Aditya Shrikrishna

At least two Tamil films that released in 1988 get a namedrop in the second season of Suzhal: The Vortex. They are Senthoora Poove and Agni Natchathiram. One is about a dying man who makes it his mission to save two young star-crossed lovers, which is a throwback to season one of Suzhal that unfolds around the death of one such pair. The second film is about parents and children, warts and all, which points to a theme in Suzhal’s second season— about father and mother figures, and their adopted sons and daughters. At the centre is the father, pointedly named Chellappa (Lal), a criminal lawyer known for his righteousness and sincerity, a darling of victims and survivors. There is also a mother with a fleeting appearance but otherworldly deeds and influence. It is a curious thing, those namedrops—one vaguely referring to a dance troupe named Senthoora Poove and the other directly invoking Mani Ratnam’s Agni Natchathiram and its unforgettable climax of strobe lights waltz. Later, the series invokes another 1988 Tamil film title.

The Dhanush signature is all over Nilavuku En Mel Ennadi Kobam (NEEK). Usually one would find the writer and director’s stamp in their film but, with NEEK, it is a little extra. As an actor and a star, it is not just Dhanush’s artistic preoccupations that show up on the screen but also his favourite themes and persona, pet peeves and theories along with the usual homages that follow every big Tamil star. The writing on the wall is stark because we don’t see Dhanush on screen, but we see it in the writing, we hear it in the sound, we identify it in the intonations, and we get all the references. As people pointed out, the main lead is named Prabhu (Dhanush’s birth name), and he is a chef (what Dhanush wanted to become). In the final scene, just before the writer-director credits appear, Rajesh (a fun Mathew Thomas) is holding a ukulele and playing ‘Rowdy Baby’.

In Chandoo Mondeti’s Thandel, distance makes romance sing harder before it combusts into a residue of tears. Raju (Naga Chaitanya) and Satya (Sai Pallavi) have been together since childhood and now their love blossoms through the stray mobile tower. Raju is a seafarer, a fisherman who works the waters around Gujarat while Satya in Srikakulam looks longingly at her mobile phone to hear a syllable in his voice. He holds the phone aloft and so does she at home. He, with ocean on all sides and, she, on land but not far from the beach. We see a fisherfolk community that toils in the waters, the men away for long and the women waiting and working at home. We know that this frequent separation will not end well and as expected, Thandel doesn’t hold its cards too close to its chest. It presents everything without a facade. Raju is our regular Telugu film hero, and this is as mainstream as it gets so he is introduced romancing and fighting at the same time. The first half coasts along and nothing really happens for much of Thandel’s runtime. Physical distance gives way to emotional distance between the lovers but the way the film narrativises these events is toothless. The film places itself in melodramatic territory, the star-crossed lovers’ separation is the whole point, but the writing is flat and we never feel for any of these people. Apart from Sai Pallavi, everyone and everything is artificial including the filmmaking. It is probably forgivable to use a green screen for scenes atop a lighthouse, but Satya is staged in front of what looks like a green screen even for a scene on the terrace of her tiny dwelling. The film looks cheap and when even basic scenes are given this little attention then what to make of stormy seas where there are both fights as well as lifesaving action.

Magizh Thirumeni’s Vidaamuyarchi, starring Ajith Kumar, Trisha Krishnan, Arjun Sarja and Regina Cassandra, adapts from Jonathan Mostow’s 1997 film Breakdown. The premise and several plot events are similar, but Magizh’s additions and adornments do stand out as one would expect in an Indian version with a huge star in the lead. Just look at the length of both the films: Breakdown clocks at a crisp 93 minutes. Vidaamuyarchi is 150 minutes. Make of that what you will. This film places itself in the highways, cafes and rest stops of Azerbaijan with Ajith’s Arjun living in Baku with his wife Kayal (Trisha). Their relationship is 12 years old, and we get some quick flashbacks, choppily written, to establish history. Magizh wants to present an adult relationship, something his mentor Gautham Vasudev Menon managed to do in Yennai Arindhaal with the same actors. It works to an extent in the present-day portions when the relationship is crumbling, they deal with slow erosion like mature individuals. But in the flashback, it is unwieldy. The dialogues don’t pop the way adult romantic lines should; it is edited to be concise, but the pattern is shoddy, the cadence is off, and it is clear that the actors are working with mediocre material.

Suman Mukhopadhyay’s Putulnacher Itikatha or The Puppet’s Tale (part of the Big Screen Competition at International Film Festival Rotterdam this week) begins with a man on a boat, the twilight glistening in the swampy conditions surrounded by rural Bengal of the late 1930s. On the boat is Dr Shashi Bhuto (Abir Chatterjee), encountering his ancestral village and with it, death. “Everyone must face death someday”, his voiceover drones, insisting that he doesn’t, therefore, mourn. He lives a double life, one in his physical manifestation, as a doctor in a village in pre-Independence India, populated by people with little to no education and beset by all kinds of issues, from religious dogma, superstitions and lack of access to basic services amidst war in Europe and freedom struggle. His other life is in his head, his future he dreams of in a city, maybe London, as the affluent, posh doctor he wishes to be. In many ways, The Puppet’s Tale — adapted from Manik Bandopadhyay’s 1936 novel of the same name — is a curious film. It can be placed in the context of a particular time in India as well as a particular period in Indian cinema. It is set during a transitional, commotion-filled phase in modern Indian history — less than a decade for independence from British rule—with the movement touching every corner of the country. The film intentionally refrains from registering any of that. In cinema terms, it is almost two decades before Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, which itself is a certain rural time capsule of new India, followed by forced migration towards busier parts of the country. Here, Shashi’s existential crisis takes precedence over India’s own. That’s not to say he is unbothered by the condition of a country that is just about incubating. His existential crisis eats away at him, he holds dreams of moving to London to be the doctor that he wants to be instead of toiling away treating the local villagers who are sceptical about his methods.

Kanguva is a flaming mess. The “pan-India” bug is upon actor Suriya, the film’s producers and Siva, and they don’t have a clear strategy to achieve it. There are no ideas here, just loglines. There is no writing here, just random deaths and fight sequences. There is no story here, just events. This is taking “event film” much too literally. Even if you are ready to forgive all that, there is no actual filmmaking here; just a bunch of shots strung together with no coherence or cohesion. During the film’s promotions, much was made of the makers’ respect for SS Rajamouli. After all, he is the progenitor of this pan-India bug that spares none. But no one in the Kanguva camp stopped for a minute, sat down and thought hard about what makes Rajamouli. What makes his cinema, cinema. Kanguva is not cinema.

There are always visual and grammatical cues to determine the origin of any kind of cinema. In India, it differs with language and region but there is one kind of image that is not exactly the pride of Tamil cinema. Simplistic and overused in the last thirty years, its progenitor is probably director Shankar though the image draws power from the long history of Tamil Nadu in post-independent India.