Author Archives: Heather Wilson

Thalapathi

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Thalapathi was one of the first Tamil films I saw. It was before my ‘Southern Film Industry Addiction’, I barely knew who Rajnikanth was and had absolutely no idea about Mammootty. In fact I’d totally forgotten he was in this film until I rewatched it recently – thankfully I know much better now.

Written and directed by Mani Ratnam, Thalapathi is at heart much more of a masala film than his usual fare. It features most of the necessary ingredients: an abandoned child, perpetually teary mother, romance, brothers who don’t know they are related, the essential Amrish Puri as the villain and a significant article of clothing. Add to that plenty of action and fight scenes, great songs, and beautiful cinematography, plenty of classical references and it all adds up to a very full 2 and a half hours of cinema.

The film starts in black and white with a young unmarried girl giving birth during the festival of Bogi. The opening scenes of Kalyani’s rejection by an older woman and shots of the rural countryside serve to explain that her child has no future in such a traditional community. She puts the baby into a train in the hope that somehow someone else will give him a better life. These opening shots are some of the best in the film and it’s a shame that my copy of the DVD seems to have lost the original quality.

The colour kicks in with the year of 1987 when the baby has grown up to be Surya (Rajnikanth). He is a man with a firm belief in justice who is determined to help others in his community in any way he can. This often seems to be by beating senseless an offender and in the course of such action he ends up fatally injuring Ramana, one of Devaraj’s men. Enter Mammootty in a very well played role as the head of the local gang of rowdies, who initially threatens Surya with dire consequences if his man dies.

However when Devaraj finds out Ramana’s crimes, he arranges for Surya’s release from jail and tells him that his actions were right and just. I can’t say that I agree with his assessment but it makes Surya become his loyal Thalapathi and the two become inseparable. Lots of drama here, so time for a song break.

Surya’s charitable reputation helps to legitimise Devaraj’s rather more shady one and they soon rule the entire area, much to the displeasure of Devaraj’s rival Kalivardhan (a dubbed Amrish Puri). There is bad blood between these two and it’s inevitable that there will be a clash. However most of the story concerns Surya’s relationship with Devaraj and sadly Kalivardhan is only seen occasionally throughout the film. Amrish Puri in a really terrible pair of glasses isn’t as menacing as usual but manages to be evil enough just when it really counts.

In the course of his good works, Surya meets Subbu (Shobana), a Brahmin girl who falls in love with him. Perhaps it was the wolverine hair-style or the commanding way in which he demands her jewellery but she’s obviously quite smitten.

Her father wants nothing to do with a thug who has no idea who his parents were and rejects the match. In the middle of all this, Surya’s real mother ends up moving to the area when her legitimate son Arjun (Arvind Swamy) is appointed as a Collector. Kalyani has married a very understanding man who knows all about her first baby, although Arjun doesn’t know that he has an elder half-brother. The two brothers have a common sense of justice but in every other way are complete opposites. Arjun is a good and law-abiding man who is committed to cleaning up the town, although perhaps he should have started with the police corruption rather than take on the town rowdies. There are inevitable clashes between Surya, Devaraj and the police as Arjun tries to stop their version of law and justice in the town. And Kalivardhan is luring in the background adding in his malicious attempts to get rid of the pair as well. Finally the significant cloth comes to light but Surya refuses to give up his friendship with Devaraj despite discovering his brother.

Although there is plenty of action in the film, the main focus is on the relationship between Surya and Devaraj. Mani Ratnam has based it on the friendship between Karna and Duryodhana from the Mahabharata and there are a number of references to this story throughout the film. It starts out with Devaraj as the leader and Surya as the faithful follower, but as their friendship develops they each begin to change the other and the dynamic between the two has altered by the final scenes. Both Rajnikanth and Mammootty are both excellent and work well together to bring their friendship to life. It’s mainly in the little touches, such as the way they only have to look at each other to acknowledge their next venture.

Surya’s relationships with his mother, Subbu and others are important to the overall story but his character is defined by his strong sense of justice and unwavering support of Devaraj, no matter what. Even when Devaraj persuades him to marry Ramana’s widow Padma, Surya is unable to say no. Rajni has plenty of action scenes and is exuberant in these, but he also makes the most of his more dramatic moments. So much is conveyed in one particularly memorable scene in the temple, where both Suyra and Kalyani both look yearningly towards a train as they hear the distant whistle. They are both standing close together but neither have any idea who the other is and their obvious sadness is all the more poignant as a result.

Mammootty is more restrained in his role as Devaraj relies more on fear and his entourage rather than actual physical violence. He has Surya for all of that after all. His portrayal of the more corrupt and devious Devaraj is excellent and he brings a real sense of authority to the character. The other members of the cast are all very good in their supporting roles, especially Srividya who is convincing as the mother who can never forget the child she lost. I was surprised that she had told her husband about her first baby, but Jai Sankar brought a lot of compassion to his role as Arjun’s father and was very credible as a supportive husband and father.

The other standout feature of the film is the music by Ilaiyaraja. The sad Chinna Thayaval is beautiful and recurs as background music throughout the film. The other songs are all upbeat with some great dancing and I wasn’t surprised to see that Prabhu Deva was one of the choreographers.  The rather different Sundari Kannal is interspersed with some Samurai action and seems to be a tribute to director Akira Kurosawa. I haven’t included it here as it is very long and I’m a little concerned about the horses in some of the fight sequences but Rajni in a top knot is definitely worth a look.

The only issue I have with this film is that it is very violent in parts. The first fight scene with Ramana and the episodes of police torture are quite graphic and go on just a bit too long for me. But to counter that, the two leads are fantastic and really at their best, the music is beautiful and memorable, and it’s a very well told story. 4 stars.

Temple says: I like watching earlier Rajni films (and this is the 90s) as it reminds me just how good an actor he is, legend status aside. I have recently watched Darna Veera Suura Karna, so the story was fresh in my mind and I think this translation to modern gang empires was very effective. Deva and Surya are full of certainty and righteous power, and stride through the landscape looking larger than life. Mammootty and Rajni are brilliant and play off each other so well, and that’s a good thing as other elements of the story are underdone. Deva’s gang members were just a vague presence, and I don’t think I recall any of their names. They were just there for contrast and to portray Deva’s court of followers. The female characters are strong in concept but weak in presence apart from a couple of key scenes. Shobana was lovely as Subbu, which is all that was required of her,  and Bhanupriya gave an excellent and near silent performance as Padma. Srividya was good but her character was quite static and she didn’t do much more than weep so I was left wanting to see more from a woman who clearly had a complex situation to navigate. I admired Santosh Sivan’s artistry as he used light and camera angles to create a feeling that these men were almost forces of nature, and the landscapes were stunning. The fight scenes in the rain were lovingly filmed to capture the beauty of the splashing water and the bodies were more of a method of breaking the trajectory of the showers than the object of the scene. I don’t think it’s an overly violent film as many of the gory scenes are shown as aftermath rather than explicit or graphic scenes of how people got into that state. What was explicit was also shown to have consequences so it isn’t mindless violence either. It all fit into the relationship of Deva and his general with their warlike mentality. I don’t love the soundtrack, but I do like it well enough and thought most of the slower songs were excellent. I was ready to stick a fork in my ear at the umpteenth reprise of Chinna Thayaval but I blame Mani Ratnam for that as it was just relentless and overused. It’s a great action infused tale of loyalty and conflict, it looks stunning, and it features two of the best actors working in Indian cinema. 4 stars from me!

Sye

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The first half of Sye is director SS Rajamouli’s take on West Side Story – except that instead of knives two rival college gangs fight it out on the rugby field in a reasonable facsimile of Rugby Union. There is romance but no Romeo and Juliet inspired tragedy and by the second half the film has morphed into a fairly standard sports film, underdogs and inspirational speech included. Sye is Rajamouli’s third film and was another hit, proving that no matter what the subject matter he manages to tell a good story.

The film begins with a very violent over throw of local don Narayana by Bikshu Yadhav; the wonderfully evil Pradeep Rawat in totally over-the-top villain mode.  This all becomes very relevant later on, but initially seems quite disconnected from what follows. As a bonus though, there is Ajay as one of the gang.

Next we move on to the MK College of Arts and Sciences or, as the film helpfully points out, Arts vs. Sciences. The college is split into two factions; one led by the son of the headmaster, Prithvi (Nitin)and the other by Shashank (Shashank). Science students have taken on the name of Wings and are self-confessed less disciplined than the Arts students: the Claws. I thought this was a little strange as most science students in my experience tend to be the nerdy conformist types – terrible generalisation I know but I was a science student which probably explains a lot! The hero Prithvi and his rival Shashank do a lot of taunting and grimacing at each other but there is very little actual violence – everything is settled on the rugby pitch.

Genelia plays Indu, an Arts student who acts as another point of contention between Prithvi and Shashank. Her introduction starts well enough as this rather cute song where the lyrics are made up of signs and posters Prithvi and Indu see along their route.

