7.Boys

That seems to be the obvious trapping with commercial movies. The
Greater the success range of the previous venture, the higher the stakes and the greater the anticipation, and any exercise that is at best on par with its predecessor ends up on the futile side. Within the confines of the cinema rules, the only way to ante up the efforts to match the expectations, is to treat the audience with something that they neither are prepared to nor are they least expecting. Add to this doomsday scenario a volatile subject on the lifestyle of youth, the demand on the delivery of an even bigger and better product begs for a true shock and awe campaign. From among the glut of youth movies, it takes a serious attempt on the part of the maker to make his movie stand out, and how better to make his statement than intentionally shock, repulse, awe and agape the audience, all at the same time. Though the caption of the movie reads "Boys" for gals, it should truly be called "Boys" seriously and only for adults.

Setting aside the impact of the risqué content on the young impressionable target audience, and condoning the bucking of the collective social responsibility of the makers and the censors, "Boys" makes a sincere attempt at depicting the life of the adolescents, without the extra gloss or the candy floss. No matter how shocking the antics of the youngsters are to the audience, one cannot but agree to the fact that they are deep-seated in reality and the little dramatic license that Sankar took with the characters does not digress into the fantasy realm. Fun, when needs to be depicted within the context of life of college students, revolve around the holy trinity - bucks, booze and chicks (manI, madyam, maguva). Sankar treats each of these subjects in great detail - the lack of experience, the loss of innocence, the transition to adulthood and bitter reality of a responsible life, centering around the holy trinity, are given fair shares without the usual patronizing or the condescension attitudes that the makers have with adolescent-to-adulthood themes.

From the screenplay perspective, Sankar had to deal with setting up 5
unique incidents for each of the 5 principal characters, while ascribing them with unique characteristic traits, in order for the script to not get repetitive or worse prop up one character at the expense of another. The script has to be appreciated for the number of unique situations that are dealt with, either during the fun part of the initial setup of the characters in the first act or during turbulent times that the boys find themselves in the third act. The adolescent infatuation, masking itself as love, for all its awkwardness, the blind faith, masking itself as severity (praema teevrata), for all its foolhardiness, the volatile state, masking itself as true emotions, for all its ridiculousness, make for some really entertaining plot points that could be milked for maximum mileage. Sankar and Sri Rama Krishna (Sujata - the original dialogue writer) never let go of a single opportunity to point out the painfully obvious trippy nature of the teenagers, when it comes to the matters of heart. Great care has been taken while depicting the journey during the teen age - angst-ridden, troublesome, optimistic and memorable.

The percussion scowls "Break the rules", the guitar screams "naakoka
Girl Friend kaavali", the disarming loop raps "Dating is a fantasy", the Doo-Wop group pleads "Please Sir". When the music is not constrained by the whims of the characters, when the music is not restrained by the shackles of script, when the music is not burdened by the boredom of banality, the unfettered and irreverent tunes soar signifying the utter carelessness (or carefreeness), unbridled enthusiasm and the innocent ignorance. Rahman, whose contributions to Mani Ratnam's and Sankar's movies in particular need no further introduction, lets himself go for "Boys", and the result is an eclectic array of dizzying dittys, propped with some out of the world orchestrations, his prime forte. After a long time, here is one from Rahman that serves to his strongest suite - eastern melody in western mould. Aiding the aurals, the visuals (choreography) by Raju Sundaram, drawing from the dance moves of the recent pop bands (NSync etc, particularly for the "Girl Friend" song), serve a perfect match. Sankar, who worked earlier with Jeeva (for Gentleman, Premikudu and Bharateeyudu), Madhu Ambat (for Jeans) and Prasad (for Okkadu), for translating his grandiose schemes and greater than life characters onto the screen, chose Ravi Chandran for an even ambitious job of translating the intangible fun of adolescence. Ravi Chandran's indulgence in stop-motion technique (or called as time-slice technique), the advance-motion techniques, the low-angles, the depth filled mediums and close-ups and the seamless integration with the special effects, added another texture to the movie, making it a true audio-visual treat.

Each outing of Sankar, as far as youth movies go, pushes the envelope and stretches the boundaries. If "Boys", his ode to the teen age, walked the thin line between risqué and raunchy, between fun and filth and importantly between licentiousness and lewdness, one shudders to think as to what limits would be crossed and what boundaries would be erased, in his subsequent youthful indiscretions!

