From: sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Three good Tamil movies in the last decade
Date: 12 Nov 1992 11:51:27 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Sankarapandi ( ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu ) writes:

>  In fact we can
>count the non-mediocre movies in Tamil released during the last 10 years.

     I agree with you. Most movies in the last decade were
 commercial and silly. The story, characters, music and songs
 in these movies were all repetitive. The recycling process is 
 still in progress. The reviews that I saw for the new movies
 tells me the same.


>thaNNeer thaNNeer (1982) - Komal Swaminathan and K.Balachander,
>oru inthiyak kanavu (1983) - Komal Swaminathan,
>veedu (1988) - Balu Mahendra
>     these three for the theme and realism.

     These are good movies and more than `non-mediocre'. 
     I would not credit K.B. much for the success of the `ThaNNeer,
 ThaNNeer'. It was based on Komal's drama and the drama was  
 a big success in T.N. and K.B. closely followed the drama in  
 his success. But for Sarita, all others in the movie were from
 the Komal's drama troupe. K.B. added a humor to the drama in
 the movie and it worked in some places and it didn't work in some
 other places. It worked with the character `Vaadhyaar Raman'.
 Looking at the seriousness in the theme and the seriousness in the
 Komal's drama, I wish that K.B. had not added his type of humor
 in this movie version.
     The last two movies in your list failed in the theatres.
 Komal directed `oru indhiyak kanavu'..

>
>
>maRu pakkam (1991) for the theme and realistic expression of inner feelings in
>a changing society.  - Sethu Mathavan

     I have not heard of this movie.

>muthal mariyathai (1985) for its artistic touch.

    The problem I have with Shivaji Ganesan is that he overdoes
 his roles in his movies. He was at his best in overacting in
 the movies  `Gowravam' and `deivamakan'. I think Bharatiraja
 should be credited also for the name Shivaji got after this
 movie..

>puthumaip peN (1986) and vedham puthithu (1989) for the controversial theme
>and the messages. 

     I have not seen `puthumaip peN', but I saw `vEdham puthithu'
 twice. This movie `vEdham pudhithu' did not get a clearance when
 it went to the censor board. The Brahmin associations objected to
 this movie. ( There was one scene in this movie involving a character
 in the like of Kanchi Acharya..) I have read it in a Tamil magazine
 (Idhayam?) that Bharatiraja arranged a special screening of this movie
 for Kanchi Acharya and he did not object to this movie. And the movie
 was cleared subsequently. This movie was not controversial in my opinion
 and one of the good performances of Sathyaraj and Sarita.

>  But all these Bharathi Raja's movies are not very realistic,
>and commercial too. 

    I saw one trash movie by him titled `kodi paRakkudhu'. 

> KB's `achchamillai achchamillai'(1983) joins this
> category.

    It is a commercial movie, but it had occasional flashes of
 brilliance. The `vaaththiyaar' character was not well-presented
 in the movie, but the actor Rajesh did his role okay..
 
>poove poochchoodava by Facil was commercial but realistic to a certain level.

     It is a silly movie. I liked Fazil's `poovizhi vaasalilE' than
  this first movie by him. `poovizhi vaasalilE' is based on a English
  thriller and it was a different commercial movie. I liked the kid
  who played the deaf-and-dumb kid in the movie. I don't remember 
  her name. Sujitha?

>
>
>There was one movie by John Abraham (MalayaLam director) "agraharaththil
>Kazhuthai"  was never released in TN theaters thanks to the Brahmin lobby.  It
>was not allowed to be screened by the TV in its national network at the last
>minute, sorry, the last second by our ex. Hon president RV.  The story was by a
>well known Tamil literary critic Venkat Swaminathan who was a Brahmin and those
>from the Film colleges say that there is nothing against  Brahmins except the
>title.

