The Walk, Movie....Wire Walking Between The Famous Twin Towers...My Heart Was Coming Out....Tension...

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Dhadak dhadak...my heart was banging inside me loudly...it is long time since I felt so afraid while watching a movie! This movie, 'The Walk (2015)' is based on a true story and I love movies based on true stories! The story is about how an ordinary 24 year old Frenchman Petit, who was a juggler/street performer, walks across the Twin Towers (World Trade Centre)in New York on 7th Aug.1974.  He walked on a steel wire tied illegally overnight from the top of one tower to the top of the other tower, holding a 25 kg pole which weighed 25 kgs. This, he did without taking any safely measures.  He was particular about it.  He refused to do so when his mentor, Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) suggested it. His friends also were very ordinary people from different walks of life.  He was there, walking on the wire at sunrise for 43 mts. kneeling down, bending and looking at his admirers, walking to and fro to escape from the police on top of the towers...it is real thrill watching him and he had a smile on his face all the time.  It was his dream come true, but for us who are watching the remake of the scene, it was fear and admiration for the man.   Watch the trailer first.  More than half of the movie is about how these normal people plan and the rest is how his dream comes true.  I seemed to breath properly/normally, after it was over.  I didn't know anything about the movie, didn't know the end too and I have vertigo too:). So, it was a real 'dhadak dhadak' movie for me!

Read more after watching the movie in Prime (Amazon). 




You can imagine after watching just the trailer, how scary it was to walk on a steel cable wire in mid-air.

Joseph Gordon Lewitt who has acted as Philippe Petit is an American and had to learn colloquial French.  He learnt some wire walking from Petit himself.  Wiki says:

"Gordon-Levitt, who had no formal high-wire experience, trained directly with Petit. By the end of the eighth day, he was able to walk on the wire by himself, and continued to practice while shooting. Along with a stunt double,  the actor shot the climactic wire-walking scenes on a sound stage; it had reconstructions of the top two stories of the tower and a wire approximately twelve feet off the ground, which was connected out across a green abyss and was anchored on a pole. To learn more about what it was like, Gordon-Levitt also walked the distance between the World Trade Center memorial's two pools, which are located where the Twin Towers stood before the September 11 attacks. He visited the original observatory once before, in 2001, during his first summer in New York City. "It was touristy but I wanted to go do it. I remember it distinctly. It felt more like being in the sky than being on a tall building."

Petit made random friends who came into his life one by one which is shown nicely in the movie.  They went on top of the Word Trade Center often as workers, visitors etc. to learn the ropes.  I liked the way they showed how this idea sparked in his mind of wire walking between the Towers which are 450 ft. above the ground.   It was scary to watch the morning fog blinding the wire when he was walking.  The 3D picturization is superb.  The director, Robert Zemerickis has done a superb job.  Until I watched the movie, I didn't know that tall structures sway slightly during strong winds.  Joints in between the wires...you should watch the movie to know what I am talking about! It is superb!

This is the great man, who walked in the air, Philippe Petit
(Pic.courtesy: Wikipedia)

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U Turn ... A Thriller Movie in Kannada To Remember For A Long Time, Which Is Unusual!

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A well-made Kannada movie, U Turn!

I like the way the letters are shown here! This is the story of people who try to use short cut by moving the divider slabs on a highway bridge and leave them outside the line, which might lead to accidents!

The movie starts with the leading lady, Rachana (played by newcomer Shraddha Srinath) who is an intern journalist with a daily, The Indian Express noticing a two wheeler driver removing the divider slab on the double road bridge (the story takes place in Bangalore), to take a short cut U-turn and save few mts. more of driving down, leaving the slabs haphazardly in the middle of the road.  She replaces them back and notices that an old man jotting down the vehicle number in a piece of paper.  She comes to know that he had the habit of jotting down numbers who disobeyed the rules. She collects all the numbers he had and returns to her office and discusses this issue with her colleague and asks him if any accidents had happened on the bridge at the spot where the slabs were moved from the divider line.  He promises her to check.  She thinks that this will make a good article for the newspaper. 

The director shows an incident in the beginning, how independent Rachana is and how she is eager to do something good in her career.  It was fun moment to watch the scene!

Through right contacts, she gets the address of the motorist via the license plate number.  She visits his place and rings the bell but nobody opens the door.  When she was entering her apartment complex later, a police man comes and inquires about her name and asks her if she went to the address (the motorist's) before coming home.  She says yes and was taken  to the police station.  The inspector starts questioning her rudely since the motorist Rachana visited had committed suicide on the same day she visited him. She explains her side of the story but the senior police officer rejects it but the sub-inspector who was there, believes her story.  He explains to the senior officer who states that so many murders were taking place and notices that all the numbers in her list were the numbers of the people who committed suicide on the same day they did the u-turn on the bridge....the story develops from here.