8.Malliswari

Hitchcock once described the difference between surprise and suspense thusly - if there is a bomb under the table that the hero is sitting at and the neither audience nor the hero is aware of it, it has all the elements of surprise built into it, when the bomb goes off. As in, the surprise springs up when the bomb explodes catching both the characters on either side of the screen unguarded and unexpecting. Now on the other hand, if the audience knows that a bomb has been planted before hand, much before the hero character knows about it, and the hero seats himself at the same table, it has all the elements of suspense built into it. And depending upon how the script moves the plot, the audience would be anxiously anticipating the bomb to go off at any moment, thus building up the suspense to the hilt. Now apply this same famous Hitchcock logic to comedy. If the characters in the script do not have any inkling of the type of situation they find themselves in, and situation dictates the characters to look totally out of place or completely out of element, comedy is born in quite a natural fashion. It does not seem forced and nor does it look that the script is trying to create comedy. Now if the characters already know much before the audience that they are in a comedic scene and that they have to create comedy, it takes double the effort and double the wit to extract comedy in this rather Caesarean way. Venky, accidentally falling in love with Nandini (Nuvvu Naaku Naccav) much against his father's behest or much against his convictions, is natural and the situations leading up to it are comical. On the other hand, "peLLi kaani prasaadu", desperately trying to end up on the good side of Malleeswari, does not earn the same kind of viewer's support or sympathy, since it seems that Prasad is already "in" on the joke (along with the viewer) and the situation soon becomes "laughing with Prasad", rather than "laughing at Prasad". This distinction is important given the context (that Prasad is trying hard to get married) that Prasad's situation should be comical to the viewer and not to himself.

The second sore point with the script is the fact that it wastes away the ever fresh "fish out of water" build up. When Maya Sasirekha (S.V.Ranga Rao) trades places with regular Sasirekha in Dwaaraka, the comedy of manners, resulting from maaya sasirekha being completely unaware of the practices of the civilized world, which is far removed from his (her) regular uncultured society, is quite hilarious, since it is the situation, again, that is the key element for the comedy. When Malliswari, who has a royal and a regal lineage, interacts with Prasad, whose life centers around Andhra Bank and his unmarried self, the situation presents itself for some comedy of manners, revolving around her ignorance of the ways of the regular world and his ignorance in trying to understand her take on the world. "It happened one night" or "Roman Holiday" or to some extent "Dil Hai Ki Maanta Hai" understood that the way of treating this Princess-Pauper situation lies in the chemistry resulting from the clash of two civilizations (or simply, two largely different worlds) basing on her mistrust and his misgivings. When this conflict angle is not exploited (nor even explored) by placing both the princess and the pauper on even keel, it is like one hand waving in the air trying to produce a clapping sound, without the other supporting it. Swayamvaram has the requisite conflict when Venu does not want to go against his principle even while drawing closer to Laya. Nuvve Kaavali has the friendship-love troubling transition conflict. Nuvvu Naaku Naccav, as pointed above, is Venky being torn apart between his word to his father and his love to Nandini. Even Manmadhudu, to some extent, portrayed this conflict successfully with touch me-touch me not see-saw in Abhi's attitude. This conflict angle appears to be sorely missing in "Malliswari" - the script does not seem to care why Malliswari has to fall to Prasad (while Prasad's motivation is quite clear), apart from the obvious reason that the hero and heroine have to come together no matter what.

Sincerity, which has been Trivikram's trademark till date, gave way for grandiosity in "Malliswari". When the setup got bigger, the stakes higher, and not to mention the budgets and track-records, (t)his down to earth simplicity and sincerity seem to be lost somewhere in these high stakes and huge setups. When the situations become contrived, the laughs seem to be forced and the emotions arising out of them quite artificial. And the laughs portion of the script, though showing the occasional flashes of Trivikram's brilliance, seem to be satisfied with a simple cause-effect payoff, and simple slapstick, without stretching the boundaries (contrast it with Lavangam episode or Banku Seenu episodes in Manmadhudu). Snoopy, the dog, is quite miffed whenever someone touches it on the forehead and the results ensuing (conveniently adapted from "There's Something About Mary") does have neither the requisite setup nor the desired payoff. When the different threads of the comical elements are interwoven skillfully, the resulting tapestry is quite a treat to watch. But if the comedy sticks to a strict episodic nature, with one scene having neither forbearance on its successor nor inheriting anything from its predecessor, the emotional point (even in comedy) is restricted to a few laughs without trying for a longer life. Banthi handles clumsily any task that is given to him by Venky, earning his fair share of whiplashes in the due process. With the setup task done away with in the initial few scenes, whenever Banthi is entrusted a task by Venky, the viewer is already aware of Banthi's history, and the laughs arising out of the situation become logical, leave alone hilarious. When a history (or a back-story) is created for a character, it adds flesh and blood to the paper model and it starts breathing life with this third dimension. "Malliswari" with paper characters aplenty (the huge credit scroll at the end of the movie attesting to the fact) appears to be a kitschy concoction of all the edible and tasty items, with a dull taste and insipid emotion.

Though it'll accumulate its fair (?) share of money bags, "Malliswari" does not glorify Trivikram's resume anymore than "Manmadhudu" did it an year ago. Though he hit all the right spots that earned the viewer's applause in his previous ventures, the endearing nature of the characters which seem to match the situation they are placed in, seems to be conspicuously missing. That he identified with the characters then, knew them on a personal level their motivations and machinations, obviously helped the shape and life of the same. The one bright spot in his script is the self-depreciative and self-effasive nature of Prasad, which has flashes of all the lead characters that Trivikram has penned till date. And added to that Venkatesh's sincerity in taking on Prasad's clumsiness and down to earth nature in his stride is worth a mention. If Trivikram's best work lies in simple setups, earnest sincerity, humility and honesty, big budgets do not seem right for his pen strokes.

