From: sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil
Subject: Re: Three good Tamil movies in the last decade
Date: 12 Nov 1992 23:40:16 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In article <1992Nov12.205937.9383@noose.ecn.purdue.edu> Ramesh writes:

>In article <9211121749.AA20480@cec1.wustl.edu>, sp2@cec1.wustl.edu (Sundara Pandian) writes:
>|> 
>|> >thaNNeer thaNNeer (1982) - Komal Swaminathan and K.Balachander,
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>|> >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,
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>|>  ThaNNeer'. It was based on Komal's drama and the drama was  
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>|>  a big success in T.N. and K.B. closely followed the drama in  
>|>  this movie. 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
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>|>  Komal's drama, I wish that K.B. had not added his type of humor
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>|>  in this movie version.
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>|>      The last two movies in your list failed in the theatres.
>|>  Komal directed `oru indhiyak kanavu'..
>|> 
>|>     S.Pandian
>|>     sp2@cec1.wustl.edu
>|> 
>
>Concidering the fact that "thaNNeer thaNNeer" was successful among
>the masses and "oru inthiyak kanavu" was a flop (both successful
>plays by Komal, the first one directed by K.Balachandar and the
>second by Komal himself), I could not understand how one will not
>give proper credit to K.B. for *the movie* "thaNNeer thaNNeer"! 
>
>-Ramesh Vaidhyanathan.

 [1] "Thanneer, thanneer" was not successful among masses as you are
      saying. It ran well mostly in cities and towns. Balachandar's
      movies don't do well in villages. If a Balachandar banner movie
      happens to run in villages, the "Kavidhaalayaa" movies, you will
      find that it will be a movie directed by some popular director
      like S.P.Muthuraman with Rajini in the main role. It will be a 
      commercial movie basically and not award material. Also, Komal's
      dramas did well in cities and towns mostly in my opinion. It was
      a big hit in Madras and K.B. got interested in it.
  
 [2]  "Oru indhiayak kanavu" is a failure commercially, I agree.
      But Komal's direction was good and it was a serious movie
      without the humor in the earlier movie "Thanneer, thanneer"
      based on his drama. This movie got a good review in all leading
      magazines and it was unfortunate that it bombed in the box-
      office. It was a good effort by Komal.

 [3]  I did not say in my posting that K.Balachandar should not be
      credited for "Thanneer, thanneer". Please read my posting
      again. I said that I would not give much credit to K.B. and 
      I stand by that statement in this posting also. Many people 
      view this movie as an all-in-all K.Balachandar movie and Komal
      was not duly credited either in the press or among the public.
      They hailed K.B. and in my opinion, this movie did not give a
      good justice to the original drama by Komal and this is because
      of the added humor in many places in this movie. It worked in
      some places and it didn't work in some other places. The
      seriousness in the drama was not very evident in the movie         
      version. The commercial failure of "Oru indhiyak kanavu" leads
      me to suspect that those who made "Thanneer, thanneer" a success
      only took K.B.'s humor and ignored the serious theme in it.
 
  [4]  nalladhOr veenai seydhE....

   S.Pandian
   sp2@cec1.wustl.edu
 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil