Aaranya Kaandam in my view – Decoding the meaning of Neo-Noir in Tamil cinema

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.

Feel free to share your opinion and cjeck out this tumblr page created by hardcore AK fans.

Life in a Day - A Road to Home

SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched “Life in a Day” please do watch it before you read this. You can watch it online in Youtube officially for free.

It’s one amongst a revolutionary concept that triggers and paves the gateway to the next generation in film making. The Inception for this project happened by Kevin MacDonald’s idea, supported by YouTube community and produced by Ridley Scott. “Life in a Day” is a crowd-sourced documentary film that was shot on a single day (July 24^th 2010, Saturday). It was filtered and edited over 80,000 videos that were submitted from the contributors around 192 countries with a runtime of 4,500 hours. The movie debuted in Sundance Film festival and its streamed live online officially.

I specifically watch some movies for their catchy titles. If such titles carry the word “Life” in it, I will definitely fall for it. Apart from “Life in a Day”, Some of the best titles that I’d watched mainly for the keyword ‘life’ is Tree of Life, Life is beautiful, Lives of others, Life of David Gale, Waking Life, The Double life of Veronique and the classic, It’s a wonderful Life. This big list includes Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi trilogy too, but pardon me I haven’t watched it still.

The soul of a documentary film is well perceived and experienced by the observer with its music blending and traveling along with the characters. It should sound as a theme that represents the state of the character’s mind and beats of the heart. Harry Gregson-Williams and Matthew Herbert composed such B-E-A-UTIFUL tunes for these powerful video frames. 

The movie explores the unidentified loop amongst various phases of life, with its spectacular comparison of a day’s dawn to dusk with the life’s birth to death. Just like myths, dreams, reality, relationships, love, pain and ailment, a day has its own unique ups and down. The film opens with early day footage of a lady feeding a baby, an old woman explaining about her myth, drunken person blabbering in a hangover. It then gives a quick glimpse at the characters and their lives we are going to view about in a major portion, followed by the wake-up scenes across various geographies in different styles. The regular early morning sessions of a day like freshening up, breakfast and reading newspaper are covered in linear fashion. It’s simply brilliant. 

The narration then jumps to portray the essence and importance about the birth of a creature. Amongst all the lovely tracks I loved the track “A day In a Time”. It still plays like a sweet lullaby in my ears. It stands as a theme for the ever-good rich parts i.e. for the HD shots representing the lives of people living in higher society. 

Following by the scenes of people telling about what they do carry regularly, the musical track then slides down to country folk song, sung by three Angola women while grinding the crops. The perspective of love, how it means to people of various ages are questioned in the middle portion of the film. The way people consider about relationships, happenings of marriage in various cultures are showcased. After all these family, trust, hope, love, relationship, marriage sequences comes the fear, war and the death part in climax just like life. 

There were lots of monologue shots. The two best monologues that I liked and felt like giving a salute and standing ovation were by the African guy in a boat (Near the opening scene ) and the girl inside the car (In climax). It was so true from heart and realistic. 

The movie ends with a bunch of people doing fireworks and lantern for some ceremony and flew those in the night’s sky, lighting a positive glorious flame inside us.

 

I couldn’t be specific about my favourite character. Right from the lady overcoming cancer, bicyclist for peace Okhwan yoon, a boy who shines the shoes, a little girl reaching the heights of her aspiration, a man working overseas just for the sake of his family, a women waiting for her husband’s return, a guy trying to propose his girl friend and another guy trying to express his grandma about his love on his boyfriend, budding parkour friends, One can easily relate to any of these characters and wind up speechless with at least a drop of tear and a little smile, mutually. The movie explored the whole life after all.

In the end credits there was a shot in which a snail sliming in a round surface, surrealistically turns out to be the surface of earth. I feel like it’s a sarcastic portrayal of a human soul sliming in the surface of earth exploring the quest and mystery of life. The shot later turns out to be the inside-of a camera lens (as if the camera is buried on ground) where a cow tries to lick it and eat it up and walks past as if it leaves the space for an open sky. Millions of thoughts and hopes pondered up after the screen went down. And I started to write :)

P.S. As mentioned by @venkyyells in twitter, I wish I could have contributed a video for this stupendous classic.

Avan Ivan Review .. Strictly my perspective.. P.S. I am sorry Mr.Bala.

This review is bit outdated one, but bear me just now I have exhausted watching Avan Ivan.

To start of with, I am a big fan of Bala sir. Laughed, Enjoyed, cried, adored and even inspired from many of his films. Loved his view and approach to the new dimension, out of the box thinking and directional style. It’s simply awesome and outstanding. He deserves a big salute and standing applause for his typical casting of characters and paving a gateway for many such debut artistes.

Starting from Nandha, Pithamagan, Naan Kadavul his characters utters subtle dialogues, but carries the plot making it lively by conveying more with expressions and mannerisms. He deserves best, the national award for Best Director for his Naan Kadavul. His exploration on Agori and sinned creatures are fantabulous. Arya, Pooja the always amazing lovey couple portrayed an untouchable genre in Naan Kadavul. Such genres and typical plots can never be made, and one dares to make a feature film with that script.

