Aditya Shrikrishna

It is not prudent to use business terms for art but as this concerns mainstream commercial cinema anyway, here we are. Usually, a Mani Ratnam film promises minimum guarantee. No matter what the film has in store — it works, meanders, dips or is politically dubious — there is always something cinematic, something inspired scattered here and there. Something you can take home, something you can watch in isolation years later. A shot, a stray scene or line or exchange that we can search on YouTube long after the release of the film. Kadal has some exquisite kinetic shotmaking. Guru is magical in some of its interpersonal dynamics. Thiruda Thiruda, for all its vacuousness, is a great ride and rarely a slog. Kaatru Veliyidai at its core has a wonderful premise that is lifelike and probed with intent even if timidly. So far Chekka Chivantha Vaanam was that odd one out with hardly a Mani Ratnam stamp. But here we are: as celebrated as Nayakan is and will remain forever, Mani Ratnam’s weakest film, for now, is his second collaboration with Kamal Haasan — Thug Life.

Anuraj Manohar’s debut film, Ishq (2016), does something interesting. It shows us a calculated act of violence and establishes a certain perspective. Later, it flips the narrative as well as the power imbalance by showing one of the victims, a heterosexual male who recovers from the ordeal quickly, perpetrate the same violence but this time to ghastlier ends in the name of revenge. As the film gradually becomes more and more uncomfortable, we understand that Manohar is interested in this cyclical nature sustained by the insecurities, frailties and ego of men. It makes a much larger point than a quid pro quo revenge act. Manohar’s new Malayalam film Narivetta also keeps moving around the vantage points, but from the view of the sole protagonist. It is clever but more straightforward in terms of storytelling and sociopolitical play than the first film. Yet, it makes for a solid sophomore film from the director.

IN ABISHAN JEEVINTH’S debut feature, a Tamil-speaking family from Sri Lanka lands on the shores of Rameshwaram. We don’t see it, but we get the sounds of their torrential journey through opening credits and even later in the film—a rocking boat, tense waters and the fear of losing oneself to the mighty ocean. But we also get the funny side of it. The youngest kid says he doesn’t know how to swim, and the father reassures him. He is quick to retort, “But you don’t know how to swim either!” The aptly titled Tourist Family is not satire but a light take on heavy problems like geopolitics, economic and migrant crisis. Abishan’s film balances the weight of the emotion of shared camaraderie with a feathery slice of life humour.

In Avinash Prakash’s Tamil feature film Naangal which premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam this week, time is stretched by a limited set of events as if perched on a non-stop Ferris wheel. They are the same moments with their ups and downs, same life-altering triggers that repeat in a cyclical fashion. Three preadolescent siblings — Karthik (Mithun V, eldest, 13 years old), Dhruv (Rithik Mohan) and Gautam (Nithin D) — live somewhere near Lovedale in the hills of Tamil Nadu with their father (Abdul Rafe as Rajkumar) who owns plantations, a house too huge for four individuals and is the Chairman and Principal of their modest school.

They say all you need is love, but sometimes misplaced confidence can go a long way. It is a gift. It might come across as awkward or arrogant or both. It might make one look like an asshole or, worse, foolish. Sometimes the audacity is rewarding, and the reckless abandon can often lead to a hard fall. The very definition of misplaced is such that one cannot predict its outcome or reception. But it is indeed a gift, and goes a long way. It reveals that there was an attempt. That someone took a shot. That no matter what Yoda says, there is always a try. One didn’t simply walk away quietly. One refused submission.

Here’s a social experiment. Pick someone who is unaware of the beats of the hero worship and masala film in Indian cinema. Scratch that. Let’s pick Tamil cinema because the beast is almost unrecognisable at this point as the concept of stardom is nearing, if not an end, at least a lull. Ageing male stars fall back on their history, and idolising filmmakers lean on intertextuality to create hysterical theatrical moments. Show them Adhik Ravichandran’s new film with Ajith Kumar, Good Bad Ugly, and ask if there is any possibility that this is a spoof or a parody. They will most likely answer in the affirmative. To the innocent bystander, Good Bad Ugly comes across as a spoof, as if CS Amudhan made another Thamizh Padam (2010) solely focusing on Ajith and his career. The greatest trick Adhik ever pulled is convincing Ajith and maybe the audience that he is making a fan service film. What he’s really done instead is lampoon the star for two hours and twenty minutes. But again, it really depends on who you ask.

It’s been over two decades since Aayutha Ezhuthu and we once again have Madhavan and Siddharth locked in an intense struggle right in the heart of Chennai. Not far from each other either. If it was Napier Bridge in the 2004 Mani Ratnam film, it is a stone’s throw away at Chepauk in S Sashikanth’s directorial debut Test (a Netflix release). If it was political and ideological in the earlier film, it is emotional and personal in this one. Siddharth is Arjun here as well — not a confused young man eyeing the American dream but a patriot wearing India’s Test cricket whites, a star batsman, the kind whose class is evident even if he is on his last legs. Twenty years on, a star cricketer from Tamil Nadu playing for India isn’t as implausible. But India playing Pakistan at home in test cricket? That stuff can happen only in fiction in 2025. And Madhavan here is Saravanan, a washed-up tragic scientist, an eternal striver as deep in insecurities as he is in debt.

In the Lucifer universe, created and written by Murali Gopy and directed by Prithviraj Sukumaran, one of the most exciting characters is Baiju Santhosh’s Murukan. A party worker and spy as well as a stand-in for occasional outsider commentary, his quips and nonchalance offer breathing space in the two films that otherwise are busy and eventful. In the sequel, L2: Empuraan, he lists a three-point spiel to accompany a tertiary character’s ascendance. It is momentous, funny and pointed, and has little to do with either Mohanlal or Prithviraj, the pair that forms the pivot for this film, but that is also why it is joyous and spellbinding within the larger philosophy contained in the story. A quickfire lesson in politicking dispensed with ease. The rest of L2: Empuraan is not as lean. It is packed with backstories and details, with word pairs that sound like they were picked from a raffle, like God Axis and Shen Triad. Mohanlal’s Stephen Nedumpally aka Khureshi Ab’raam teleports and levitates. One day he is in Iraq, another day he is somewhere in central Africa. And a few minutes later he is in a developed country in the west. And then makes a grand appearance in Nedumpally, Kerala.