Raavanan - My 2 Cents

It it so sad that I have not posted anything on my wall since my last review of AO and current post is also about a movie. I think my blog needs flavor. I swear, after this post, I am staying away from movie review (or ranting in my case) for a while.

A lot has happened in my life since my last post, but in the movie world hyped-movie-crapping-out has remained the same. As one of my buddies would comment, so sad.

I had to see Raavanan, just for the hype created and for all the negative reviews I read about it. Succinctly, the movie is about exploring the concept "There is a good side within a bad man, and a bad side within a good man". This concept has been explored from the perspective of the lead lady character. For this purpose, Maniratnam has used Raamayanam as the backdrop. A brave and bold experiment in deed. However, it fails magnificently in not expressing the thought process through screen play.

While the director has put in enough thought about the locales, I fear the same cannot be said for character definition and narration . Veera (aka Raavanan) character is given lots of screen presence in the movie. We get to see the trials and tribulations he goes through with good and evil, but the same cannot be said for Dev (aka Ram's) character. While it was shown that Dev is a cop and he was part of a botched up plan to finish off Veera that ends up in Veera's sister getting raped, it is never known whether he was part of the group of people who raped that girl. Without any proper scenes, the director has tried to bring out the point that Dev has the bad side too. Plus, as the movie progresses we get to see that Raagini (aka Sita) emotionally/romantically inclines towards Veera (even though she was married to Dev), but such a transformation lacked conviction. Why does she change her mind? What has Dev done which is bad and makes him pale in comparison to Veera?

Additionally, the movie also has lots of characters that are wasted and every effort is made to make the movie similar to Raamayana. Characters of Forest Guard (aka Hanuman) and Vanilla (aka Surpanaka) are built and wasted. If you read through Vaalmiki's Sundara Kaandam, you get to see how Vaalmiki has used each and every character to build the case for the anxious Sita, idiotic Raavana and righteous Raama. Mani, being a great director he is, has lacked conviction in this movie. If you want a successful similar effort, read Shashi Tharoor's "A Great Indian Novel" and I am told Raajneeti, for adaptation of Mahabharatha, a similar epic.

Ufff, another great movie that went south without even a limp. Now, I am looking forward to Endhiran and see if Shankar has done justice to Sujatha's "En Eniya Iyandhira". When "En Eniya Iyandhira" was published in Anandha Vikatan and was dramatized by a series in DD, it was out of the world. It was pioneering in Tamil Sci-Fi and rocked in depicting human emotions through an inanimate Robot. Given the handicap that Shankar has now with Sujatha not being alive, I hope he would have used his protege`s like Era Murukan to bring out a taut screen play and a good adaptation of the novel.