I and my husband watched this movie 3 days back and are still discussing about it and am compelled to review it now so that people who want to watch good movies can watch this! Well, very few question marks crop up after the end of the movie but still, the way the movie was made is interesting!

And this is a 'no song' movie! No love triangle too! Just a bit of attraction between Rachana and her colleague, that too, it was shown very decently and the police also are shown decently, which is rare!

The same director of this movie, Pawan Kumar, had directed the well acclaimed movie, 'Lucia' (his first movie!).  Both the movies, Lucia and U-turn were crowd funded and both were well received!

Now, to the trailer of the movie:





I came across an interview with the director of this movie.  Some of my questions which arose in my mind after watching the movie, are answered by him here!

Shraddha Srinath, who acted as Rachana, has acted very well here.  She is a lawyer, theatre artiste and now an actor! She got 'The Best Actress' Filmfare award for acting in this movie!

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Waiting...A Beautifully Made Movie!

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I seem to be writing movie reviews often nowadays! Well...I seem to watch good movies often nowadays! I am enjoying our retired, relaxed life now! Think of the positive things in life...take life as it comes! Nothing can be controlled! Whatever happens, happens for good....well, preaching ends here!

I had been planning to watch this movie for a long time now...I had read reviews about how well Naseeruddin Shaw and Kalki Koechlin had acted in this movie.

The story of the movie can be written in two lines but the way it is picturized is beautiful...

Shiv Natraj (Naseeruddin Shaw) is a very senior psychology professor, who is taking care of his comatose wife Pankaja (Suhasini Manirathnam) in a Cochin hi-fi hospital. He has sort of settled in his routine of finishing his work at home and coming to the hospital to sit beside his wife who had been in the hospital for the past 8 months.  He holds her hand and talks to her, reads to her every day.  He is friendly with the nurses (a nurse brings him food from home everyday) and doctors.

Then comes Tara Kapoor Deshpande (Kalki Koechlin) who was a recently married young advertising agent whose husband met with an accident at Cochin, now in the ICU with a severe brain injury.

Both of them are waiting in the hospital for their spouses' recovery. They meet often and come closer while consoling each other.  Both of them love their spouses (Naseer's had been a 40 years of happy marriage and Kalki loved her short term husband). 

Their generation gap is shown beautifully...how their thinking is world apart, language, how they look at their lives etc.  Kalki uses the foul words in every sentence and Naseer is a very straight forward, simple man! They come closer inspite of all these diversities.  Naseer is not even familiar with 'Twitter'! Every frame in this movie is well thought of.

I liked the acting of the assistant of Kalki's husband (Rajiv Ravindranath...new to me) and the doctor (Rajat Kapoor).  Both the cases are entirely different and I liked the way the doctor handled both of them!  Rajat also is a good actor.

Naseeruddin Shaw is a veteran actor and I have watched many of his movies.  Kalki, I liked her in 'Margarita with a straw'.

Now, to the trailer of the movie:



This movie is being screened often in TV or you can download too.  If you want to watch a meaningful movie, this is for you!
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Still Alice...This Will Go Into My Memorable Movie List!

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I think it is better to watch the trailer first!



I try to watch movies without reading the gist, or watching the trailers.  So, the story will be a surprise for me! My mind will be blank to enjoy it fully!

This movie, 'Still Alice' is about a middle aged lady, not a very old lady, Alice, stepping into Alzheimer's disease symptoms slowly.  The movie starts with Alice Howland (Julianne Moore...brilliant acting and got an oscar for this film!) jogging in the morning.  She is slim, tall and runs very fast for her age, 50! Comes home, cooks, cleans, takes care of the family of three children and a husband, goes out to work as a professor at Columbia University (as a linguistic professor to be precise) and she is famous there with her students.  While taking the class, she forgets a word here and there.  She becomes tensed up a bit and checks with a Neurological doctor and gets to know that she is in the early onset of Alzheimer's disease...She comes to know that this disease is genetic and she had got it from her father.  She tries to evade the disease by following some mental exercises.  Her whole family is supportive.

Well, I should not write the whole story.  It is a bit tension filled movie.  But Julianne's acting is so brilliant that we forget about coming out of the movie mode by just switching it off! Her physician husband, John Howland, supports/helps her a lot.  She wants her younger daughter who was in theatre, to finish her degree and be stable in her life.  She wants the daughter to be safe when she won't be there to guide her.  She loses her job because she was not able to be focused.

I liked the speech Julianne gave about the disease at the Alzheimers' conference, when she was half way into it.  You must watch the movie to appreciate it.  Many other memorable scenes/stages are there in the movie.

This movie is  based on Lisa Genova's 2007 best selling novel of the same name and is directed by Richard Glatzer and Wah Westmoreland.