This pleasant introduction is totally ruined by the next scene which is probably the most ridiculous and stupid in the entire film. Getting onto the wrong bus, Indu is pursued and then forcibly tattooed by the rival Wings gang. Yes, tattooed! Never mind the difficulty of tattooing someone against their will when they are struggling, or that it would take more time than the few minutes shown to actual achieve such an intricate design, but then this act of outrage is NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN!!!! This really bothered me as I just couldn’t see that something as permanent and potentially disfiguring as a tattoo wouldn’t cause more of a reaction, but it didn’t seem to bother Indu much at all.

Moving quickly on, since everyone else in the film does, the two gangs take their rivalry onto the rugby field which is where I had my next ‘what the?’ moment. Now I’m a big fan of Rugby Union. It was the sport of choice for the guys at my school in Northern Ireland and I grew up watching the game. My husband also played for many years and it’s still my favourite sport, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to watch this film. But in all my years of watching Union games, I have never seen anything like the scoring system used here. Unless there is a strange form of the game in India (which I really do doubt), I suspect Rajamouli totally made it up. The rest of the game however did seem to mainly follow the usual rules and was fun to watch.

In another plot point that is never totally resolved, the headmaster Satyam pits the two gangs against each other to develop land behind the school as a rugby field, telling them that he will name the ground for whoever finishes first. They must have both finished together as the ground seems to end up as the MK Arts and Colleges ground. Despite Satyam’s good intentions, this accomplishment doesn’t manage to unite the two sides and with Indu rapidly becoming a bone of contention between the two gang leaders, the situation deteriorates further.  I’m not entirely sure why Nitin is wearing a vest underneath a see-through shirt here, but it really doesn’t work. Especially not with the puffy sleeves and a cap.

It all culminates in a huge fight between the two sides which the police try unsuccessfully to break up. Strangely they are about to do this by firing at the limbs of people in the crowd. Really? Whatever happened to other perhaps less potentially fatal options like water cannons or tear gas? Anyway, they don’t get the chance, as Bikshu Yadav (remember him?) shows up asserting his rights to the land, in a rather skilful display of coordinated 4-wheel drive manoeuvring.

It’s never very clear exactly why Bikshu Yadav wants this land so much, but he tortures and kills the legal owner to get it. There is a very unpleasant scene where he threatens a pregnant woman, which was really quite nauseating, but thankfully threats is as far as he goes.

The appearance of an enemy finally gets the Wings and Claws start to work together. You add together wings and claws, and you get Eagles – of course!

Rather sensibly advised by Prithvi, the Eagles decide to fight their enemy by subterfuge rather than by direct opposition. They use a variety of techniques to ruin his drug and alcohol businesses, derail his political career and even manage to stop his nights of passion with his mistress.

However they are too clever for their own good and are ratted out to Bikshu Yadav  by Venu Madhav, who appears periodically throughout the film in a rather silly comedy role. This leads to a final show down rugby match which is attended by a huge crowd and is also televised. Not only that but they even have a third umpire and there’s even a hakka. I loved the drums and team mascot for the Bulls and the half-time inspirational speech by the Eagles coach. Even if it was a mish-mash from the classics, political speeches and other sporting films – but then again aren’t they all?

The film improves a lot in the second half where there are fewer totally ridiculous moments, and the story is more engaging. There are some clever ideas but overall the film is quite patchy and jumps around between the two different themes. The violence perpetrated by Bikshu Yadav is an abrupt contrast to the college story and for me this keeps disrupting the flow. Genelia really doesn’t have much to do in this film other than be the love interest and the reason for the two gangs to finally fight it out. Her character is annoyingly complacent with the antics of Prithvi and Shashank and finally is almost totally sidelined in the second half of the film. Nitin and Shashank do well as the two college kids, but are totally overshadowed by Pradeep Rawat who revels in as much violence as possible. I am a fan of Ajay and I love to see him turn up as one of the villains, since he always seems to be having such a great time being one of the bad guys. The various actors playing the students do a good job of creating a typical college atmosphere and stalwarts of Telugu cinema Tanikella Bharani and Nassar provide good support for the younger cast.  I was somewhat surprised that one of the songs Chantaina Bujjaina is a remix of the classic Hindi song Duniya Mein Logon Ko from Apna Desh but it didn’t work here quite as well as it might have.

Overall Sye is not a bad film, but it’s not a particularly good film either. Worth watching for the final rugby game which really is the high point and just bumps the film up to 3 stars for me.

