Films of Mani Ratnam

[equanimus]

Incidentally, I was revisiting some scenes from thaLapathi today (just to get a sense of how/where I got this feeling that the treatment in is unsubtle ). The scene with Surya and Deva after the latter visits Subbu's house with the marriage proposal has the touch I'm referring to. Deva is regretting now that he might have made things worse for Surya and Surya doesn't deny it (he does seem upset but brushes it off) but simply says "vENdAm! iva pOnA enna ippO?" This sort of moment is what I'm talking about. idhu mAdhiri moments avvaLavA illaingaREn. The tone with which the film is playing, one could be forgiven for wondering if it's going to be underlined that Deva did not actually spoil anything, the rejection was a given and so on. That's all.

[app_engine]

I'd say the film works best when it operates as a masala film

+1, Mani Masala

[equanimus]

OTOH i think he was referring to Thaniyavarthanam inspiring Nandha movie climax - just wanted to confirm

Yeah, I also wanted to ask k-g about this. I do think he meant thaniyAvarthanam, but then even Mother India has such an ending. Just curious to know if Bala mentioned thaniyAvarthanam in any of his interviews. k-g?

[Bala (Karthik)]

Equa solradhu, "idhenna kaadhala asingama sollikitte irukkarathukku" range ku overt-a irukku nu. Remember someone mentioning about this, the Set kamminaatti scene, though melodramatic, works well as a natpu scene inthis context

[equanimus]

+1, Mani Masala

Oh, but Mani knows his masala well! He has consistently made films in commercial format not as a compromise but as something symbiotic to his filmmaking concerns. For those who grew up with his films, this is not so obvious as we've always absorbed his films as a new wave (which they certainly were) so much that we sometimes fail to see how squarely rooted they are in Tamil commercial film format.

[kid-glove]

Bala mentioned thaniyAvarthanam in any of his interviews. k-g?

No...

[equanimus]

Thanks! Great film. Btw I don't doubt the possibility of an inspiration here. It's just that this sort of climax has other precedents. Come to think of it, the influence is likely even as I believe the great Malayalam films of that era must have been under Bala's radar.

[kid-glove]

The recurrent premonitory dream(rather 'nightmare'), central to mother-son, in both films. Definitely one senses an inspiration here.

[SoftSword]

60000 / 90000 was for Janaka Maharaja in Ramayanam. Dhirudhraashtrarukkumaa? news to me

// dig dhaan

yov adhu dhasaradhar... janagar sita'oda naina illayaa??
naanum konjam confuse dhaan aagitaen.. but karutthu onnudhanae... rendumae epicsdhaan... oruvelai idhu original adhu poli'nu solringalaa...

[equanimus]

True, there are shades of similarity in the question/problem of being possessed. (The implications are different though. Bala probably means that Nandhaa is indeed possessed!)