9.Kaakha Kaakha (Tamil)

Sometimes the magic happens when the image starts to burn the celluloid in the camera; sometimes, at the editing table and more times than not, when the ink seeps in and etches itself on the paper. Rarely does the magic repeat and reappear at every phase of the movie making, with each segment of the process inspiring the other to venture into new territories, treading unknown lands and breaking some new ground along the way - the idea taking its roots and acquiring proper shape within the writer, the context of the characters dictating the events that transpire in the script, the situation boosting up the composer, the script inspiring the lensman, the picture turning up the heat on the cutter, the finished silent product amazing the mixer and the final end product wowing the audience. And when in hindsight, the final product is looked upon as something, where script takes every right turn, the music sounds every right note, the lens captures every right move and the scissors cuts sharp at every right moment, it can be explained in terms of destiny as something that was meant to be, something that meant to be perfect. As is said, the magic does not happen too often.

Cop themes already bring them the required mood, the suitable tone and enough canvas material to the drawing board. That these raw materials are already at the disposal of the maker (without exactly trying too hard), is an added advantage in dealing with this kind of material. And depending upon whether script wants the movie to be more introvertive (ex: Ardh Satya) or more extrovertive (ex: Ankusam), the above three variables would be adjusted to deliver just the kind of output the maker intends. On the other hand, the flip side of dealing with these themes lies in having only the above three variables at his command. The most important of the three - mood (which is interchangble with tone in some contexts), dictates the direction of the movie, the setting, the range of the performances, the comfort zone and more importantly the degrees of freedom. For example, for the movie Ankusam, Kodi Ramakrishna decided that the hero of the movie is going to be an aggressive cop who is more aggravating and dramatic in his deeds and even more loud and expressive in his words. That essentially sets the mood of the film as one that operates a few notches above normalcy, though remaining sincere and true to its subject all the same time. So however much theatricality (and sometimes, over the top) Rajasekhar's words and deeds seem to appear, they get brushed under the mood carpet. Likewise, take the character of Anant Velankar from Ardh Satya. He is a model of brood and a poster boy of introspection. So the mood of the movie is drawn as close to the real life as is theatrically possible, that when some event as dramatic as the killing of Rama Shetty happens in the climax, it works perfectly for the movie, for something as dramatic as that would not be expected of such an off-color character and the director's intention to shock the audience is truly fulfilled, thanks to the mood of the movie.

Tone takes over from the mood at that point and adds the requisite color to the canvas. If the maker is quite clear in his mind as regards to the mood of the movie, the tone would automatically follow suit, either in a loud, over the top, dramatic way or in a serious, underplaying, subdued variety. Between these two tones, the latter would achieve a more realistic and a raw edge because of its proximity to near life situations and also the inevitable pay off at the climactic point, when a subdued character who is always in control and his element loses both in a situation, is highly rewarding and richly gratifying.

Once the maker decides upon the mood and the tone, the canvas, be it CBI Investigation, Forensic science, Finger Print specialization or even a Finger Powder dissemination, would ready itself for all the different strokes that could be painted. Gautam Menon's (the writer-director, whose sole claim to fame was "Minnale" ("Cheli" in telugu)) clarity is quite evident vis-a-vis mood, tone and canvas, when he does not take the easy (and cheap) moves to glorify Anbuselvan's, the protagonist, character and instead holds back his anger, his frustration and his vengeance and channels them to hit all the right spots. The precision of Anbuslevan, which is conveyed through his intelligence and introspective nature and his vulnerability, displayed in the sudden loss of emotional and psychological balance, when he is hit on a very personal level, are deftly handled by Gautam, in his short bursts of finely tuned dialogues.

While Surya's Anbuselvan's character is an epitome of brooding self, it is finely counter-balanced by the bubbly and over-exuberant character of Jothika. The urban setting of the script, the natures of the jobs of both the characters (Surya as an encounter specialist and Jothika as a Maths teacher at a local high school), and the cool and calculating nature of the villain, provide enough material and fire-power to Gautam into making his script a smart and intelligent one, where the holy trinity (hero, heroine and the villain) are guided more by their minds than by their hearts, as is often not the case. The dialogues, also credited to Gautam, are self-editing in their nature to the point that they are curt, crisp and precise and leave the moment longing and wanting for more. When scripts as smart and as strong as these arrive at the reading table, providing ample playing ground for the technicians to decide upon the next important step - the style - at which point the chances for turning out a good movie from a bad script far exceed the chances of good script turning into a bad movie. Rajesekharan, the lensman, seems to exactly understand the mood and tone of the script, to make a decision on the feel of the movie - be it during the natural lighting of the day to day sequences or the dream like situations in the Sri Lanka (doubling for Coimbatore) that transpire between the lead couple's love episodes or the fantastic (in terms of fantasy) sequences that make up the climax. While script dictates the mood, tone and the canvas, with photography deciding the style and feel of the content, it is the important task of editing that essentially dictates the pacing (and to some extent the style) of the movie. Anthony's with his imaginative editing, during the shoot-out scenes, employing the begin-end editing technique which oozes of coolness and urgency at the same time, and particularly for the song "Ennai Konjam", brings his fare share of the pie to the table. Also complementing the efforts of the above three are Harris Jayaraj for his thumping score (with special mention to Thamarai for his inventive lyrics) and Peter Haynes with his pumping action.