Temple says:

I didn’t see any West Side story qualities in Sye, just a bunch of college boys with nothing better to do. Had there been stronger dramatic tension or real animosity between the school factions in the first half this would have been a better film. The rivalry between Arts & Sciences was childish and not terribly interesting as basically, the group members were pretty interchangeable. And to Heather’s point about the Science geeks being the quiet good kids…well, I was an Arts student and the Engineering parties at Melbourne Uni back in the day were legendary. The first half meandered from silly pranks to macho posturing and back again. It wasn’t until the rowdies became the common enemy uniting the college that there was any drama.

One of many problems I had with Indu’s character was  the supposed love triangle. It didn’t work as Shashank and Prithvi were pretty much the same so it didn’t matter which one got the girl. I actually really liked Genelia’s performance in this – Indu was energetic and engaging, not crazy bubbly. And she tried to dance which is always fun. Unfortunately her character is one of the most stupid I have ever endured. I was glad when Indu stuck to cheerleading in the second half as I was in danger of tearing an eye-rolling muscle. Prithvi constantly tricked her into inappropriate behaviour and it made me dislike the pair of them intensely (her for being so dumb and him for being an arsehole). Nitin and Shashank were, as I said, virtually the same in terms of their characters. Neither of them really stood out, apart from Nitin’s hideous song outfits. Certainly when Pradeep Rawat is in full throttle, I think you need a hero with a bit more testosterone.

And back to the dancing – a friend of ours once tried to teach a dance step with the instruction ‘sit into it lower and try and move like a really sexy duck’. I think perhaps someone said the same to Genelia in the ‘Duniya Mein’ remake but it turned out more funky chicken than sexy duck. I will never forget the look on Jag’s face when she saw the results and I think the choreographer for this may have felt a bit the same.

I have issues with a rugby try that was clearly not a try (especially when it is called a touchdown and is under the Chicago Bulls basketball team logo), as well as the bizarre scoring and some other things which were at odds with the bits they got right. I guess a proper college team played most of the games, which did make it more enjoyable and realistic, although the actors’ rugby scenes were noticeably less believable. The haka was both impressive and so very wrong.

Despite the woeful story Rajamouli has an eye for great set shots and action sequences, and really understands the tempo of a story. This was surprisingly enjoyable at times, but the good bits are few and far between. I give this 2 ½ stars.

Aa Naluguru

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Aa Naluguru is a quirky little film about the rather unbelievably good Raghu Ramaiah and his rather unbelievably bad family. According to my subtitles, the four people of the title are those four people in your life that you must look after so that they will be inclined to carry your coffin after you die – quite a sensible idea really. However as the film unfolds it seems that it may also refer to the four members of Raghu Ramaiah’s family who make his life so difficult, or maybe even to his four friends and co-workers who also have a large influence on him. The film is a little slow to start and perhaps overly moralistic, but succeeds for me mainly due to fantastic performances by Rajendra Prasad and Kota Srinivasa Rao.

Raghu Ramaiah is an editor who is a great philanthropist, giving half of his earnings to his wife and children and the other half to the poor.  He is very idealistic and believes that nothing is as important as love and compassion which means that he is constantly fighting against the corruption, greed and intolerance he sees every day in his community. His best friend Subrahmanyam (Subhalekha Sudhakar) has no such problems. He pays bribes and seems content to ignore the injustices he sees around him. Raghu Ramaiah’s other friend is the miserly money-lender Kotaiah who is happy to tell everyone that his only interest is money, and is a man so mean that he rations absolutely everything at home.

We meet Raghu Ramaiah at the end of his life, when two demons pop up in his bedroom to take his soul to hell.  This was just a little unexpected – firstly because I hadn’t expected a mythological aspect to the story but secondly why take his soul to hell when he had led such an exemplary life – or then again had he? Raghu Ramaiah turns out to be a little vain at any rate as he wants to be able to watch the mourners at his funeral. He successfully pleads with the demons to be able to stay longer on Earth, but this turns out to be a mistake since no-one seems to mourn him at all. As the demons ridicule him for this lack of affection from his family and friends he shows them scenes from the last few months of his life which explain the reaction to his death.

His children are all only concerned with money as they think this is what they need to achieve their selfish wants and desires. The eldest son Shekar (Raja) wants to become an SI in the police, but although he has passed all the necessary exams he finds that he can only get the job by paying a bribe.  Chinna, the younger son, wants to bribe a University to accept him into an Engineering course since he hasn’t got good enough grades to be accepted on his own merits.  Indra and her husband want to leave and start a new life overseas as he has no job, and doesn’t seem to be particularly worried about getting one.

