Anand and I often try to introduce our kids to movies and music from our times. So far there have been many hits and a few misses. With Ponniyin Selvan, Mani Ratnam made a huge impact on our kids. For a long time we put off showing them his classics as we thought it wont be age appropriate. But with my kids watching Leo, Jawaan and Jailer (with overtly violent scenes skipped) we thought might as well show them Mani’s movies.
We were debating which one to pick between Nayagan (my husband’s favorite) and Agni Natchathiram (my favorite) and went with AN since we couldn’t find Nayagan. Anand wasn’t very enthusiastic and couldn’t understand how I could prefer AN over Nayagan. He strongly felt the movie to be inappropriate for the kids and I couldn’t understand why! Later I realized he obviously has a better memory considering he was in his teens when the movie released 😉
Since I hadn’t really watched the full movie after the first time I only remembered just the good things – handsome Karthik, somewhat good-looking Prabhu and the hospital scene copied from Godfather. All these from the bits and pieces I had seen over the years. I prepped my kids with - awesome music, a younger and fitter version of Periya Vellar from PS, the thrilling fight scenes, crisp storytelling, and on and on.
When the movie started I was super impressed with how Mani sets the stage with the very first scene – the interview scene where Karthik beats up the interviewer (VK Ramasamy) for asking inappropriate questions about his father. And then the cringe-fest started:
- We are repeatedly shown how everyone deals with and is affected by Viswanathan's two families
- There is a tit-for-tat in almost everything between Gautham and Ashok
- Amala’s loosu-ponnu character was so super annoying! Even my daughter commented her mental age is of a pre-kg girl and the pairing is like a pre-kg girl and a 11th std boy
- There are soooo many songs! We are in an age where there are hardly any songs, and even the ones are usually in the background without interfering with the flow of the story
- The Janagaraj-VK Ramasamy comedy track – what was Mani even thinking?! I thought he made family-friendly movies. The comedy just gets worse and worse as the movie goes. We had to forward all their scenes!
- Karthik-Nirosha romance was also cringey
My kids were seriously wondering just why I recommended this movie!
- They were too young to understand the family situation of Viswanathan or why Karthik was constantly angry
- They found Amala unbearable
- The Karthik-Nirosha jokes weren't age-appropriate
- They are so used to movies without songs that they were super annoyed with songs constantly interrupting the movie
- am sure there were more.....but by then I had left the scene :p
But the best part of the movie, for me, is rediscovering the beautiful songs in this movie.
It is often said that Raja-Mani combo produced the best songs. While I do love the songs in Mouna Raagam and Nayagan, am not a big fan of Dalapathi songs (except Yamunai aatrile and Chinna Thaayaval). Now listening to the songs from this movie I realize this has got to be the best that the duo produced. Every song is so beautifully composed and the singing is just amazing. I personally do not like songs with a strong Carnatic influence but that is just me. However, it looks like the songs were specifically composed to showcase different Carnatic ragas, so that explains why almost every song sounds like a keertana! After repeated listening, I find only Thoongadha vizhigal to be overly Carnatic, the others not so much.
There is another interesting discovery from my listening – Ninnukori, Oru poongavanam and Va Va anbe are rather unlike typical Raja songs. I don’t claim to know his songs well and my preferences lean towards ARR. But Raja’s songs generally stick to a certain tempo and pitch, unlike ARR who goes all over the place with speed and pitch. Raja’s songs are never too high or too low nor fast. But these three are an exception. Ninnu kori is a very rapidly sung song while Oru Poongavanam, Va Va anbe tends to go very high and at times very low. In all these songs the timing of the pitch goes perfectly well with the lyrics. I also realized that my favorite songs of Raja (Poova eduthu oru, Putham pudhu poo, Inji iduppazhaga duet) all follow this format! I suppose you can make me listen to Raja songs even then ARR lingers 😊
This is probably common knowledge, still – most of the music you hear in ‘Raja-Rajathi rajan indha raja’ song are often heard in chase sequences as bg music. I think it was even copied by DSP in Dasavatharam.
Another interesting point is how the songs are spread between Chitra and Janaki – they each have a solo (Janaki one more than Chitra) and a duet. Both have done an exceptional job with every number. Yet Chitra got the national award – not sure why or how! I keep listening to the songs and I can’t pick one over the other at all! They are so wonderful in their own way!
The lyrics of the songs are also quite beautifully written. Except maybe Thoongadha Vizhigal, all other songs are lovely. This is quite unlike that time period when most songs had very vulgar or crass lyrics. Wonder if Mani had anything to do with it. But then again I can’t get past the comedy track so not sure if I can credit him for the lyrics.
The next day we found Nayagan on Prime - not sure why we didn’t earlier! Both loved the movie, and Anand gave his usual teary-eyed tribute to Kamal. So my pick is long forgotten!
Side note: While writing this I wondered why Anand didn’t pick Dalapathi since that is his most favorite Mani movie. Then I remembered – we were earlier watching SIIMA awards where Kamal was repeatedly climbing stage to give or take awards. And it concluded with Kamal getting Best Actor Award (surprise! surprise!) for Vikram (the movie, not the oh-so-talented actor!). And Anand was exhilarated from watching his idol get an award, yet again, even after all these years, beating (bulldozing?) the younger actors (who had also done an award-worthy job!). So he badly wanted to go back and relive the thrill of watching Kamal at his best! This was also triggered by Mani receiving award for Best Director for PS and them talking about Nayagan-2. Btw, Vikram (the actor, not the forgettable movie) was not even in the picture! Anyways, thank god he was looking for a Kamal-Mani combo and not just Kamal. Otherwise, we would have ended up watching Guna!