Vision is a word that is used either loosely or thrown around a lot whenever the word film-making is brought up. Clarity is a better term in such situations when the script is still in its conceptualization till the point the words transform into deeds. Spinning his web around the clichéd cop situations, while carefully avoiding the beaten to death enamored heroine besotted with the tight collar tight lip hero, infusing a sense of purpose and intelligence to the villain, here is a smart mov(i)e from Gautam Menon that celebrates intelligence.

10.Yuva (Hindi)

Walking down the road, passing the hordes of people along, it is an interesting musing to wonder and ponder on the lives of the strangers who catch the attention for reasons fairly obvious or reasons unknown for not more than a few seconds. The happy faces, the sad ones, the serious faces, the blank ones - each of those faces pose quite a challenge surmising how each of their lives could be, whether they lead the same comfortable lives as they 'look', if they are as troubled in their day to lives as they seem to be, if they are as driven and focused as the aura they exude. Mani Ratnam's Yuva is built more on this observational (voyeuristic) interest in the slice of a day at a particular place at a particular time than it is about point of views and perspectives. It is not about criss-crossing of paths, not about interlinking of fates nor is it about pure coincidences that somehow shape the lives or the futures of the strangers in question. Instead it freezes one important event that happens at a particular place (Howrah Bridge) and then back tracks all the incidents that lead up to that event. In that regard, it is very much a linear story played in reverse like Chistopher Nolan's Memento (minus the suspense, minus the surprise at the end of each scene where more information is revealed about the incident that happened before), than it follows Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" or P.T.Anderson's "Magnolia" (that subscribe to no coincidence theory where characters weave in and out of the lives of others affecting the lives/fates they come into direct/indirect contact with in some way or the other) or Kurosawa's Rashomon, which follows the pattern of 4 blind people trying to describe an elephant feeling it physically. It is more like different strands that are tied up at one end than it is like the different layers of the onion, where more is revelaed about the core with each peeling. (For more information about or insight into this interesting structure, refer to Yandamuri Veerendranadh's novel "vennellO gODaari").

Struggle is the common thread that flows undercurrent through the three stories that run into each other at the end (or at the beginning) and the three characters that collide with each other at the end (or at the beginning). Lallan, the street thug, struggles to keep his marriage and his senility intact, while enforcing his iron will on the streets either by bashing up or killing people, on the side. Micheal struggles to enforce his ideals and ideologies on the chaos around while desperately trying to bring some sense and order to the world. Arjun struggles just to find a balance between his wants and his means, his choices and his reasons, bumbling his way through life and getting around mostly with his good looks. If it does not sound too ironic, Lallan, Micheal and Arjun can be termed as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly as far as their clarity of thought and clarity of understanding are concerned. Leaving value judgments aside, Lallan is really clear about what he wants and how to get it, while Micheal is wound up in his ideal world unable to come to terms with the practical aspect of it and Arjun is the worst of the lot, with neither a direction to follow nor a will to commit to a direction. And just like it is with the characters, the script gets progressively weak, from Lallan to Arjun, establishing Lallan in a strong light pitted against dangerous elements in life-threatening situations, while the focus gets relatively soft and blurry as the things move from Lallan to Micheal along and by the time Arjun's character is established, his motivations (to fall in love, to go to US, to become what he ultimately turns into at the end of the movie) become as weak as his character and as flimsy as his principles. This is just one of those rare cases, when one wishes that style prevail over the substance.

The interesting aspect of the script is how the powerful elements of the script (stark, real and gritty) play out against the sensitive (tender, caring and touching) when they are juxtaposed in a single scene. Just like the emotional graphs of the individual characters of the three protagonists, their relationships with their love interests remain strongly in tune with their behaviors, with the relationship resonating the male characters more than the female ones. Lallan's relationship with his wife, physical in the truest sense of the word, alternates between animal passion and mindless brutality, reflecting Lallan's mindset. Micheal's subject in question is more domineering among the three females, allowing a glimpse of his character, through this relationship lens, as one which is encompassing and accommodating. Arjun's love interest is as heady and as trippy as Arjun, who is willing to engage in flirtatious activities with Arjun, when her marriage is already on the cards, but on the other hand, equally foolhardy and decisive when leaving everything behind and just following her heart. Equally refreshing are the dialogues (originally by Sujatha in Tamil, translated by Anurag Kashyap into Hindi) which shed off the usual staccato style of Mani Ratnam, where characters talk in spurts and cut their sentences mid way leaving up the rest to the expression to fill in the blanks. Yuva, for a change, has people talking in complete sentences, not delivering their dialogues in curt spurts, not pausing their words for their expressions, and not leaving the moment half-full. Be it the violent exchange of profanity between Lallan and his wife Sashi, or the emotional outpour to Arjun by his love interest Mira (in a brilliant performance by Kareena Kapoor), Ratnam does not mind the camera to linger on for those extra moments when the words flow by for that extra amount of time and fill up the tone of the scene completely.

