Alaipayuthey

It is a wonder to me that I missed this movie all this while. I had seen Saathiya - the Hindi remake around the time it came out and thought it was ok. It never crossed my mind Alaipayuthey might put a different spin on the same story.

The credit for this beautiful movie should go to the script, its lead actors - Shalini and Madhavan and the director, Mani Ratnam. There is nothing new with the story, it is an ordinary everyday love story that happens at every railway station / bus stop in urban India. That is also its selling point, that it could talk to the average Indian viewer and the language - the script of the film reaches out to the audience in a simple unhurried fashion. Shalini and Madhavan, the lead couple in Alaipayuthey are definitely better choices and have better chemistry than Rani Mukherjee and Vivek Oberoi in Saathiya.

The songs are incredible, we have hummed them for the last 10 years ever since the movie hit the screen in 2000, some of the very best of A.R.Rehman. Growing up in urban India of the late nineties I love this movie because I can relate to it, I know those characters. Shalini is the girl next door, Madhavan is the representative of motor bike Romeos, an ever present species in all Indian cities.

And just in case, I am not bowled over, Mani Ratnam has included Kannur(my ancestral town) and the laterite cliffs of Payyambalam beach which buys my loyalty every time. If there is a love story/movie I'd be asked to pick, Alaipayuthey will be it.

Read More

Raavanan

Raavanan is good. I have always believed Raavanan, the real one in the real epic, suffered misportraiture at the hands of victors. The inescapable short end of the stick that favor the vanquished might have distorted the real Raavanan character as well. Mani Ratnam in AD 2010 tries to bring some justice to the man and he recruits actor Vikram(real name John Kennedy, no Fitzgerald) to the task.

Vikram is magnificient in his portrayal of twenty first century Raavan. I saw the tamil version. Prithviraj is the anti-hero, aka Ram aka the bringer of justice. If you had any doubts, you can lay them to rest after watching this movie, it is indeed Kaliyug, where else can you find Lord Rama as the anti-hero?

The same Kaliyug is also responsible for Aishwarya Rai (aka Sita Maiyya) pancake make-up. She is gorgeous at 37, but Prithviraj who plays her husband is a good ten years younger and it shows despite the make-up. Indian movie industry is hard on women, Aishwarya is going as far as it'd let any woman to go without becoming another Rekha.

Cinematography(Manikandan and Santosh Sivan) and locales are brilliant. Maybe this film will win the best movie award for national integration based on just the shooting locations. Raavanan's village is set amidst the picturesque sarson ka khet (or mustard fields) of Punjab, they go to temple to perform pujas and weddings at the architecturally quaint Lakshmi Narayan temple at Orchha, Madhya Pradesh, they hide out in the scenic surroundings of Athirappally waterfalls in the forests of Kerala, sometimes hiking over to Malshej Ghats near Pune or Saheb Kuthi in Agarpara(WB) for a neighborly chat. The whole of India is Raavan's one village, ""Yatra Viswam Bhavathyeka Needam"" as they say in the Vedas.

Raavanan is a brilliantly executed film. It should have been a hell of a task shooting simultaneously in two languages with slightly differing set of actors. Definitely worth a watch.

Read More