Thinking Out Loud

I was surreptitiously wiping my eyes as I left the cinema, overcome by melancholy. I had just witnessed Kamal Haasan's (KH) exploration into his own mortality and superstardom. I have to provide an unbiased review. I should... but the emotionality is so overwhelming I find myself holding back tears as I reminisce on the utterly magnificent "Uttama Villain" (UV). The meta-nature of the film strikes multiple chords with KH's own life. Reality and art become so hard to distinguish, they start to merge as one. The narration switches between Manoranjan's life (as he tries to come to grips with his imminent death) and "Uttama Villain" (the film-within-the-film that parallels Manoranjan's life). The following are rather my observations than a review. Synopsis: An ageing superstar (*cough* *cough*) diagnosed with malignant brain tumour, chooses to act in a film in which the protagonist (Uthaman) inadvertently cheats death and is hailed as a "Mrityunj...

Did OK Kanmani break new ground? No. Has Mani Ratnam pushed the envelope? Maybe. Is Mani Ratnam Back? Yes! Ahmedabad. A. R. Ameen's voice pervades our subconscious with the haunting rendition of "Maula Wa Sallim". Thara (Nithya Menen), a student of architecture, films what seems to be a place of worship. As she pans her iPad, capturing the immense beauty of the structure, she films Aadhi (Dulquer Salman) - who had ingratiated himself in her trip - leaning against the structure. The camera zooms in on her face that registers multiple emotions for a few precious seconds and that is one of the many scenes in O Kadhal Kanmani (aka OK Kanmani, aka OKK) that proves Mani Ratnam leaves nothing to chance to cement his comeback in this most memorable, light-hearted tale of love. A master storyteller can captivate audiences with a wafer-thin storyline with his magic. And who better than Mani Ratnam, a genre unto himself, to pull it off? He has come up with a colourful mixture of a G...

Would you really want to know - - of the faux velvet sheets of a cheap motel room waiting to be burned? Were with them discarded a solitary night of intense passion or the mere warmth of a cold winter night? Would you really want to know - - of the agony of the silence of the lost words of a lost play lying in wait for its author? Were with them unsaid vain verses and solitary stanzas or mere hopes and lavish dreams? Would you really want to know - - of the golden effigy lighting up the starless night crackling with an eerie glow? Were with it burned the lies in the heart of men without a trace, never to be spoken of? Would you really want to know - - of the early morning dreams, of the desolate beach house watching its last silvery moonlight? Would with it crumble, the laughter and sorrows as the warm amber rays of a brand new day dissolve into the quiet ocean? Sometimes it's best to leave them alone - those who leave questio...

Unfortunately. Unfortunately I have to begin this review with "Unfortunately", because unfortunately Tamil film fans who are used to the frenzied expressions of stars with some kind of weapon(s), looking directly into the screen, breaking the fourth wall and our senses, delivering kitschy, out-dated dialogues with volumes set to eleven, will find "Maryan" quite tedious and sluggish. It is quite unfortunate indeed that, while people cheered on an abysmal-at-best Singam-2, Tamil (or any other) film fans have sadly overlooked a technically-sound, engaging (in my opinion) tour-de-force film by Bharat Bala. Does love have the power to move mountains? How does love instigate courage? Is there a limit to human endurance? Watch Maryan to find out. The love story in itself is nothing new. Girl loves boy; boy ignores girl. After a while, boy falls in love with girl. But, the treatment of it, especially the scene when after realising he in fact loves her, Maryan (Dhanush) t...

Terrorism; the word on the lips of many fear-inducing conversations, apocalyptic visions and knock-knock jokes. What is it all about? Kamal Haasan takes this touchy subject as the underlying theme of his latest film "Vishwaroopam", a slow burning thriller, which is more than your run-of-the-mill shootout with an open-ended climax, paving way for Vishwaroopam-2 (hopefully we get to see the sequel). Without mulling over the story too much, which is after all, a classic battle story between the good and evil (but the defining lines are murky), we see the "behind the scenes" of what makes a terrorist, their ideals and the indoctrination of children to make them fight against anything and everything that is not part of the terrorists' belief system. It is a relief to watch fully fleshed-out characters of terrorists (or fighters as they likes to call themselves), whereas one-dimensional terrorists were the norm in most films. The training of Al-Qaeda by the protag...