They all keep pressing their father for money while he insists that they should be able to get by on their own merits, and in particular not pay bribes just because everyone else does.  However Raghu Ramaiah’s ideals are not accepted by his family and finally his son-in-law decides to capitalise on his father in law’s good name and start a finance company to cheat people.  This is the last straw, and Raghu Ramaiah finally breaks down at this threat to his reputation.  He borrows money from his friends and uses this to pay his children what they feel they are owed. After he dies, his sons and his son-in-law run away to avoid having to pay back the money their father has borrowed.

Note the prominent placement of Mother Theresa’s picture seen here over Raghu Ramaiah’s shoulder.

There is a great moment when medics come to collect Raghu Ramaiah’s eyes which he has donated, although this also brings to light the true circumstances of his death. But a story that involves eye donation is always a plus for me.

The rest of the film deals with the funeral and I have to say that no matter how many times I watch this film, the final scenes always make me cry. The simple outpouring of emotion at the funeral is very well done, and the grief in the loss of a man seen as a great humanitarian is very heartfelt.

There are a few problems with the story, written by Madan and the director Chandra Sidhartha. Raghu Ramaiah seems to be a very idealistic representation of a compassionate man and the story initially is very simplistic and moves slowly. It’s understandable that his family is frustrated with his overly charitable nature, although their demands for money and general lack of respect also seem unrealistic. Perhaps the director found this necessary to get his point across, but I think the same points could have been made more subtly. I don’t believe that anyone could be so overly benevolent to the detriment of their own family or adhere so rigidly to such morals. However while these flaws could have made Raghu Ramaiah very one-dimensional, Rajendra Prasad rounds out his character with a really fantastic performance. The interactions with his family are very well portrayed with a mixture of frustration, love and anger giving a more naturally human feel to the character despite the rather stilted language. Of course that could be the fault of the subtitles. Still, without the presence of Rajendra Prasad I don’t feel that this film would have had the same impact at all. Kota Srinivasa Rao is excellent as the miserly Kotaiah and the interaction between these two characters is the best part of the film. Aamani was good in her portrayal of the wife stuck in the middle, trying to keep everyone happy and failing, and it was interesting to see Raja in a more negative role.

While there aren’t very many songs in this film, the slow and sad version of the title song is used frequently as a background theme. But this fast version at Indra’s wedding does have some dancing at least.

Despite the problems I have with the story and the somewhat idealistic characterisations, the performances more than make up for these shortcomings for me. This is a film I’ve watched a number of times and still love the ending.  A film made by the performances and emotional final scenes and as such gets 3 1/2 stars from me.

Temple says:

I hate this film. I can’t decide if it is an amateurish attempt or a deliberately manipulative effort that insults the intelligence of the audience. I do need to discuss the plot as it is the supposed ‘twist’ that particularly annoys me, along with some poor writing.

I will leave a gap.

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Now if you want to avoid the spoiler, keep scrolling until you see the next puppy.

Raghu Ramaiah committed suicide. He did this with no real sense of crisis apart from his customary self pity, and just after borrowing loads of money from various friends and associates. His death effectively dropped his family and friends in a hole as the loans were a bit shady and his wife had no means of repaying them. The grown up children were presented as selfish caricatures, constantly shocked by their father’s decisions (they were also slow learners – I mean, he NEVER didn’t put charity first). Surely he wouldn’t have expected them to look after his widow properly. He abandoned his philosophy and his vows to his wife in what was portrayed as a fit of pique. Now, this is a shocking action for a holier-than-thou too-good-to-be-true philanthropist so I was expecting some unfolding of his character or past that would illuminate his choice. None was forthcoming. He sat on his cloud, hoping to see how much he was missed and trying to hide the truth from his demon companions. This vanity and selfishness might also have made for interesting character development but was brushed aside. Chandra Sidhartha decided to make this man a role model and have everyone awash with tears at his funeral. So is the take out from this, kill yourself if people disagree with you and then they’ll all be sorry? None of it held together for me as there was insufficient motivation for him to drink poison and no satisfactory exploration of the repercussions, followed by a glorification of a very flawed and slightly unpleasant character. The sickly sentimental ‘boo-hoo we’re not worthy of such a great man’ ending was infuriating.

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OK so now I have that rant out of my system. Rajendra Prasad did give a good performance. I was really hoping that a movie featuring the actors who are usually in supporting roles would be good as it is lovely to see them take the spotlight for a change. The scenes between Rajendra Prasad and Kota Srinivasa Rao are effective, and Rohit and Aamani were good in their supporting roles. I give this 1 star, only because some of the actors tried really hard.