'Periyar' falls short of expectations that 'Bharathi' created as regards the director, Gnanarajasekaran's capabilities. Though retaining the same autobiographical temperament as its predecessor, its as though the camera wasn't big enough to show more than one person at a time. That one person mostly being Sathyaraj donning the role of his role model- E. V. Ramaswamy, in this TN government-sponsored venture, which seems to be a desperate final attempt at bringing the masses back to romanticizing the glory of the original ideological foundations on which the Tamil political legacy has been built upon.
This movie could have as well been a soliloquy staged at some revolving theatre. No other character was really needed. At different phases of the protagonist's life, new faces just come, read out the dialogues as dictated by the director and leave. So painfully prose-like is its narrative. Yes, Periyar's life was an immensely huge repository of intellectual battles, life changing failures, history defining victories and conflicted relationships to be captured in 2 and a half hours of celluloid. But then, movie makers have time and again demonstrated how this can be done tastefully, while making the point that needs to be made.
The movie has its refreshing moments with vintage Sathyaraj using his well known satire comedy to take on God. Though mostly adult humor, it does well to bring out the skepticism that Periyar encouraged as a means of social reform. But if you ask me, that one dialogue of Prakash Raj in 'Iruvar'-
"Vinyaanaththa paththi ketta tamizhanukku theriyaathu, aana Yamanukku vaaganam yennanu ketta yerumakkeda enbaan"
("If you ask the Tamizhan about science, he wouldn't know, but if you ask him what's the mount of Lord Yama, he will immediately tell you it's the buffalo")
-carried more weight in it than the entire 'Periyar' movie.
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6 comments:
Well, i dint expect much from it but was disappointed to see it turn out to be a still worse movie ...
But Gnanarajasekaran is known for it ... Right from "Mogamul", he has been doing the same thing ...
But he has f***ed up completely this time ...
Satyaraj clearly failed to portray the dynamism and easy charm of E V Ramasamy which i think is quite unmatched in the Tamil political landscape (one cant say that he was good jus bcos he dint over do it )... The movie had only cliched cheap oneliners posing as witty dialogues ... Second halflayellam, Yetho oru paavapatta thaathaavoda vaazhkaya paaththa maathiri irunthuthu ...
Satyaraj nakkalukkum EVR nakkalukkum periya difference irukku ( have heard some of his speeches)... athakooda maathaama padam edukkaraanuga ... But, enna solla, nalla directorlaam EVR paththi padam edukka varalaye ...
BTW, nee mention panniyirukkara Iruvar dialogue-a vida witty onelinerslaam EVR sonnathaa padichirukken ... aana padathula ethayum kaanom ... athe samayam avaroda "Penn yen adimayaanal" bookoda prefacela irukkara intellectual weight kooda intha padathula illa ... Ithula naalaam class thaan padichennu avare solra maathiri dialogue vera ...
Infact, antha hyper sensitive "Mozhi por" kooda kaanom ... Tamil alphabet reformslaam etho summa thonina udane panna maathiri kaanbichirukkaanga ...
It had nothing to tell about how almost all early communist leaders of TN were from the Self respect movement ...
avaroda controversial speeches illa, deirect confrontation of Brahmins illa, infact "paarpanan"ra vaarthai illaatha EVR padam oru comedy thaan ... The last four mins of sucking up to Karuna was horribile ... Neraya factual errors, art errors, kushboovoda sila pronunciations("coffee") ellam sema comedy ... Kizhvenmani paththina EVR statement illa ... OBCs-Dalit confrontation illa ...
Sex, Tamil language paththina avaroda controversial speeches illa ... ethellam ippa ullavanga
oththukka maataangalo athellaam illa ... vayasaana kaalaththula avaru olarunathellam konjam kooa illa ... "tolded" scenelaam sahikala ... TN-ku veliyila ulla influence paththi ethuvum illa ...
It was actually like a huge compilation of all EVR tid bits ... High school pasanga paarka thaan laayakku ... antha sepia tone kooda over done thing thaan ...
Ithuku padam edukaamaye irunthirukkalaam ...
Ellathayum solrathu kashtam thaan ... But try panniyirukalaam ...
Dei aana, whenever you talk abt Iruvar, en vayiru eriyuthudaa :-)
That movie had a poor sense of history da ... Mani Ratnam's sensibilities are different ... ennala ippavellam munna maathiri avaroda padangala paarka mudiyarathilla ...