Most of the People feel Bala Sir’s films as stereotypic ones about the abandoned people from society. And even considered as raw, brutal and gore types like Shino Sono or Lars Von Tier films. Yes, it is. I consoled & confronted myself to this decision after watching his Avan Ivan and left disappointed totally.

Now I am going to compare the characters and plot of Avan Ivan and Pithamagan.

‘Differentiate between Avan Ivan & Pithamagan ?’ – 5 marks

1. Arya (Kumbudran saami) – Surya (Langar)

2. Vishal (Sprouted eyes ) - Vikram (Sithan)

3. Vishal’s Mom (The lady with cigar) – Sangeetha (Lady with Pan Beeda & Ganja)

4. Villain (Illegal Cow trade) – Villain (Illegal Ganja trade)

5. Vishal’s love lady (Police Constable Baby) – Typical innocent updated Laila.

6. Jameendhar – I guess he was casted like a big GodFather but just to go Nude in the climax scene marking a history in tamil cinema.??

7. The fat boy as Arya’s buddy – Good find. Way to go, AttaBoy !!

8. Characters as Arya’s heroine, Parents, etc.. etc.. – No comments Total Bullshit.

9. Surya Cameo - Does anyone really care ?????

Both Vishal and Arya has done a good job and justified their roles. But they could’ve been characterized and written well. Vishal with his feminine acts, looks, dance and sprouted eyes like a icing on the cake for his character is brilliant. It fails to impress audience at times when he utters some unworthy, predictable, irritating, stupid dialogues on screen. Intro dance bit of Vishal in Jameendhar’s bday celebration, Arya’s funny mannerisms pulling legs of Vishal and his mom now and then are commendable.

The plot drains, dulls and totally goes out of scope, post 25 mins of movie start. And hits you digger and deeper, make you wonder what the hell is going on, in the forest fight scene just before the interval block.

Post Interval is total nuts and balls game. The scenes with Agaram, where Suriya did a cameo is total crap. If that scene was kept for marketing and promoting Agaram, Bala Sir could’ve kept in the Index or post movie credits. If that scene was made for portraying Vishal’s Navarasa talent, It could’ve made as a normal skeptic drama scene in a village Keethu Kottaai or a street show.

Bala Sir being a national award winning director shouldn’t have made such crappy scenes. Come on Sir, people out there from Hindi-Bengali-Malayalam film industry are having an eye on you to steal your zeal, fame and prosperity in directional feature. You should be so cautious being a holder of National award. Please don’t make crappy scenes like this again.

Thanks to Bala, as the hero or heroine character in this film was not left dead at the end like his previous films. But wait a second, instead 2 lame characters were left dead to meet Bala’s standards. And everyone in the story adores, respects the Kamuthikottai Jammendhaar as ‘Highness’ affectionately. That eventually raises many questions and lits the torch through millions of holes in the story plot.

What made Jammendhaar so special?

What he has done for the people?

Why Vishal and Arya considers Jameendhar as their Godfather?

Why Jameendhar is unmarried ?

What happened to his jameen property ?

Why Arya’s Heroine’s father cheated the Jameendhar ?

Why Jameendhar was casted like a big old guilty Lion, but rotten ?

Why Arya, Vishal’s dad was casted as a man with two wives?

Wont the siblings born to a single mom behave as rivals? What big difference does it make?

What happened to the 1 crore worth woods that Vishal drove from forest? Has it went in vain just like the movie plot ?

Does Vishal flavoring feminine nature, a result of Navarasa and Barathanatyam practicing?

Why Vishal thinks and feels him as an artist? Was it because of just Navarasa practice?

Cant Arya, a cheater with good physic couldn’t fight or atleast block a punch or slap?

Arya & Vishal with an ancestry as professional thefts, Did they worked together or alone before?

Was Arya’s lady love casted for just a song in the film ?

Why there was no sign of this mediocre cattle trading villain since 90 mins from movie start ?

Is this movie an eye-opener of illegal cattle trafficking?

Why Jameendhar was beaten Nude to death?

Why all Bala films end in grave with a fuming corpse in flame?

Is this actually a film?

Phewww !!! Am done bursting out with my words and senses. Queries & worries keeps on popping my head after watching this one. Ill go mad if I write more.

Avan Ivan is best for those who consider a lighter, rated, extended, stupid, strip down cut of Bala’s previous films.

All those light hearted people out there, who don’t know Bala sir and prefers to watch the ultra light shitty version of Pithamagan and Naan Kadavul, for you guys Avan Ivan is must watch. For the ardent Bala Sir fans, Passionate movie lovers it’s a strict, worth avoiding flick.

Avan Ivan – 1/ 5

It deserves one star as it’s a Bala’s film. That’s it. Over & Out.

Comments & suggestions are highly welcomed being the first review in my blog.