From: ngrjn@milton.u.washington.edu (V Nagarajan)
Subject: A Critique of Tamil Cinema (sort of)
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 03:39:25 GMT


	First a disclaimer: I don't presume to possess any special 
	knowledge as to what ought (or ought not) to be discussed as long 
	as the topic is in some way relevant to the newsgroup. The flap
	over the posting of some news items was ludicrous enough. I do
	feel it to be within "netiquette" to pass comments on any discussions
	as I may deem fit.  On to the issues now.

	Cinema is not just an entertainment medium; it is inevitably a mode
	of cultural expression. Just as we have never outgrown ancient
	verse literature (to such an extent that Tamil prose literature is
	still stilted and stunted and is trying to break free), Tamil
	cinema is heavily haunted by memories of the stage and _therukkootthu_.
	Subtlety is not something we understand nor care for. Thus the heavy
	use of similes in our print medium and cinema. (Altho poetry has
	been a pleasant exception to this - remember the poem that Sundara-
	moorthy quoted? - "sembulap peyal neer pOla anbudai nenjam...")
	The so-called symbolism is the stuff of Tamil movies - something
	that was tried and abandoned by Hollywood in the silent movie era.
	In depicting a murder (by decapitation) scene, cutting open a
	a coconut used to be the standard metaphor. For a rape scene (another
	common occurrence in Tamil movies) one would see a flower wilt
	or some such thing. A variation on these themes was considered a 
	great innovation. In fact the movie-goer set stock on the quality
	of direction by the variety of symbolisms introduced in the movie.
	Essentially the technical quality of Tamil movies is zip. And by
	technical quality I don't mean good audio-visual quality which you
	buy, not create.

	There is very little by way of originality. I have read articles by 
	Randor Guy, a historian of Tamil movies. Basically the plots (in
	"social" movies) are lifted from successful Hollywood and other 
	foreign films or they are adapted from Tamil popular stories which 
	are themselves mostly stolen from foreign sources - from O'Henry to 
	James Hadley Chase and everything in between. One might think that at
	least there is variety given that there is such a diversity of 
	sources. But credit it to the producer and director who somehow distil
	everything into one of a half a dozen common plots - rich male lover,
	poor female lover; upper caste female, lower caste male; etc. What
	seems to happen is that there are a few canonical plots that are
	spiced up with borrowed side-plots. Add a comedy track, a few
	song and dances and fights, voila! you have the Great Tamil Movie
	that gets discussed about interminably in this newsgroup.

	As far as I am concerned these complaints are rather minor really.
	Art imitates life imitates art. The "art" that I am worried about
	includes both print and the visual media. (My knowledge of post-
	1980 movies comes entirely from reading reviews; from the reviews
	themselves one gets an excellent idea about BOTH the reviewer and the 
	reviewed) A review for a movie with a supposedly feminist plot
	touted the bold new theme where a bunch of women showed that given
	a chance they too could accomplish and yet - here comes the clincher -
	they are obedient housewives willing to sacrifice everything to
	reform their inept husbands! Where does this belong, I ask - 
	in the realm of reality, bold fantasy, or infantile mythmaking?
	Why can we not portray reality? Because there is no market for it?
	Is movie-going simply a fix for us in this day and age when our
	politicians are drawn from cinema and there are enough fools out
	there crazy enough to kill themselves if a Rajnikanth catches a
	cold? Why can we not stop moralizing? When I say our cinema is
	oppressively traditional, it is this moralizing part, this inability
	to at least start flapping our anemic wings that I refer to. 
	It is not fear that causes this; we are unable to dream, we don't
	have a vision, we'd rather settle for mindless entertainment that
	doesn't mirror reality in any way. On second thought maybe it is
	fear that is keeping us in this shoddy state - fear that we won't
	like what we see reflected in the mirror. Let's settle for fantasies
	instead. Let's pull out our cinema song books and the kuraL.

							Rhetorically,
							Nagarajan