      It was an old movie. 
      I liked the writer Jayakanthan movies I saw once like his `sila
  nErankaLil sila manidharkaL' [Srikanth, Laxmi]. The problem with this movie
  was that the characters Ganga and Prabhu were, how to say, `adheethamaana'
  [ exceptional ] characters and J.K. deals with them. He also made some
  other movies `oru nadigai naadagam paarkkiRaaL'. I liked the story better
  than this movie. His later movies had some problems also and he had some
  problems in releasing his movie in good theaters in big cities. I think
  D.M.K. was ruling T.N. then and I don't remember the bottomline in this 
  politics. J.K. talks about it in his book `oru ilakkiyavaadhiyin kalaiyulaga
  anubavankaL'. I recommend this book to Kannadasan fans in the net also.
  J.K. tells us in his book that Kannadasan stole the credit for the songs
  `paattum naanE', etc. in ThiruviLaiyaadal from a budding Muslim songwriter.
 
>
>
>Other than that, Mani Ratnam, Bagya Raj, T. Rajendar, R. Sundararajan,  Telugu
>K. Viswanath are all just making business and are really very talented in it.
>They satisfy different types of crowds.  Bharathi Raja, KB, Balu Mahendra are
>also not exceptional.

      Bhagyaraj's initial movies were not trash like `mundhaanai mudichchu'.
  His `oru kai Osai' was not bad though it was commercial. He is a good
  script writer. His `andha Ezhu naatkaL' is his best movie in my opinion
  and Rajesh acted well in that movie. It was based on actor Chandrababu's
  real life story and Bhagyaraj presented it well though it was a very   
  commercial movie. K.Viswanath's movies are mediocre and too sentimental.
  I like his movies mostly for the music. Sankarabharanam is mostly music.
  He overdid that movie and one particular scene in that movie where Sankara
  SastrikaL wins a challenge with boys playing western music was unnecessary
  and unbelievable. I like his `saagara sangamam' among all his movies and
  the movie featured a memorable performance by Kamalahasan.
      Balu Mahendra's photography was very good in his `moonRaam piRai'.
  The head-master role was not presented well in the movie and it was hard
  to believe that he would hide himself and act in an immature way at the
  climax of the movie. I can't blame actor Kamalahasan for all that. It was 
  director's work..Kamal and Sridevi acted well in this movie. 
      

>
>I may have missed a few (very few) other movies.  Please correct me if I have
>the years gotten wrong above.

      I think that "Naayagan" for which Kamal got the best actor award
  is overpraised by the press and the public. If one sees `Godfather',
  he will know the mass plagiarism in this movie. Kamal dressed like
  Varadharaja Mudaliar and acted like Marlon Brando. The best review
  that I read this movie was the one given by Varadharaja Mudaliar 
  himself. It came on a few Tamil magazines. After seeing a special
  screening of this movie, Mudaliar was said to have commented,
  `I wish I was a good man like I was portrayed in this movie'. Instead
  of presenting `Velu Naayakkan' in an objective way, the movie went on
  glorifying him and making a hero-god of him.
      Kamal's `Sathya' was a better effort than `Naayagan' and dealt 
  with the problems of unemployed men misused by the politicians.
  
>
>Our movie world has to learn a lot more from MalayaLam cinemas.  Even most of
>the commercial MalayaLam movies are not mediocre like Tamil movies.

      Malayalam movies are ahead of not only Tamil movies, but other 
   regional movies also. Telugu movies were too mediocre and Chiranjeevi
   movies that I saw were all trash. Telugu movies have a lot to learn
   from Tamil movies themselves before it could catch up with Malayalam
   movies. Telugu movies suffer from stereotyped heroes, heroines and
   villains. Even the dialogues in Chiranjeevi movies are outdated. Same
   with Hindi movies. The lost-brothers-joined-at-the-end formula works
   well in Hindi movies. Malayalam movie leads in Indian movie-arts.     

>
>Thanks,
>
>S. Sankarapandi
>ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu

    S.Pandian
    sp2@cec1.wustl.edu