SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched “Aaranya Kaandam” please do watch it before you read this. This Post cointains the plot and spoilers.
It all
started with elegant posters designed in the style of art-house novel covers, Villupaatu genre trailer of a film
winning accolades all over the world. Before starting my review, I want to congratulate
and thank the director Thiagarajan Kumararaja for bagging a national award for best debut director with great confidence thus by making a daring attempt.
The name Aaranya
Kaandam, English Title: Jungle Chapter, originally denotes a chapter in Ramayanam.
That particular chapter tells us about the Raavan’s plot on captivating Sita. Just
like Vali’s epic, Ramayana carrying lots of details and references in a
historic epic, Thiagarajan Kumararaja has written Aaranya Kaandam well with perfect
sense, making one to sit and get locked up tight to the characters and the
plot. Thiagarajan has almost made a research for it, I guess. Starting from
Jackie shroff, Sampath, Kodukapli, Somasundaram (Chennai Koothupaatarai fame),
Ravikrishna and subbu, everbody has lived their roles in Aaranya Kaandam.
The
character sketching and schema can be dissected into two groups.
The
Predators:
Singam
Perumal (Jackie Shroff) – The Lion King.
Gajenthiran,
Gajapathi – The Elephant [Gajas].
The Prey:
[Pasu]Pathi
- The Cow.
Kaalai
(Father) – The Bull.
Kodukapuli (Son)
– Puppy Dog /Gambooge literally.
Subbu (The
Lady) - The cunning Lady Fox.
Sappa (Ravikrishna)
– Pity crow/bird which gets shot unplanned on a stupid hunt.
Plot of AK is
crisp and clear. Perfect cut I’d say. It was lovable and easily
captivating like a good old childhood fable.
Plot: An old Lion
(Singamperumal) and giant elephant (Gajapathi Brothers) ruled the jungle. The
cow (Pasupathi) helped the lion by finding its prey thereby gaining its
survival. One day in a Jungle the cow suggested lion about consuming a prey
(cocaine) that belonged to Elephant. In this situation, Lion disagrees; cow
decides to take advantage of the situation, control and position of the old Lion. Lion gets
pissed off because of that and decides to kill cow. Becoming aware about this, Cow
escapes and accidentally bull (kaalai) and puppy dog (kodukaapuli)
gets caught amidst all these chaos. Cow draws a strategy to get back the prey.
Executes its successfully by defeating and killing the predators. While all
this happening, a beautiful cunning fox (subbu) escapes this wild hunt by placing
a pity crow (sappa) as a decoy. Well that’s Aaranya Kaandam is all about.
The racy
narration keeps the plot alive and healthy. Even the simple scenes were narrated
and acted very naturally. The soul of Aaranya Kaandam lies in the shoulders of
characters.
Likes
Corner:
There were
lot of remarkable/loveable/enjoyable scenes and shots from AK. Particularly,
The
conversation amongst the gangsta members on ‘How to get a desperate lady?’.
The Phone
call sequences between Gajapathi brothers, Singamperumal, Pasupathi, Kaalai
& son were top class.
The way kaalai
curse the people during the cockfight and blaspheming about it.
Two autos, BIGLE
(Aarya’s auto) & Son of Gun (Villain Vijay’s auto) from Oram po movie
directed by Gayathri Pushkar, friends of Thiagarajan Kumarajan, crossing up sappa
and subbu accidentally.
Narrating
Sappa & Subbu’s situation in the Mario game scene sequence was really
loveable. Matching the game’s ending, in the climax subbu walks away with an attitude that
shows ‘Middle finger salute’ to the male chauvinistic/dominating society with
unspoken words, “Thank You Mario! But Our Princess Is In Another Castle!”
Kaalai
trying to keep up his super dad image in front of his son but ends standing as
an dumb-ass.
Pasupathi’s
strategy and monologue conversation.
The final
handshake dialogue between Pasupathi & Kodukapili.
Ohhhhhhhh..
stop me there !! I almost mentioned all the scenes.
To my
fellow world movie lovers & torrent guys:
I’ve read
many reviews where people condemning the director as a copy of Guy Ritchie, his
narration and screenplay as Tarantinoish one. Seriously, stop it guys!!
Note: Guy
Ritchie and Tarantino are not true and original either. Even they have been
inspired by lot of good old folks like Sergio Leone, Stanley Kubrick, Spielberg
and so many Spaghetti western films, cult films and grindhouse movies. It’s
just another dimension of narration and variation in storytelling. They didn’t
own the copyright of it.
Quoting all
their films like Pulp Fiction, Reservoir dogs, Snatch, Rock’n’Rolla, Revolver,
Lock stock and two smoking barrels… and other famous Gangster films like The
Godfather, Good fellas, The Usual suspects, Scarface, Donnie Brasco, City of
gods etc… everything deals with using profanity, portraying outraged
characters, Illegal drugs smuggling, trafficking, killing, chasing and a bloody
massacre at the end. Each and every goddamn gangsta movie has it. You cannot
call it a copy when a plot is made with such specifications because that’s what
they do in their real life and that’s why they are gangsters. Remember Aaranya
Kaandam is ‘A day in a gangsta life’.
To the
baldheads who call Aaranya Kaandam as (A) Rated film:
The 80’s
generation kids were done watching all the boring melo-drams and family movies all
their way up till now. All we need right now in Tamil cinema is (A) movie with true, raw,
rusty character portrayal in addition to Bloody action sequences. Seriously,
how long u guys want us to get jealous of the foreign films in the name of
culture, heritage and tradition. ? Not all loves to see the reality and hear profanity,
I agree. But truth should’ve been told and portrayed atleast in some films. Keeping your kid safe
from hearing profanity and violence on screen doesn’t make them neither sinners nor saints. Media alone isn't responsible for one’s rude, violent behavior. Well that’s
different ball game, I don’t want to break out a debate about it.
Talking
about Profanity, AK will be a trend setting movie in tamil cinema for this
aspect too. I love the way profanity usage is handled in AK. It was not used on
purpose or for the sake of usage but the characters utters it because emotional,
angst soul. Always envied its usage in Hollywood and foreign films. Even the Hindi 'Delhi Belly' made me to worry and wonder when such movies will come to tamil. Inspite
of those 52 cuts, NOC certificates, (A) certificate from the censor board,
Thiagarajan Kumararajan and producer SPB Charan almost made it possible and won battling the censors. SPB Charan truly deserves the credits and success for trusting the script and a new director, backing up such a great project.
Last but not least, kudos to the whole team and specially to the camera-man Vinod and Yuvan shankar Raja. They had done a great job. A tamil movie without songs, carried away fully in BGM is truely challenging but yuvan made it possible. The principal photography is fabulous.
On the whole, Aaranya Kaandam introduced the neo-noir genre in tamil cinema. It will be praised, hailed and referred a decade later just like Anbe sivam, Kattradhu Thamizh and Pudhupettai. Well done Thiagarajan & team. Can't wait for your next movie. Please make it soon.
