Films of Mani Ratnam

[Mahen]

Mouna Ragam: 25 years of teaching Tamil cinema!
Aug 15, 2011
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Brilliant storytelling that defied melodrama, well etched characters: Revathy’s mischievousness, Karthik’s nonchalance, Mohan’s dignified silence, Ilayaraja’s everlasting music and P C Sriram’s camera - although released a good 25 years ago, Mouna Ragam is still fresh in our memories. Considered to be a path breaking attempt in Tamil cinema, Mouna Ragam, from its outer layer will sound just like any other movie. However, the movie’s breakthrough is its unpretentious story telling at a time when Tamil movies are dominated by larger than life characters doing deeds that are above human.

Celebrating 25 years in its existence, Mouna Ragam catapulted once considered behind-the-screen performers (director, cinematographer and musician) to fame. Of them, perhaps Maniratnam reaped the most with Mouna Ragam. Not too far behind were Ilayaraja and cinematographer P C Sriram. Ilayaraja’s tunes, to this day, stay afresh and have been more than a few times rehashed into many languages and remained a source of inspiration to many songs.

After its release, people started feeling the need to attribute a movie’s success to other people involved in it – than mere actors. Ever since Mouna Ragam’s success, Tamil cinema woke up to the need of paying attention to its female characters and started scripting stronger, female-centric roles. But none could even reach the flippant, yet resolute girl’s role played by Revathi.

In the past 25 years Mouna Ragam has inspired many movies and still remains inspiration to many debut actors who want, at least once in their life time, to come as much closer to a role like that of the unyielding Revathi’s character, or Karthik’s character with a million shades of grey and Mohan’s dignified quite ordinary character. Even Mani Ratnam couldn’t replicate some of his own characters (he came real close to replicating Karthik in his Ayuda Ezhuthu but in vain).

Mouna Ragam is a stuff of legends. Movies like that get made only a few times. And Mouna Ragam stands proof for that.

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