The piano (joined by a female's voice) ambles gracefully till after "Hey, Khuda Hafiz" in a typical jazz fashion when it stops midway and joins heavy techno percussion when it meets the male's voice at the point when it takes off at "tum jaanO". No words could have better underlined and described the dating dalliance that transpires between Arjun and Mira. A.R.Rahman, along with Ravi Chandran (lens) and Sreekar Prasad (scissors), understands the exact tone of each of the three stories when creating three distinct sounds each for Lallan's, Micheal's and Arjun's stories. The earthy sound reflects Lallan's mood in "kabhee neem neem" and "dol dol" as something that is rustic and mercurial, while Micheal's war cry for Utopia thumps the hearts in "Dhakka Laga Bukka" (listen to the Tamil original "Jana Gana Mana" to be swept away by the sense of the music). Relegating most of the songs to the background and the judicial use of the background score (interspersed with long periods of silent backgrounds) heightens the mood the scene giving it the requisite realistic feeling. A classic case of less is more.

The minor quibbles aside, Yuva is a strong offering from Mani Ratnam, who almost pulled off a victory in the the style versus the substance war by siding with the former. Allowing himself to move away from his usual style and risking his trademark in the process, he helped Yuva join the ranks of Nayakudu and Roja as ones that can be termed true and sincere while being daring and different at the same time.

11.Lakshya (Hindi)

Coming of age - In 1982, the noted actor Shashi Kapoor sought the services of Govind Nihlani to launch his son Kunal Kapoor with the film Vijetha. There were a few army movies (not war genre, but ones set against the defense forces background) before and few army movies after. But pitting the coming of age theme of the protagonist against the martinets in the military forces is always a volatile concoction and the process of raw ore being forged into a sharp tool always provides for some good dramatic moments. Commercial aspects that usually crop up in such themes where loudness is usually mistaken for strictness, slapstick is sought for comic relief and planes and patriotism play for glamour and adrenaline boosts, tend to paint the overall structure in broad and loud strokes, conveniently ignoring the process (pain) that the protagonist undergoes to change his erstwhile path while taking the path so painfully traveled by so many before. Nihlani's artistic mind (and background) pulled the commercial aspects out of the mix and Vijetha remained as the finest coming of age movies set against a military background that showed the transition of confused person into a focused individual in some real, non-reflectors' light.

Full Metal Jacket - Hollywood director Stanley Kubrick's ode to the Vietnam War, the structure of which Lakshya seems to heavily borrow from, is essentially split into two distinct halves - the shaping of the sharpest tool and the gory ramifications of such process in a war. It considers the dehumanization of a soldier from an objective standpoint in order that he serves and protects the lives of other humans, the irony of the situation notwithstanding. Lakshya takes out this psychological and paradoxical angle from Full Metal Jacket and instead concentrates on the rise and the personal growth of a single youth, a treatment that is much more palatable to the Indian audience. Though Javed Akhtar's script deals with the establishing of the protagonist's apathy towards life in general in a heavy-handed way, taking the most easy way possible by providing convenient motivations for him to enroll himself in the Indian Military Academy, the handling of the scenes afterwards during the tearing down and rebuilding process of an ordinary man into an able bodied individual, reminds of the honesty and the sincerity of such similar mechanisms depicted in Nihalani's Vijetha and Nana Patekar's Prahaar.

Canvas - Never before in the history of Indian warfare, has a war been covered so widely and an operation been so passionate as the successful eviction of the Pakistani miscreants from the strategic peaks in the Kargil sector in 1999. The martyrs who have so willingly laid down their lives embracing death so gallantly, the war cries of those fallen brave men (the famous 'Yeh Dil Maange More' - Posthumous Capt. Vikram Batra, 23) that showed anything but fear, the process of ensuring victory and a permanent place in the annals of history, is quite an emotional canvas to base a script on and to set a movie against. Be it for the lack of the proper technical expertise or be it because of the lack of proper understanding of the common man of the military way of life, or be it simply because of the inability of the makers of choosing sensitivity over jingoism, many Indian war movies translate so poorly onto the screen, that the respect for the bravery and the passion and pride that the audience has to hold for the characters (either fictitious or real), which forms a very important emotional core of movies of such kind, seem to be keenly lacking and sorely missing. Case in point - LOC. Here is where Farhan Akhtar's understanding of the material and sensibilities regarding the treatment seem to step in, when he deliberately downplays the seemingly high points of the script - the first capture of the enemy bunker, the personal victories of the protagonist and finally the capture of the (fictitious) Peak 5179, to name a few, trusting the audience's intelligence to fill in the blanks by alluding to the fact that the battle is won but the war isn't over yet at each important high point of the script right until the climax of the movie.

