Films of Mani Ratnam

great point PR :clap: .......

i remember one scene in Uyire/Dil se where the terrorist group executes their Republicday/Independence day plan in their minds........each person will visualise their part in the assasination plan :(

also, everytime, SRK approaches Manisha physically, her mouth gets stuck open and she gets a attack sort of thing......later in the movie, Mani links it to the child-rape scene of Manisha, which is y she doesent like men nearing her.......ARR uses the same BGM for both the scenes - which is the link - truly amazing 8-)

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Originally Posted by thimuru

pr...the dialogues should have been made clear!
yedho kenathukulla ukaandhu pesura maadhiri kusu kusunu pesikitaina

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thats true - in fact, hushed dialogues seem to be a sort of mani ratnam trademark. has someone asked him about this??

Remember the ponnu pakkara sequence in Roja - where madhu's sis and arvind swamy have a chat over coffee with the village elders looking on in the background. First time I saw the movie I had no clue what the hell was going on... gets irritating at times. I understand the content of the scene meant that the dialogues had to be hush-hush. But - when weighed against the significance of what was being said, surely the lines could've been more audible.

I remember a mani ratnam feature by anita nair which started with a conversation she had with her cabbie on the way to the big man's house. On being told that she was going to talk to MR, the guy said something like, "Would you please ask him why is it that all his heroines shriek and the heroes mumble when they deliver their dialogue?" :D

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Originally Posted by ramsri

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Originally Posted by thimuru

pr...the dialogues should have been made clear!
yedho kenathukulla ukaandhu pesura maadhiri kusu kusunu pesikitaina

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thats true - in fact, hushed dialogues seem to be a sort of mani ratnam trademark. has someone asked him about this??

Remember the ponnu pakkara sequence in Roja - where madhu's sis and arvind swamy have a chat over coffee with the village elders looking on in the background. First time I saw the movie I had no clue what the hell was going on... gets irritating at times. I understand the content of the scene meant that the dialogues had to be hush-hush. But - when weighed against the significance of what was being said, surely the lines could've been more audible.

I remember a mani ratnam feature by anita nair which started with a conversation she had with her cabbie on the way to the big man's house. On being told that she was going to talk to MR, the guy said something like, "Would you please ask him why is it that all his heroines shriek and the heroes mumble when they deliver their dialogue?" :D

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its a open secret that Maniratnam is a Mahendran-inspired product.......Mahendran, if i'm not wrong, is the first person who dared to de-dramatize the tamil cinema and its viewers.......soft, silent dialogues were a important step towards it :D .....Maniratnam took it to the next level with inaudible dialogues, a bit artificial :oops:

but the legend, proves he is a ever-evolving person and his critics need to update themselves :D .......Guru is the perfect example on how Mani can break his monotonity......dialogues were loud, clear, lengthy just like any maarwadi businessman speaks :D ......

Ramsri Welcome back :victory: :2thumbsup: :clap: :cool2:
enga pOyitteenga ivvaLavu naaL ?

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Originally Posted by MADDY

Maniratnam took it to the next level with inaudible dialogues, a bit artificial

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Et tu ? MR hardly had any inaudible dialogues pre-Roja. And artificial is a word I'd hesitate to use with that phase of his career.

The curt-dialogues (Thalapathi and beyond) that he is lampooned is something that is just blown out of proportion. He has always had a sensible mix without being vaLa-vaLa. Most importantly he never ever has a piece of dialogue for something you can see on screen. If someone comes drenched in the rain in an MR film you won't have someone asking him: "En ippidi mazhaila nanajittu vareenga ?". That would be radio play writing. Largely the dialogues would fit into the expected conversation of the characters, and move the story forward.

As for the hush-hush of TT....I still like it. Thiefspeak, I say :-)

Welcome back Ramsri :D

PR has said enough about MR&his dialogues.They are crisp&his characters never talk more than what is needed.I like that style.

If at all I have a problem with a Mani film,it's with the climax of Agni.........I really had to strain my eyes to see what was happening(Prabhu&Karthik shifting Vijayakumar from 1 room to another inside the hospital).

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Originally Posted by Cinefan

If at all I have a problem with a Mani film,it's with the climax of Agni.........I really had to strain my eyes to see what was happening(Prabhu&Karthik shifting Vijayakumar from 1 room to another inside the hospital).

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IMO It was one of the most interesting climaxes in TF History. One of those instances where MR just snatched the baton and sprinted, leaving the competition and even the audience gasping for breath. Stunning visual style.

First of all Agni Natchatram camerawork is phenomenal. Impressive even by today's standards. When I drive home in rains late night this week I can't help thinking of a lone rickshsaw in a wide AdyAr(?) road. The sodium vapor lit yellowness, the bright-yet shady subways, the inconsistently lit electric trains, the too-bright-to-be-sharp sun in the hot sunny outdoors are all excellent.

The climax is just MR-PC Sreeram cutting loose. The basic idea of the climax is from Godfather, where Michael shifts Don Corleone's hospital bed. MR crafts the build-up scenes to it extremely well. With the families getting closer ("enga veettu ponnu dhaan" - Sumitra about Tara - such a normal line that is so touching)

The eye-straining lighting makes an otherwise people filled climax so eminently watchable. The audience has to consciously attempt to keep pace with what's going on. For instance the sequence where a child distracts the gunman, is pretty cliched. But the lighting makes the lapse of concentration so believable that it takes the thrill to a new level.

My favourite is that short sequence where Prabhu runs up to get a bottle of saline. You see him in shots of quick steps, somersaults across a table to get the saline (second bottle mind you, you don't expect to get the correct bottle in the very first bottle you pick, even if you are a hero !). And when he is on his way back downstairs he gets shot and he drops the bottle. This is from the staircase which branches out both sides in a V.

