TAMIL CINEMA UNDER SAFE HANDS?
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By Behindwoods Visitor Sreekanth K
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The time has arrived where it is widely accepted and well evident that for a Tamil film to be successful, the same doesn’t need any big heroes or big budget nor traditional masala but the content matters, as rightly pointed by film critic Madan. Films nowadays are watched by the audience who seek difference, touch of reality coupled with the entertainment quotient. Directors who understand this become more successful than the others who still wish to live a life with the same old ‘Iterative and Incremental’ (term which most of the IT managers are aware of) formula of title song, fight, dance, sentiment, comedy… fight, dance, sentiment, comedy..On the other hand, we the so called intellectual audience wanted Tamil movies to be of international standards. Attention directors! we are no more ready to watch movies like the ‘Incremental and iterative’ type. If you still think that we are the same audience with same mindset longing to watch those masala movies, pack your bag back home, as rightly justified by our literacy rate that we are becoming more educated these days. However some directors realizing this fact though don’t get the response that it deserves.

Raavanan, film by legendary Mani Ratnam is one such example. We here are not talking about the gross profit of the film but the response audience throws. Here Mani Ratnam dwelled just on his script rather being inclined towards the traditional masala; the film slumped from audience
Mani Ratnam
perspective, though the film is technically strong coupled with excellent cinematography, RR and script. Two reasons in the making and slump of Raavanan: either Mani Ratnam has given a film which is well ahead of today’s mindset or the audience is not as intelligent as he presumes to watch a quality movie. In both the cases, logically analyzing from the above discussed Raavanan is definitely a good attempt.

On the contrast is Vijay’s Madrasapattinam. Even though Vijay is not as experienced as Mani Ratnam, his film proved to be big box office hit and yielded very good response from the audience. Same as Raavanan, his film is close to reality aimed at avoiding traditional masala, put on the backdrop of historic event, with good cinematography and script. Then why unlike Raavanan it proved to be a huge hit? May be it was simple, uncomplicated and more than anything the film was well aligned and suited to today’s audience rather aiming out of the box.

Point here is, we crib and curse the directors for not delivering a movie according to international standards. Once such film has been attempted, rather than encouraging we grumble and grit. Take an example of Inception, I just wonder whether movies of those kind (So called international standards) can be remade in Tamil or even in Bollywood with traditional mix of fight , dance, sentiment, comedy?.. No? Then why do we even ask for directors for movies of international standards and complain later on. Let us make it clear to the film makers, whether we want movies of international standards or movies according to our standards. Gone are the times where people who are relatively under educated land in the film industry. Interesting insight is that the film makers, artists are those are intelligent / well educated or graduated on the likeliness of Mani Ratnam , Gautham Menon , Vijay etc., rule the Tamil film industry (Though there are exceptions, but remember they are just exceptions). Therefore there is no place for the ones who seek film industry as their career for their academic escapism. Still can anyone dare a film with nothing but which goes straight on the script like Kamal Haasan dared in Unnaipol oruvan?

Certainly Tamil cinema is under safe hands with the presence and service of upcoming ace directors like Vijay, Suseendran, Sasi, Vetrimaran, Gautham Menon etc. These guys have the ability to propose change. But we, the audience need to bring the change! Transformation of audience from times back till now is a good sign; however there is a strong grit feeling that the transformation is not fully complete. Therefore the question of ‘Is Tamil Cinema under safe hands?’ is shifted to the audience.

Sreekanth K
sreekanth_cbe@yahoo.co.in
Tags : Raavanan, Mani Ratnam, Madarasapattinam, Gautham Menon

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