@bhuvanesh: dei in most of ur comments you have completely missed the point da. Remember this is a TN govt sponsored venture and hence including anything which could damage his image would mean ass-whipping the director da. for gnanasekaran, movies will come and go, but he has only one ass to protect ;) [for eg that paarpanan thing- well, stalinoda birthdayvukku iyyer ellam vanthu poosai panrappo, its clear that the ppl in the dravidian parties dont care much about the atheistic ideologies themselves. all they want is to be shown as ppl to represent all classes. avangala please pannanum illa]
wat my point here was that ok, we know you want to show EVR to be a flawless people- friendly genius. well, fine... but at least put it in a way which is enjoyable to watch. thats why i said the only part which was fun to watch was sathyaraj's a-jokes. of course i agree to some of ur criticisms in this context. ill add some of my own-
1. most of the time, it looked as though the characters are acting under the impression of fully knowing the history and hence they know wats coming next- like rajaji saying that his meeting with EVR in the train would be regarded as a turning point in future, EVR warning gandhi that he would be killed by a religious fanatic etc
2. many dialogues weren't in the context and seemed like the summing up of a lengthy prose- like EVR saying that he likes thirukural but doesnt like some parts, and the 'tolded' scene- thats like they are trying to win some competition to 'describe periyar's view on xyz in one line'
3. pronounciations of words as u pointed out
...and many others
i dont think gnanasekaran is a very crappy director da... i thought 'bharathi' was a well made movie, where they showed a lot of human element in such a great larger than life figure. unlike 'periyar' which seems to be a collection of un related incidents/scenes, 'bharati' had most of its content in some definite context and flow.
Dei, my comment was on two counts.
One was that eventhough i didnt expect much from the movie, which was because i expected the movie to be politically dumb,i was disappointed to see the artistic quality of the movie ... Thats why i said there were factual errors,bad acting etc. The movie also lacked intellectual weight which has nothing to do with political correctness ... With more such weight they could have made him a genius of any sort that they would have wanted us to beleive him to be.
On the other count, the movie was much dumber than i expected it to be ... There was no need to make it so dumb just because the Government subsidised it ... Some of the facets of the lead character that were never showed have got nothing to do with political correctness and i have mentioned several of them in my previous comment ...
And i dont believe that it was a
"desperate final attempt at bringing the masses back to romanticizing the glory of the original ideological foundations on which the Tamil political legacy has been built upon".
The reason is simple. They will gain nothing from it ... They have moved away from everything that EVR stood for and one of the reasons for that is because it is difficult to sell them in the political market ... So, there was no incentive for them in making this movie in the first place ... I have always believed that apart from subsidising the movie which was an act of gratitude and remembrance from Karuna, they(the ruling party) showed no interest in that ... The movie was screened specially for him and he suggested several corrections(which could have been for political correctness) but mothing more ... But even then, they sucked up to him.
Interestingly, with such political correctness that you have mentioned, there will be nothing that the Dravidian parties can sell to the masses "now" as their
ideological origin.
There were no official party orders to the cadre to go and watch the movie this time which almost always happens when a movie penned by Karuna releases(eg.Kannamma which released before two years).
And, some of those which i mentioned in my previous comemnt were not in the movie for political correctness.I agree. But, EVR was a man who never cared about political correctness throughout his life ... All the "entertainment" you can expect from a movie abt Periyar would be lost if it was politically dumb to such an extent. So, u cant say that they played safe.
Regarding Gnanarajasekaran, he got a national award for "Mogamul" even after making a totally soulless movie from the beautiful novel. The human element in Bharathi doesnt deserve any special mention. Bharathi was a great poet and to make a movie abt such a soulful life without human emotions would be pathetic. But GRS is capable of that and he has proved it now. The flow was ok then because it showed 39 years of human life whereas it was 95 this time ... This has everything to do with the director's talent.
Kamal refused the role of Bharathi only for this reason.
Another reason for Bharathi being better than Periyar is the music of IR and the Lyrics of Bharathi.
Meanwhile, a movie abt EVR with political correctness will fail at every level. I sincerely dunno what "interesting" thing you were expecting from GRS even after knowing that he will come up with a dumbed down version.
I think you didnt get my comment. I was expecting a bad movie like "Bharathi" while i got a B grade movie which, as i always knew, the director is quite capable of coming up with. And i know very well that political correctness is only one of the reasons.
@bhuvanesh:
1. 'And i dont believe that it was a "desperate final attempt at bringing the masses back to romanticizing the glory of the original ideological foundations on which the Tamil political legacy has been built upon".' i dint mean bringing ppl to that ideology itself da... i meant bringing people to remember the GLORY of the past, under which most political parties in india thrive today, whether or not they still hold those ideologies... (eg. indira gandhi govts stakes in 'Gandhi' made in the hollywood)
2. 'All the "entertainment" you can expect from a movie abt Periyar would be lost if it was politically dumb to such an extent. So, u cant say that they played safe.'
thats the not the whole point illa... they jus want to show him to be a great guy. do u think showing his "entertaining" side wouldn't have raised a single voice in ANY party in the state?
3. 'The human element in Bharathi doesnt deserve any special mention. Bharathi was a great poet and to make a movie abt such a soulful life without human emotions would be pathetic. But GRS is capable of that and he has proved it now.'
he dint prove it in bharathi, so he did do an ok job illa...
4. 'The flow was ok then because it showed 39 years of human life whereas it was 95 this time ... This has everything to do with the director's talent.'
agreed
5. 'I was expecting a bad movie like "Bharathi" while i got a B grade movie '
agreed again (im not as vociferous as u... that aint me ;) )
gud post!!!!ur blog s gud..visit ma blog too
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