Film / Documentary - Recently watched & worthy of some discussion

[mappi]

Paayum Puli

Every villain is a hero in his own mind.

Watched Suseenthiran's Paayum Puli starring Vishal as AC Jayaseelan (Seelan is an awesome name) & Samuthirakani as Selvam. Was plesantly suprised with the film. Thought it was a different kind and most parts were quite well handled. The way it was filmed by Velraj was fantastic, mostly tilt shots (technically called Dutch Angle) which did make one try to peep into the zones not in the image. And all the dim-light chase/shootout/fight sequences were wonderfully planned and executed. Before going into what I found interesting with the film Paayum Puli, I wish to knockout these 3 points those I consider to hinder the film (I respect if anyone else found any or all the three interesting) :

1/ Kajal Agarwal - No comments, as the Romance track in TFI never impressed me. But the character is a connecting dot and it was Sussethiran's narration that avoided to speak about it. Its not like the character had any use, but simply it was not put to use.

2/ Soori - Another 'puppy' character of TFI, if we complain about it, then the list of films will be long.

3/ Imman - Think he tried to elevate Vishal, and not the character Jayaseelan. Found him exaggerating a bit and taking away the depth of the wonderful images. 'Paayum Puli' theme song was good though.

Taking away these 3 elements from the movie, the film has a solid narration, and I think Suseedharan has tried to bring in the narrator only in the second half. Usually, if there is no explict narrator, there still must be an implicit one narrating. In the case of Paayum Puli, we find the 'Narrator', who is not the protagonist coming into full swing in the second half, technically during the middle of ACT-2. The narration actually forces us to follow this new 'Narrator', and not the main Hero of the film Jayaseelan. I found this twisted approach and the resgistrations the film makes while it advances, interesting. Talking about the first half, we have our cinema culture - Elevating the Hero. This explains the events in the 1st half where the character Jayaseelan gets the opputunity to slay the wrong doers in his own style. But he is put to become a victim of his own sentimental burdens, and this is where the 'Narrator' charges in and retains all the focus for himself. There is a massive cut here, where the mood of the film changes - after the 'bang-bang' episode, Jayaseelan is pushed back and practically the narrative concentrates on another character.

There is a particular scene that was superb - Jayaseelan's father talking about 'someone' hitting him hard on his head with a pole. A beautifully enacted scene. Similar suituations driven by crisp dialogues are scattered throughout the film, and for the stunts the 1st encounter was slendid followed by several interesting action blocks. Again, Suseenthiran as a director controls the part of the fiction. Being the actual author of the fiction itself, his task is to just narrate a part of the story that he had choosen. The film begins with series of murders, then gets a political angle until the 'Narrator' jumps in. From then, as mentioned before the rest of the knots in the story are shelfed and its only the 'Narrators' story that one gets to see. The film ends there too. For eg: This film may start with an end, - Jayaseelan watching a corpse under a brigde and forcing the protagonist to be narrator himself. What Sussenthiran choose was an alternate method, and it worked with me. Or it could have traveled on political conspiracy or murder mystry or just a vigilante crime story. Sussenthiran mixed every thing inside and brought out a family drama with suspense and thrills.

Ofcoarse the movie had all fabulous trade mark ideas of Sussenthiran. And nearing the climax the extraction of sorrow from the lead characters was excellent.

Paayum Puli - Good Tempered