Midnight's Mani Ratnam

In their fascination with Madurai and the nearby villages, The good Tamil filmmakers except for seemingly fake over overtures by Gautham Menon, had all but lost out on exploring and re-imagining Chennai, thereby helping Mani Ratnam remain the undefeated king of the Madras genre. In Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum, Mysskin, in the prime of his auteurist prowess, presents a riveting reply.

How do the Chennai streets, where you would otherwise see mass heroes dancing with thousand other men and women or lovers romancing over a coffee, look after midnight? They look brutal and banal. They reflect your true personality, something the daylight is just not capable of doing. And what happens when Mysskin style high drama plays out in these streets with Munnani Isai by the Maestro himself? There is magic, but of a different kind. Magic that is dark and magic that bites your soul into submission.

Once upon a time in a forest, a bear hired a wolf, the most dangerous wolf of all, to hunt down foxes. In one such hunt, the wolf killed a (goat) kid by mistake. Repenting this, the wolf visited the kid's house only to find that the kid had left behind a father goat, a mother goat and a little sister kid, all three of them blind. The wolf gave up hunting and decided to support this deserted goat family. But the bear wouldn't let the wolf be and neither would the tigers roaming around in the forest. They hunted for and haunted the wolf and the goat family till they got the better of them. The wolf was wounded but magically saved by yet another kid. The bear and the tigers however are not taking to this. The hunt continues till no one is sure who is being hunted.

In a theater-style, ultra-noir play-out of this story, we are taken through a varied set of personalities who in uniquely Mysskin fashion, walk in and out of the vantage still camera frame both literally and figuratively. Clearly Mysskin is on top of his skills here. Making use of the technical advantages that a film medium presents and seamlessly seguing it with a script that has been written like a play. Balaji Rangha though is no Mahesh Muthusamy or Sathya in Anjadhey and Yudham Sei respectively where the camera would create shots unimaginable for Tamil Cinema. Compensating the cliched camera here though is some tremendous acting by Sri and Mysskin himself - the latter restrained for most parts except the monologue that is tremendously impacting. Raaja rediscovers background music that so often reminds us of how much his music can become an integral part of the story. Ten of his tracks titled Compassion, Firefly, Growl, The Threshold Guardian, Grim reaper, I killed an Angel, A Fairy tale, Walking through life and death, Redemption and Somebody loves us all tell the story all by themselves.

We see vast, lazily paced, indulgences with Mysskin at times reminding us of the cold blooded gunshot sequences from Gus Vant Sant's Elephant. Watching this in the big screen, I felt this is exactly the kind of cinema I was waiting for all this while. Utterly unpredictable. Not necessarily real but different, different not in the oscar-lusting manner that the Ship and the Lunchbox have brought to the table, but different by the sheer manner in which a film is envisioned and executed. The amount of originality on display shakes you, at least as long as you are unaware of the inspiration (Onaayum is said to be taken from a Portuguese film)

Mysskin movies, like those of Selvaraghavan often come across as dark and serious but the mild tinge of humor in both their styles is unmistakable and is an important fulcrum for the otherwise edge of the seat narratives. In Onaayum, we don't see more than a minute of sunlight and more than five minutes of any other form of lighting. The movie is about the night, the night in all our days and deservedly shot in the night too. Thrillers work most when they have a tearing emotional base and Mysskin manages it with Mani Ratnamesque aplomb. This is Midnight's Mani Ratnam. Probably, the better one.

Lets talk some cinema about Vishwaroopam

There have been too many headlines and too much fanfare about Vishwaroopam - Something Kamal fans are simply not used to. Controversy has always been his brother but it has never made his headlines. Neither in the past have people (who have surely not seen some of his finer attempts at cinema) come out dancing and jumping to watch a Kamal movie. Such behavior is usually associated with the films of his (artistically) poorer cousin - Rajnikanth.

There, therefore, is a need to talk some sense and talk some cinema about this movie and to keep apart the one line that almost all Vishwaroopam reviews seem to begin with - "there is nothing anti-Islam here". Yeah, yeah ok. We don't care. If he's decided to ridicule that faith, then so be it. It doesn't change the way one should review a work of creation or thought.