War - Christopher Popp's camera accounts for all the important shots (of the guns), moves closely one step behind all the important moves in the trek upwards towards the bunkers and the peaks, and captures the havoc, the confusion and the gut level fear that was never before seen on the Indian screen. The hidden face of the unknown enemy, the rapid fire of the machine guns from the bunkers towards the oncoming soldiers from the enemy's perspective, the whizzing past of bullets, the unrelenting sound of enemy guns, are remindful of (paying true homage to) the invasion of Normandy beach sequence of Speilberg's Saving Private Ryan. The excellent sound design (by Nakul Kamate), in the process above, that included the loud, menacing and over-bearing sounds of war, together with the shells, mortars, grenades, bullets and the bayonets, in such distinct and graphic detail, lends a lot of credibility to the gravity of the situation. By concentrating on a single character (the protagonist) and then moving the rest of the pieces around him, allows the maker to zone in on the action surrounding him, restricting his field of vision and thus be able to provide more clarity regarding the proceedings of the action, than running all around trying to capture ALL the events spread throughout the battlefield, in the process alienating the audience. Again kudos to the sensibility of the maker of choosing one bird in the hand than clamoring for two in the battleground. Sensitivity - The camera spies on the protagonist beat, down and dejected, unable to decide about his future, having lost everything at that point - the love of his life, the consideration of his parents and respect for himself. There are no long introspective speeches nor does a song start immediately in the background with a dheeraj dharO himmat bharO message. The maker allows his character to have a private moment with himself and come to the realization all by himself of his true goals and thereby his inner calling. Trusting the character is what this scene demonstrates - it did not need to be hammered into him the error of his ways; it did not need to be told loud and clear as to what his next course of action should be; it did not need to be told to the audience what he is going through. Javed Akhtar (and to a great degree Farhan Akhtar) laid down the ground rules of the lead character's growing up process - no sermons, no lectures, no patronage, no condescension. Let the character struggle with himself with no external support and let his character emerge because of his own choices and his decisions and on his own volition. Scripting and directing around this strict tenet, the writer and the director do not make it any easy for him and when the transition finally occurs, he would have already won the respect of the audience that he so richly deserves and any action henceforth - the leadership, the bravery, the valor and the courage, has a strong root in his newly cultivated character.

Though Lakshya has its fair share of flaws, the major one being, it wasn't able to decide completely whether it was a personal battle set against the backdrop of a bigger battle or it is about the bigger battle which tries to have a human face by picking up the life of a soldier waging his own inner battle, the sincerity of the efforts and the conviction of the makers in trying to bring together a true Indian war movie certainly brushes off the flaws under the carpet. All in all it is definitely one small step for Farhan Akhtar but one great giant leap for the Indian movie-kind of this genre.

12.Virumandi (Tamil)

Amidst all the rubble, amidst all the cacophony, amidst all the humdrum, amidst all the chaos, lies the truth buried deep somewhere. Pragmatism, which doubles for pessimism once in while, dictates that there never is any absolute truth, but only versions of it. One usually associates with whatever suits his persuasion. There never is a right version, there never is a wrong one, either. It entirely depends on who has control over the mouthpiece. First, it was the linear way of recounting an incident - point A to point B. The events that led up to B entirely depending on whatever happened in A - the cause and effect way. Then came along the non-linear way. The sequencing of the events is played around with in this version and only at the end, can one figure out the intent by rearranging the pieces of the puzzle. The next in line was important, interesting and the powerful of three - the perspective way. Hereunder, the subjects remain the same, the sequences remain the same, but the looking glass changes hands. One man's food becomes the other's poison, one man's right becomes the other's blunder. What is interesting in this type of narration is that the lack of trust factor in the various versions put forth. Even when all the versions are put forth causing a clear picture to emerge, one cannot take a hard stance as to the real truth of the event, because it might be completely lost, or it might not even exist, under the burden of changing perspectives and shifting loyalties.
Click to learn more...

This interesting way of presenting a narration, the "He said, she said" way, has been tackled before many a time in international cinema for great effect, but has remained an untouchable entity in commercial Indian medium. The reasons are quite clear, for no real hero would emerge at the end of it all and all his actions stands to scrutiny not allowing the audience to associate with one version of the truth. In print medium, specially in telugu, Yandamuri ventured into this arena in the recent past, with his "vennellO gOdaari", in which a murder that was committed at the beginning of the story was recounted through 5 different sets of eyes, and at the end of it all, nothing was what it seemed and nothing was what was led to be believed. Kamal Hassan takes up this deglamorized way of illustration and emerges quite victorious with "Virumaandi". The interesting aspect of this sort of illustration is the detached perspective of the maker and his non-judgmental view of the material. He cannot take sides or choose sides and make one perspective better than the other or pack one version with over-powering evidence and leave the other with no logic, no reason to fall back upon. The character of Virumandi, alternating between street thug and a care-free land-owner, the background for the story, village politics rife with senseless violence, and the lack of any guilt on the part of ALL the characters involved, in regard to their actions, makes the perfect mix for Kamal to experiment with the narration.

