Vaaranam Aayiram - Review

I saw my first theatre movie yesterday night - in 8/9 months - and my first tamil movie in, i dunno, a year and a half (Sivaji was the last one) - and my first movie in Madurai - since, i dunno, 'The World is Not Enough' - which came out back when i was in School or something :)

I wasnt particularly jobless - but with all the hype surrounding the movie - and the theatre being a mere 5 min walking distance from home - brother & I - and then a cousin - decided to take the plunge -

Gautam Menon's : Vaaranam Aayiram - [ ahem, it technically belongs to Dayanidhi Azhagiri as was evident all over in Madurai - i heard 9 theatres are running 5 shows - with no other movie shown - talk about muscling :) ]

First thing - it deserves a review - it reminds me of some of my own 1 year or 2 year projects - where a lot of thought, planning & all of one's talents are deployed with a lot of care, painstaking effort - but somehow the end results come out as a fleeting glance of what the real possibilities could have been - what future possibilties exist - brilliant in some segments, so-so in a lot of others - an overall Grade of 3.5+/5

- maybe money constraints, maybe something else went wrong during filming, i dunno -

I actually saw a segment of - what turned out to be the 'Anjale Anjale' song - being shot in Elliots beach - back in 2006 - when me and C were taking a stroll at some ungodly hour over there - the segment which had guys on bikes waving their arms or something - came on screen for like, 2 seconds - and i am certain that it was shot for atleast 4 hours - i can certain understand now - how hard it must be to make a living from the movies.

Okay - the review -

The biggest setback for the movie is that the dialogue writing / screenplay is like total pseud/fake sounding - when the story is about some educated middle class tamil family starting somewhere in 1980 or 1985 - one does not expect mom & dad to say 'i love you' every other line, the son says 'daddy, i miss you. i love you', 'i made love' etc. and almost 40% of the dialogue in English - it takes off some of the impact the visuals create.

Ah, the visuals - 5/5 - the filming is technically superb, the small moments of brilliance in some of the Romantic scenes - background score - some bits of action - There are segments where Surya does guitar + vocal recitals of old hindi tamil songs, real nicely crafted

- the casting is superb - Sameera the babe [She has a future, this one ;)], surya's family, priya's character - all do their job 110% - they cant really be blamed if their script calls on them to say things like "Mom! I love her mom!" "Hi darling! i will come and sweep you off your feet" "Son! Do what your heart tells you", ugh! - Surya does a superlative job with all the characters he portrays - the Abs and all - he cant be blamed if his character as the old man had really sloppy make up on.

- The music - it easily is the Tamil album of the year (and it has been a good year!) - and it naturally makes it that much more hard to make videos that live up to the hype - Mundinam Paarthen - shot in a sort of Retro style - is the pick of the lot - all other songs show up abruptly and makes it that wee bit irritating

Closing comments -

Worth a watch - definitely different from most normal Kollywood fare - Gautam Menon ought to learn a thing or two from folks like ManiRatnam, Farhan Akhtar, Ashutosh Gowariker - Style, class and sophistication dont just come from slick filming, army fatigues, romancy segments and pseud-daddy, i love you- type dialogues - I dont remember even ONE out of place English dialogue in films like Aayuda Ezhuthu, Dil Chahta Hai, Lakshya or Swades - all 4.5 / 5 movies (They all had english dialogues all through - but none out of place)

- when this realization sinks in - Gautam will probably hire a more down to earth dialogue writer - stop lip syncing music videos ( play them like background scores i guess or skip them from the movie) - and concentrate on the rest of the stuff he does so well.

With parents out of town, brother delivering babies all day (he take pictures of all these teeny piglet type babies he takes care of/or helps deliver and proudly uploads them every other day) and with this huge house with 5 or 6 doors to lock up every night / servants to let in at 6 am - i dont particularly look forward to this weekend - but weekend it is. *sigh*