Vishwaroopam is a film that you wish were better made. What makes you wish so is the fact that it is actually a very well made movie and that the maker is capable of way greater heights. However Vishwaroopam's scale seems to be making a statement about the average Indian mind. A movie produced at a cost of Rupees 95 crore in India can not afford to be intelligent. It would leave the producer poorer by at least 50 crore rupees which is not a meager amount for a non-studio production.

That said, for a fleeting period of 30-35 minutes, an indulgent Kamal Haasan takes this thriller deep into Afghanistan and slows it down to a snail's pace, out of choice. That section of the film is an absolute pleasure to watch. As if symbolic of this decision, we have the scene of a young jihaadi suicide bomber wanting to live a lost childhood through a timeless swing. There Kamal scores and touches a raw nerve. Equally well shot is the build up to the arrival of the one and only - Osama Bin Laden. Kamal makes no fuss about declaring that one of (the face-less) Allah's faces is Laden himself and this face is a face of terror, murder, hatred and ill-will.

Vishwaroopam makes for a tremendous theoretical discussion where in we are dealing with the twin concepts of Jihaad and Islaam. Jihaad was born out of Islam. But is what the normal man today knows as terrorism justified to be included in the Jihaad framework? It is a question that Vishwaroopam asks too and almost dispassionately leaves the answer to the viewer - As dispassionate as Wiz/Wisam/Taufeeq - the Hero.

If the Muslims of Vishwaroopam are the ignorant and self proclaimed Jihaadis, the Hindu's are no less. In the tam-brahm heroine, Kamal has found a "back-door" entry into ridiculing the birdbrained practice called Brahminism (from a rationalists point of view, a lot of it is really really dumb) and he pulls it off quite well after his first attempt with Asin in Dashavatharam.

In making both the hero and the villain (played with a great punch by Rahul Bose in an extremely well written negative role - which is always the case with Kamal films) of the same faith, Vishwaroopam also draws upon a theme that Heyram had stressed more on - Muslims are an inseparable and undeniable part of Indian life. The Muslim will be your tailor, your best friend, he will rape and kill your wife, he will also save your life. In Vishwaroopam, its a simpler paradigm - He is the hero and he is the villain (a line Kamal himself says to Pooja Kumar in the movie)

That ways, to answer your question, Vishwaroopam is the hero and Vishwaroopam is the villain!!

PS: Any discussion on a Kamal movie that doesn't talk about Kamal - the actor does disservice to that movie. This performer has consistently managed to outdo himself every time he has been cast on screen. It is a quality very few have. In Vishwaroopam, the "method" is almost obvious. The last time I felt i could literally see a method actor in Kamal was way back in Aalavandhaan. It grew subtler with Heyram, Anbe Sivam and Virumandi but with Vishwanath (Wiz), this seems to have returned. It as usual is a complete pleasure to watch this veteran perform.

The Finer Elements of a Mysskin Movie

To say that Mysskin is not a formula movie maker would be a false statement. For that matter the line wouldn't apply to a certain Quentin Tarantino or one Mr. Mani Ratnam either. Every movie maker has a formula in his heart. The ridiculous ones like tom, dick and Dharani bring it out in the plot. The avderage ones like Shankar show it in issues and themes; and the better ones like Ratnam and Mysskin in ideas, characters and subtle touches that are surely identifiable with the director.

In a short span of 3 odd movies, there already are many Mysskiniatrics. The dancing woman clad in a yellow saree being the most common and ridiculed among them. There are of course subtler touches.

Mysskin's handling of the camera is a unique. More than most of his characters in the film, it is the camera that speaks. Often mounted stationary in remote locations of the shot, the camera observes the action from a single point often giving the viewer the original 3rd person perspective which is often lost otherwise when the camera moves along with the characters. Such scenes available in plenty in both Anjadhey and Yudham Sei and have an air about them that often draws the audience deep into the sequence.

Many of his support/side characters, at least in writing are what you would want to call malapproprisms. The loud Kuruvi, The silent Motta, The shady Tirisangu and the shadier Judas... these people are made to carry with them not just the role but bits of what become the feel of the movie too. Often one finds Mysskins characters working their way up the audience's minds to create what the in other films the story is meant to.