It is quite normal that court-room proceedings offer a glimpse of what had really happened and what the witnesses think might have happened, given a context, circumstance and a perspective. B.R.Chopra's "Kanoon" played up to this point. Extending this thought even more, and lending it enough credibility with motivations, actions, words and thoughts, "Virumandi" makes an excellent case about the non-existence of the actual and absolute truth. Sympathy or understanding, which stands as the only emotion that the audience would relate to the lead character, in such movies of mindless violence and excessive gore, is completely done away with and instead replaced with a heartless alternative - reason. Kamal Hassan, the director, is not in the least bit sympathetic to Kamal Hassan (playing the title role of Virumaandi), the actor, when he strips away Virumandi of civility and culture, making him loud, boorish and sometimes plain obnoxious. That throws the audience off the scent and the judge'mentality' that it usually takes comfort in, painting the characters in black and white, judging their actions right and wrong, is thrown in a tizzy. Add to that the heroine Annalakshmi (portrayed with utmost sincerity by Abhirami), the usual pegging point of sentimentality and over-indulgence of emotions, is every bit as loud and every bit as cold as Virumandi.

When there are no characters to root for, no situations no take solace in and no one perspective to take sides with, the playing field is rightly balanced for the hero(?) as it is for the villain(?) with the only thing that is separating them - who is helming the mouthpiece.

Picture this situation - hero's grand mother is dead for reasons unknown. Hero is wailing in a corner. The reasons for her death murmured in the crowd. Now, imagine the music playing around the scene. Play the shehnaayi, the usual instrument for ritualistic dirge/obligatory death scene, and subconsciously the audience showering sympathy over the hero. Replace the shehnaayi with some violins and percussions, playing some ominous and suspenseful notes, the audience prepares itself for some foul-play. Leave the scene completely without any background score and allow the audience to make up their own minds whether to sympathize with the hero for his misfortune or to vilify him for his excess - Illayaraja, plays along with the director, refraining himself from commenting on each and every scene, thus forcing the viewer to see it from his viewpoint. Virumandi is probably the most difficult movie that Illayaraja, in his career, had to try really hard deciding between silence and music, for each musical cue would become a give-away to the viewer, something the director purposefully avoided. Keshav Prakash, handling the lens, observes the proceedings in the same dispassionate way with no extra movements to enhance hero's (?) character/image or to cut down the villain's (?). Particular mention and praise to ALL the actors, who sincerely believe their motivations in both the perspectives and remain true to emotions. "Virumandi" is an elegant piece of movie making by a director who is right in his element with the set pieces and in supreme command of the material.

13.Anand

bhaavayaami gOpaalabaalam manasaevitam tatpadam chintayEham

In the early nineties, Nescafe tried a very cute advertisement involving a couple (Suchita Krishnamurthy and another regular) settling into their house on the first day, to boost their coffee sales. Images of the guy putting up all the curtains, painting all the walls, arranging all the furniture, fumbling with his rolled up drawing sheets were intercut with his wife brewing a coffee in the kitchen - the visuals of the vapors of the coffee enhanced by the sunlight hitting the coffee cup at the right angle, the smile on her face complementing the fatigue on his face, the way he is woken up from his nap in the chair with a whiff of Nescafe. They settle down after what it passes as tiresome session with a couple of cups and the jingle in the background with a soothing voice croons - "manchi ruchi gala udayam kottha Sunrise". Despite the cloyingly sweet images, the mood that is way over the top, it somehow had a very endearing quality that allowed the viewer to be manipulated and played into the hands of the visuals. Though the intent is quite clear that the whole atmosphere of the setup would be bathed in bright imagery, attractive sights, stimulating music, the audience does not mind playing along with it (or rather, into it) for the simple reason that sometimes it is just unnecessary and unimportant to question the "why"s and "how"s of the image at hand and dissect it for the inner meanings and the true intents, lest the feeling that appealed to it in the first place is totally lost. It is always good to have the mind dictating the heart, but sometimes, it is better the reverse way.

muddu gaarae yaSOdaa mungiTa mutyaamu veeDu
Click to learn more...

