
Assistant directors to Mani Rathnam have always managed to extract the best out of their music directors and that is one area where Susi Ganesan needs to master. Movies like Dum Dum Dum & Kanda Naal Mudhal (other MR protege debut movies) had just wonderful songs whereas you can not say the same about the music of any of Susi Ganesan's movies. The songs by Parasuram Radha could have been way much better, with only the Rayile & the Thiru Thiruda songs standing out. There are so many cute little things in the movie that one will admire - like the scene towards the end where Vijayan commits suicide and the dog follows him into the well. That is such a touching scene. Another thing that Susi Ganesan seems to be very good at is spotting talent. It is he who introduced Sneha in Virumbugiren and he has also introduced Prasanna in this movie. With 3 good quality movies against his name, Susi Ganesan is a welcome addition to the new breed of young & promising directors in the Tamil film industry.
Anjali - Wanted to revisit this classic for a long while and just got the time to watch it. Though most of the scenes involving the kids in the first half irritates you to no ends, it is all compensated by everything that happens in the 2nd half. Watching this movie, the first question that came to my mind: Why in the world did Mani Rathnam part ways with the Maestro? (The only down side of such a thing is obviously that ARR would have never come out. But I am sure given his potential & talent, he would have come into the limelight some way or the other). Reason for the above statement - the background score was just awesome, to put it mildly. We all know that he is just too good at re-recording. But he reserves his best for Mani Rathnam. Many of those emotional & heart-warming scenes in the movie, Mani only deserves half the credit for making us love them. The other 50% credit should go to Mottai. Particularly, the 2 scenes where Raghuvaran & Revathi reconcile with each other after Raghuvaran is caught lying & then he convinces her that it is nothing to worry about. One word to describe his BGM would be - sublime. No matter how many amazing songs ARR has scored for Mani, nowhere has he even come remotely close to the feeling that Mottai makes us experience with his BGM in movies like Anjali.
Apart from that, excellent performance from just about everyone involved in the movie - this is true in most MR movies and hence didn’t come as a surprise, with a star cast which includes the likes of Raghuvaran, Revathi & Prabhu. (For Prabhu, this was his second best cameo of his career IMO, after Priyanka where he was just outstanding.) But to me, Revathi was the best of them all. She was just too good, especially in the scenes with Anjali, the way she craves for her love & attention and the way she reacts out of helplessness when Anjali does start recognizing her as her amma. Couple of sour points, other than the irritating kids behavior – first up, there were some ordinary scenes that one would not expect from a Mani Rathnam movie. This scene for example - when Anjali arrives in the household, the other little ones in the house hate her presence & there is this scene where the kids are shown praying to God. The sister asks her brother on what he is praying and he says that he is asking God that Anjali should die. After they start loving Anjali, a similar scene is placed just to show their transformation, which I thought was an amateur scene and something which you don’t expect to see in a Mani Rathnam movie. Secondly, there is this 3-minute fight scene towards the climax which is shot completely in glaring lights against a pouring rain backdrop and that can only mean one thing - we do not have a clue as to who is hitting whom. Then of course, there are the childish looking graphics, which can be forgiven bcos of the fact that the movie was made some 15 years ago. Mani has gone on record saying that this was his most difficult movie to make to date and watching this movie, you understand why. Bcos at the end of the movie, though Mottai’s songs and Revathi impressed you, it is Shamili’s performance as a 2-year old autistic baby that will endear to you the most and Mani deserves full marks for bringing out the same.
Five star - this movie always has a special place in my heart bcos of so many reasons. Reason 1 - the director of this movie Susi Ganesan is my college Senior. Reason 2 - the heroine of the movie is a junior from my high school in Madurai. Reason 3 and the biggest of them all - almost all the college related scenes in the movie were shot in my college premises. I always thought that it is an beautiful idea to pay tribute to your alma matter by shooting some scenes of your first movie in your own college, which is what Susi Ganesan has done and I admire him for that. So, every time I see this movie, I get transported back to my college days and hence all my views about this movie will carry a heavy bias. Five Star is a movie that is so refreshing and which has a very novel storyline. Though the movie follows the standard pattern that the Mani Rathnam assistant directors have adopted in their first movies to some extent, Susi Ganesan stamps his own unique class with his interesting characterization. I am sure almost all of us would like to get settled with our close friends in the same house even after marriage. So, you start loving the characters all the more bcos they are doing something that we all love to do.
Assistant directors to Mani Rathnam have always managed to extract the best out of their music directors and that is one area where Susi Ganesan needs to master. Movies like Dum Dum Dum & Kanda Naal Mudhal (other MR protege debut movies) had just wonderful songs whereas you can not say the same about the music of any of Susi Ganesan's movies. The songs by Parasuram Radha could have been way much better, with only the Rayile & the Thiru Thiruda songs standing out. There are so many cute little things in the movie that one will admire - like the scene towards the end where Vijayan commits suicide and the dog follows him into the well. That is such a touching scene. Another thing that Susi Ganesan seems to be very good at is spotting talent. It is he who introduced Sneha in Virumbugiren and he has also introduced Prasanna in this movie. With 3 good quality movies against his name, Susi Ganesan is a welcome addition to the new breed of young & promising directors in the Tamil film industry.
posted by Filbert at 1:39 PM
9 Comments:
Came here via mkarthik's blog. Yo, I am a TVSLakshmiite too - I saw Kanika near Thiruvanmiyur almost a year back. Susi Ganesan, I believe is also from Madurai.
Need to check the school web site - wasn't even aware that it existed. itwofs.com says the Parasuram-Radha music in Five Star is copied/inspired. But I like it all the same. I was playing it just yesterday.
was wondering till the end of the 'anjali' review why u had no mention of shamili! i thot mani did a phenomenal job extracting that performance out of her. i can watch the 'anjali anjali' song any number of times :)
Five Star was Susi Ganesan's second movie after Virumbukiren, although it might have been released first. I thought some of the college scenes were poorly done. Certain things would be clear only to insiders like us, whereas the general public would be clueless.
Hello BNB, glad to meet another TVS Lakshmi-ite. BTW, when did you graduate? Looks like Susi Ganesan did his B.Sc in Madurai but not sure if he is from Madurai. This link here has some good stuff:
http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2002/nov/07star.htm
Yeah, I too read about the inspiration of the Thiru Thiruda song but nevertheles a good one. And I have been reading your blog for quite some time now, without realizing the TVSL connection :)
Exactly my thoughts about the 'Anjali anjali' song, Balaji. Beautiful orhcestration!! About Shamili - actually, you know what? I did that (not mentioning her name until the very end) unintentionally but when I read the review after your comment, it kinda looked good as the parting statement :)
Yeah, I knew about that fact Meens but still somehow always feel that Five Star is his first movie. But may be you are right about others not being able to appreciate the college scenes, as much as we did. For me, I get excited every time I see those college scenes.
Zero, about the dressing of the girls - all the girls that I have seen during my time always wore only churidhars to campus interviews. I dont remember a single girl who went to a campus interview so awkwardly dresed :) Since he was a senior to me, I am pretty sure that was not the case during his days as well.
About bikes - yeah, since Chromepet was a good 20 kms from the heart of Chennai, nobody in our hostels had bikes and even the day-scholars dont usually drive to school. All we had were bicycles inside the college campus.
Got you this time Zero :) It beats me too, that someone who took pains to show some realistic stuff in those bikes & mess, had to show girls dressed like that...
Yeah Prasanna, Anjali was his 500th movie and to me, among the BGMs in the Mani-Ilaiyaraja combo movies, Nayagan is my pick.
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