Sindhanai Selvar Dr.Kamal HaasaR - favourite movies,scenes 2

[P_R]

Sakala, kurainchapatcham English therinjirukkaNum.
illainnA Gandhiyai ellAm appreciate-E paNNa mudiyAdhu 'ngREn.

Gandhi: nEththikku is tomorrow?
Uppili: No bapuji...it is naaLaikku...nEththikku is yesterday
Gandhi: Oh...my critics are right. I am stuck in yesterday

I didn't know who Suhrawardy was when walking into the movie. Imagine not understanding even after having watched the movie. Quite possible, given how those conversations are (and can't help but be in) English.

Abbasin iniya sondhakkural-la solradhellAm enakku anjAvadhu thadavai pAkkumbOdhu dhaan purinchch (Grouch...note the point)

That his name is Munavar and that is why Nasser momentarily raises the rifle at him - I didn't get it at all the first couple of times.

[sakaLAKALAKAlaa Vallavar]

No, the dialogs are telugu and dubbed. May be some scenes the took for tamil, but mostly its telugu

[P_R]

Saai, Kerala of the 80s is gold standert.

AK ellAm pArthadhillai. sollakkELvi dhaan.

[wizzy]

wizzy,
viLakkam please, nAn simla special pAkkalai

would be difficult to explain..eventhough Visu got the writing credits heard Hassar/S.Ve did most of their lines impromptu also this could be the only movie Hassar/Visu worked together.

[Arvind Srinivasan]

No, the dialogs are telugu and dubbed. May be some scenes the took for tamil, but mostly its telugu

Was the movie released in telugu simultaneously

[equanimus]

Equar's point is very central when thinking about Kamal.
He is making the mainstram narrative richer. Which is why he always denies the commercial-art division.
He ensures the film is 'entertaining' in all its traditional sense. He definitely writes with the 'median-viewer' in mind and goes out of the way to ensure people are on-board - as much as the material would permit.

It is how well integrated all the elements are - so much so that we can't see them as separate ingredients - that he truly excels.

Absolutely! And as you delineate here, this does ties in neatly with one of your pet concerns about being appealing at multiple levels rather than expecting the audience to mull over the film to eventually "get" it. Without appreciating this character of his films, we'd be caught in a never-ending chain of platitudes that primarily praise the heavy content of the film.

I think we should challenge this notion of using commercial as some perjorative term.
How many of us have any idea about arthouse films a lot to prefer it.
I am not saying none of us like any of the artsy films. But the truth is we are not even sufficiently aware of them. (like equa quoted Garam Hawa).
So when we say non-commercial we are talking of some ideal construct which resides largely in our heads.

If we are talking about a film where the hero is a loser, goes about having a thin-time for pretty much the running length of the film - why Sivaji has done it many a time, hasn't he?

Exactly. Even describing it as an ideal construct residing largely in our heads gives a certain validity to this notion which is more paradoxical than ideal.

[sakaLAKALAKAlaa Vallavar]

I didn't know who Suhrawardy was when walking into the movie. Imagine not understanding even after having watched the movie. Quite possible, given how those conversations are (and can't help but be in) English.

Abbasin iniya sondhakkural-la solradhellAm enakku anjAvadhu thadavai pAkkumbOdhu dhaan purinchch (Grouch...note the point)

That his name is Munavar and that is why Nasser momentarily raises the rifle at him - I didn't get it at all the first couple of times.

ungalukke appadinnaa ....!

Actually these issues kept some fans away from this film...

[P_R]

When Saket calls the police officer to report the riots they advice him to call the Congress office in Delhi: 'maybe you can reach Mr.Gandhi'

Staggering naivete, cynical arrogance - piriththu solla mudiyAdhapadi irukkum. It had to be in English.

The kid born in Chandni Chowk was the one whose father (Qureshi) was killed in the fight-nu ellAm makkaLukkum purinjirukkum.

It is the man who had a chance to kill Saket, but decided not to and then Saket avenges his death furiously in the fight. Fantastic turn in just a few minutes. Tricky to communicate even without the language problem.

[sakaLAKALAKAlaa Vallavar]

[jaiganes]

venkkiram, I think this is precisely the problem. The moment we hear "commercial," we think of things that were incongruent, did not cohere with the overall narrative flow, stuck out like a sore thumb, etc. (How well placed this particular song is, is a different debate. Here let me just assume it is indeed misplaced.) The larger point one misses is the commercial aspects of the film itself, the film as a whole.

There are many things that make Hey! Ram a commercial venture as a whole:
* An eventful life with many coincidences (seemingly everyman protagonist getting in touch with many influential people ranging from the Maharaja to Gandhi himself (!), chance meetings with old friends and so on), generally a thick plot that is characteristic of Indian commercial cinema.
* A mythical narrative in which the protagonist is taken across the length and breadth of India thus attempting to cover the historic event in its totality. (A more realistic film would have been set in just one of the regions affected during the partition.)
* The two love angles that are key to the plot and Saket's transitions.
* The Hindu-Muslim friendship angle that is again a classic trope and key to Saket's change of heart.
* And the most important of all, the very idiom of the film. Where the last hour involving an attempt to kill Gandhi operates as a thriller (!), usage of songs in general a pronounced score to express various emotions, the transitions of time etc., hero's physical transformations.

idhellAm nAn yOsichchu solREn. As a writer-director who's been (involved in) making commercial films for several years, Kamal-ukku idhu dhAn instinctive-AvE varum.

havent read all the discossans - but taking this single post as a cue on current discussions, i must say If Mahanadhi was Kamal's "Les Miserables"
Then Hey Ram would have to be his "Tale of Two cities". It felt very much like Kalki's Alai osai when it comes to sprawling story spawining many years and many places - in that way it felt like reading a thodar novel . The characters that we start with keep changing and changing till we come to the end where some of them live as is in the memories of core set of protagonists while some characters change. Here we see Saket as the character - much changed due to so many folks and incidents and the caveat being Mahatma himself being one of those characters who change him - classic parallel to Ben hur's story when he meets Jesus - just the difference being he(saket) sees his Christ after he is transformed. Both stories are about the burning revenge in the heart of the protagonist - Revenge which 99.8% of Indians will consider "pretty normal and justified". It is the singe most humanist story from Thamizh cinema - bettering Mahanadhi in the "mellowed down" tone it adopts contrasting to the haunting "Narai koodi kizhapparuvam eidhi" spirit of Mahanadhi - Here Saket - the wise soul does precisely the same "Narai koodudhal, kizhapparuvam eidhal" - he lives his life as a witness as he battles his feeling of guilt and loss.. Such a character arc is a strange animal to thamizh cinema. If Mahanadhi flowed like a torrent with vehment will to change the earth it runs upon, Hey Ram is the peace and meaning it finds once the ocean is reached - there is no more earth to mow down - just the look back at a eventful past and contentment to disappear into the ocean. Both these movies speak volumes about the frame of mind of Kamal hassan and not just Krishna Swamy or Saket..