The bottle is dropped and we see it in slow motion from above (Prabhu's PoV) as it falls and he shouts "Ashok". Karthik eneters the frame from below to take it. For a moment MR messes with your sense of direction. You don't know what is above-below-left-right. And he prolongs that wonderful moment in slow motion. Visual stylist non-pareil :notworthy:

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Originally Posted by Cinefan

Welcome back Ramsri :D

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nandri, nandri :) its good to be back
thanx for the rousing welcome - cinefan, PR...

getting right down to the res - PR's note on the Agni Natchatram climax was truly inspiring (makes me want to watch the flick all over again!) - there's a lot more to be said about that movie but I'll park that aside for a while till I can come up with a suitably insighful post... :)

turning attention instead, to the topic of dialogues in MR movies (which we've been talking abt anyway...) there's a scene from Kannathil Muthamittal which comes immediately to mind:

This is the one where Madhavan is giving his speech at a writers congregation in Sri Lanka while his daughter (Keerthana) is sitting on a park bench across the road talking to a bearded stranger (the guy of course, is one of the rebels - a human bomb, but we don't know that right now...)

Keerthana: yen tamizh oru madhri pesareenga??
Man (sardonically) : idhuvum tamizhdaan...
:notworthy:

that one line, to me, drove home the point with the kind of force that reams of dialogue (about the liberation movement, tamil eelam etc.) could never have hoped to match. and the best part, is that its the kind of thing that works on two levels - you could take those words at face value, or you could choose to read between the lines and discover a hidden meaning there which would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

so the proof of the dialogue is really in the interpretation...
subtlety - thy name is mani ratnam! :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by ramsri

There's a scene from Kannathil Muthamittal which comes immediately to mind:

This is the one where Madhavan is giving his speech at a writers congregation in Sri Lanka while his daughter (Keerthana) is sitting on a park bench across the road talking to a bearded stranger (the guy of course, is one of the rebels - a human bomb, but we don't know that right now...)

Keerthana: yen tamizh oru madhri pesareenga??
Man (sardonically) : idhuvum tamizhdaan...
:notworthy:

that one line, to me, drove home the point with the kind of force that reams of dialogue (about the liberation movement, tamil eelam etc.) could never have hoped to match. and the best part, is that its the kind of thing that works on two levels - you could take those words at face value, or you could choose to read between the lines and discover a hidden meaning there which would otherwise have gone unnoticed.

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I've never thought this way :oops: Ramsri :notworthy:

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Originally Posted by ramsri

while till I can come up with a suitably insighful post... :)

turning attention instead, to the topic of dialogues in MR movies (which we've been talking abt anyway...) there's a scene from Kannathil Muthamittal which comes immediately to mind:

This is the one where Madhavan is giving his speech at a writers congregation in Sri Lanka while his daughter (Keerthana) is sitting on a park bench across the road talking to a bearded stranger (the guy of course, is one of the rebels - a human bomb, but we don't know that right now...)

Keerthana: yen tamizh oru madhri pesareenga??
Man (sardonically) : idhuvum tamizhdaan...
:notworthy:

that one line, to me, drove home the point with the kind of force that reams of dialogue (about the liberation movement, tamil eelam etc.) could never have hoped to match. and the best part, is that its the kind of thing that works on two levels - you could take those words at face value, or you could choose to read between the lines and discover a hidden meaning there which would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
so the proof of the dialogue is really in the interpretation...
subtlety - thy name is mani ratnam! :thumbsup:

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Welcome back Ramsri :) :D

I couldnt get you exactly? :roll: What is the hidden meaning here?

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Originally Posted by Roshan

Welcome back Ramsri :) :D

I couldnt get you exactly? :roll: What is the hidden meaning here?

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Roshan -
Not sure how to explain this elaborately :) but let me try...

The guy in the park is a human bomb (though we don't know it at the beginning of the scene). Now because this is mani ratnam territory, we know this character is being introduced to us for a reason - which will presumably be brought out as the scene progresses. The trick for the director here is to use the conversation between him and the girl to gradually reveal to the audience what kind of man he is and what he's doing on that park bench at that juncture of the story (remember this is a man who's about to die in a few minutes - giving up his life for the Cause). And in a style so typical of him, MR chooses not to give the young man an impassioned speech about why he is what he is, what his motivations are and all that jazz (which would scarcely have been believable given that there's a 10-yr old girl at the other end of the conversation). Instead the dialogue between the two is woven in a way that offsets the girl's childish innocence with the derisive remarks of the terrorist. So when he says "Idhuvum tamizhdhan", you're sure it's not just his accent he's talking about, but something far more significant - it's about the spirit of being a Tamil... he's almost saying "Nangalum tamizhargaldhan" - or maybe even "Nangadhan tamizhargal" - it's a philosophy that has formed much of the basis for various Lankan militant groups claiming a Tamil Eelam of their own. And he says it in a way that instantly explains his background, his principles and all that he stands for. If you're really listening to the character speak, you realize right away that something profound has just been said. And the effect it creates is of the kind that no protracted dialogue or inspired acting could've hoped to create. It's just brilliant writing :notworthy:

The scene, for me, is a masterclass in cinematic subtlety... not just because it manages to convey a message like that, but because the message is only there for those who want to read it. You could a) read a totally different meaning to what he said, or b) completely miss the import of what was said, or c) not bother to analyze what was actually said - and in all three cases, you would end up enjoying the scene just as much... :2thumbsup: [/i]