Shekhar Kammula was quite clear as to what tone he wanted the movie to progress along. He brought in the feel-good factor, the cute factor, the good-nature factor, the requisite silly tiffs between the lead couple factor, the mandatory jealousies and the misunderstandings factor and the obligatory effusive group dynamic factor into the movie, hitting all the right notes with each of the above achieving the perfect balance between the commercial and the off-beat formats. Nagesh Kukunoor, the Neil Armstrong of this neo-culture (as far as telugu movies are concerned), certainly paved the way for the likes of Shekar to venture into this new arena where the characters never rise above the playing field and the progress of the movie depends much upon the passage of the characters through their motions and emotions that are far more personal than their commercial counterparts. This new format pokes fun at the clichés of the regular format, while ironically indulging in them at the same time. This new format makes good use of personality of the characters to drive the plot than the other way around, which proves an earnest attempt without having to resort to dramatic licenses and suspension of disbelief. This new format aims to please in a pure and an earthy manner that is unsophisticated yet very real, unpolished yet more believable. Keeping the scope of the project well within the boundaries of plausibility, intelligence and reality, this new format has the added advantage of deriving its inspiration from the vast experience treasure of people around, than having to look else where at borrowed thoughts and uncommon threads.

raghu vamsa sudhaambudi chandra sree raama raama raajaeSwaraa

A lyric that is actually heard, a tune that is actually pleasant, the picturization that is actually pleasing and the result that is totally appealing - Veturi, Radhakrishnan and Shekhar achieved this seemingly impossible task of translating the prose of the script into aural and visual poetry, not only by matching the requirements of the commercial format but indeed exceeding the standards and the expectations of the song and dance routines which are integral to the narrative and are often time fillers and crowd pleasers. "masaka yennelallae nuvvu, isuka tenne chaerutaavu, gasagasaala kougilintha, gusagusallae maaruthaavu" - Veturi is firmly in his familiar saddle concocting and coining ideas and phrases employing his trademark andam, chilipitnam, nuDikaaram, chamatkaaram, Srungaaram and konTetanam. With Radhakrishnan setting up the right platform for words to dictate the moods and instruments to follow the ideas, Veturi takes the side of the female perspective, yet again, bringing Anand as close to his earlier "Srivaariki praemalekha" as possible. The background sounds resonate with the strings of veeNa, violin, jal-tarang, sarOd and many such classical instruments, while the background voices echo with classical notes of "endarO mahaanubhaavulu", "oka pari koka pari", "inta aanadandam nee vala naenaa". Radhkrishnan and Shekhar's judicious use of classical background enhances the mood of the scene and sometimes, sets up the mood of the same gelling quite well with the mellowed nature of the characters and the script.

manasula mallela maalaloogenae, kannula vennela dOlaloogenae

Setting the script in the monsoon and the winter times in Hyderabad, the rains that greet the city, the early morning sights of a typical winter day, the glitter of the distant lights around the necklace road in the night, the farmhouses and the nurseries in the suburbs, this movie celebrates the life in the city, aided by the impressive visuals of Vijay Kumar. The movie is replete with nice and observational touches that say much about the director's (and his photographer) ability to pay attention to the little things like capturing the cold breaths of the characters during the Bhogi festival, the paper boats floating around in the rivulets during the rains, the female lead walking into brighter light and sharper focus when she breaks off her earlier relationship, leaving him in unfocussed and hazy perspective, the use of the handheld camera during conversations between the lead character and his brother, indicating the lead character's state of mind, instead of the conventional cutting back and forth, and the like. While on the subject of tipping the hat for the technicians, Sunitha, who lent her voice to the female lead, deserves a serious and a special mention. Here is an artist who speaks Telugu as it is meant to be spoken with all the votthulu, deerghaalu, kraavaDulu and vaTrasuDulu the absolute essentials of the language, instead of cosomopolitzing it to cause a grating effect on the ears. Though the language used for most of the characters in the movie is (unfortunately) Hyderabadi telugu, which is a combination of Telugu, Hindi/Urdu and English to the point that it becomes a weird mix that is neither Telugu, Hindi/Urdu or English, Shekhar needs to be specially appreciated for bringing in Sunitha to verbalize the expressions, and translate the emotions of the lead character, that would otherwise have had a negative effect, had the role been dubbed by the regular, who sounds much worse than an elementary student with minimal exposure to the language.

In the late sixties and early seventies when Hollywood was moving away from the studio brand of film making, in which the films were treated as a product, nicely packaged, with all the great looking artists, speaking just the right lines with ample one-liners thrown in for good measure, into the more risky and adventurous fares, in which films were toned down to being more realistic reflecting the every day life, actors picked up not just for great looks alone, and writing that seemed less theatrical and dramatic, there occurred a difficult transition period from the former to the latter in adjusting to the new tone and the new format. A few decades later, in the present, emerged a system where brash commercial ventures co-exist with the personal and independent, and the so-called art features, in perfect harmony. Nagesh took that first step in that direction of personal cinema and backed his foray with a few more ventures. Shekhar deviated from the path a little bit and added his own spin to the format that respects the regular version on one hand, while being personal on the other. In the hope that the telugu filmdom would take a leaf or two from Hollywood, here is a worthy and a commendable venture, Anand, that is not just a "manchi coffee laanTi sinimaa", but also a "paatha ghanTasaala gramophone laanTi sinimaa".