Talking about the Superhero within, both Narain in Anjadhey and Cheran in Yudham Sei are the very real super heroes in that both the protagonists find the strength from within to fight an unknown evil. Watching these two people evolve over the course of a typically three hour Mysskin movie is an enthralling and inspiring experience.

The man is now ready with his own version of "a superhero within". I was happy when I found out that the Mugamudi-man, if you may call the protagonist that, has no super-power so to say. The very prospect of a madman like Mysskin taking up such a concept is very very exciting.

Kashyap/Menon - A Partnership in Review

Late in the 1970's, a relatively young yet already acclaimed film making career had almost come to a halt. Disappointed at the reception of his latest film, a musical, from the same crowd that had hailed his earlier attempts, the director dived deep into cocaine addiction and almost took his life. An actor, a close friend and a constant part of his films, literally dragged the film maker out of this mess and persuaded him to make this one last film based on the life of a boxer. This work is better known as Raging Bull and what these two men created over a period of time are probably the most powerful films made and acted out in the face of this earth.

De Niro and Scorsese....Looking forward to legend

Hardly since, has a director-actor collaboration come out with so much of flair and panache. Unlike Songwriting partnerships, on-screen pairs and even actor-singer camaraderie, raw genius in this species is rare to find. Closer home in India though, two men, every time they've come together, have sparkled with unimaginable brilliance.

Main Khuda... is what Kaykay seems to be saying

It all started with a zoned-out Kay Kay Menon playing his yet to be released, role-of-a-lifetime in Paanch - As noir as Anurag Kashyap has ever got - a thriller about a rock band story that goes very awry.

As a megalomaniac frontman suffering from a tremendous dawn of reality, Kay Kay pulls of one of the more difficult roles written in Hindi Cinema. Though nowhere close to the Kashyap of today, Anurag holds fort in what was to be his debut feature film. In fact many of his tad shadier films today still ooze with the dark blue feel of paanch in them.

Testing noir limits...at Mahakali

Last train to Mahakali followed a few years later. A short made for the television sees Anurag's influence of his own life in his movies slowly making way for issues more mainstream. Menon compliments him well in this film that flows well for most part but ends in a rather unexpected sequence.

Watching Mahakali today, after having seen works such as Black Friday and Gulaal, one feels that the magic was always present. A diligent screen writer and director bringing out his vision, bit-by-bit through his most trusted performer. The one man who could do justice to all those words written and ideas conceived.

By 2004, Kashyap was ready with his most sincere attempt at film making. A brutally honest take on the much more than controversial Mumbai blasts was 'Black Friday'. The movie for all its brilliance finds its centrepiece not with Dawood or Tiger but with the character of DCP Rakesh Maria - The cop who made them talk. The movie's docu feel takes a sudden psychological twist as Kay Kay's Maria gets into the frame and the interrogations begin. With arrested convicts, half the battles are not with the lathi but with the mind and it is but natural that the hunter, in this case the policeman, too starts feeling hunted. Taking cue from Drohkaal, better known for its Tamil Remake by Kamal Haasan, Kashyap takes Maria through a bizarre mind-trip that at various points finds the cop in his rawest of human elements. The chemistry is but natural as director and actor effortlessly carry the film on their shoulders. For the storm that this movie became, there surely was something bigger coming our way...

Burning for pride... Gulaal

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of Bhosadike!, an enraged 'Dukey Bana' is seen shouting in one of the great speech scenes from Gulaal. Widely accepted as Hindi Cinema's best made political film, Gulaal, for me is Anurag Kashyap in the most sublime of his forms and Menon, his most primal self. While Dukey Bana is only one of the many interesting characters and sub plots that this film on a fictitious separatist movement throws up, it is the one that stands out. Creating a revolution while a revolt enrages within his own self, Kay kay manages to let the viewer read between Anurag's lines.

This was as back as 2009. With one busy with more than one Wasseypur and the other gunning for 13 different roles in just one movie, the fantastic duo seem to be going in very different directions, but then as their masterpiece reminds us, 'what is past... is (just) prologue'