This is from imdb 'trivia' section:
Co-director Richard Glatzer, suffers from ALS and can't speak. He directed the film using a text to speech app on an iPad. Both Moore and Stewart dedicated their "Ice Bucket Challenge" to Glatzer. The team couldn't attend the Oscar function where Julianne received her Best Actress award for this movie, because Glatzer was seriously ill and died later.

(Physicist Stephen Hawking suffered from this ailment and I did a post on his movie here!)

This movie and Julianne got many more awards and the list is in wiki. She is beautiful!!

Long back I read a book by Arthur Hailey, 'The final diagnosis' which was about the lives of intern students in a medical hospital.  Every night, after their classes, the students compare the symptoms of the diseases they studied in the class, on their bodies! That was a very good book.  Like that, I was checking myself at some stages in the movie! As you know, I am 'maradhimanni' i.e. Forgetful queen! I forget nearly on an average, 10 times a day, about words, things, incidents etc.  I think after I started writing here, the symptoms are coming down slowly, still, it is there!  I was a bit nervous, watching the movie! Then, I told myself, when I can do mixture (a bit tough!) and so many sweets at home for festivals, I don't think I will step into Alzheimer's that easily!!!  

I liked the ending in the movie!

Watched this in Tata Sky's Le plex channel! Very good movies are being screened there!

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PINK, I Will Never Forget This Movie!

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Some movies affect you so much that even after a day you keep on thinking about it...frame by frame! 'Pink' is doing it for me! 'Piku' also did it but in a happy way! But this hurt me, enraged me first and made me happy in the end.  We are reading about girls being raped, thrown acid for saying 'NO' to their advance and some murdered for the same word 'NO'! Esp. in our capital, Delhi.

The story in this movie happens in Delhi, very aptly! Three well educated, well placed in good jobs girls are staying together in a flat, which is common nowadays.

The three normal working girls, Meenal (Taapsee), Falak (Kirti) and Andrea (Andrea) in the film, 'Pink'!

The movie starts with three scared girls in a car returning to their flat after attending a party where Meenal happened to hit a guy with a glass bottle.  A set of four boys are going in another car...one boy, Rajveer Singh has a bandage in his left eye and they discuss about the girls who hit him.  I was wondering what was happening..thought if I missed something because they didn't show the party scene or the hitting of the boy! But the story starts there!

They come to their flat. Starts discussing about the incident animatedly.  Then the girl, Meenal gets a phone call threatening her about the consequences.  This can happen to any working girl staying away from her family.  

We think that this is like any other story, where the boy is the nephew of a politician, so the girls will be threatened and later put to jail, raped and so on.  But 'NO'.  This is different.  Meenal was taken to jail for 'enquiry'.  But a good Samaritan, a retired lawyer, Deepak Sehgal (Amitabh Bachchan) enters the scene.  He is weak, forgetful with a sick wife.  He stays just opposite their flat and had watched the girl jogging in the park and then picked up by the police that day.  He is inquisitive and asks the girls to show the FIR...He decides to fight their case.

Later on, the court drama starts! Since the 'affected' boy had influence, his 'loud mouth' lawyer starts abusing the three girls with very intimate questions.  Yes, this looks like a normal story .... until now! Deepak Sehgal just watches the drama for most of the time.  After Falak breaks down, he gets up and starts 'talking'.

He starts questioning the girls.  It looked like he was  not their lawyer ... well, I should not reveal more.  

Amitabh looks like a sleepy, very old person, older than his real age.  But when needed, his booming voice comes out!  Movies are going to run for him...this one included.  'Piku' will be remembered always for his comedy and this one for his 'stayed back' acting!

Taapsee as Meenal is new to me.  She is superb.  She must have been an unknown, not very famous actress until now! She will go places.  First the scared look, then hurt look, then resigned look....she is great.  And she is beautiful!

Kirthi Kulhari, also is new to me...she did very well when she exploded in the court.  

Andrea, as a North-East girl looks timid, typical hurt girl for the mere reason that she was from Meghalaya.  

I liked the way Mamta Malik acted as a typical corrupt woman police officer.  God, we can relate to her. 

The best acting apart from the main characters was by Dhritiman Chatterjee as Judge! 

The judgement was unexpected and Amitabh's verse in his booming voice and the scenes they show during credits which was also unexpected, adds to the uniqueness of the movie.  Hats off to the director, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury!

We can see different types of men, the soft-natured landlord of the girls' flat (Vinod Nagpal of 'Hum Log' fame), the leering neighbour who was bent on proving that the girls were characterless, the boy's lawyer who questioned the girl in a very dirty manner without batting an eyelid (he must be having daughters, I hope!)...It is always the girls' fault, all men say.  Boys never get any advice from anywhere even from mothers. 

This is a hit movie, I know! No one will say 'NO' for that!

Beautiful lyrics with English translation is here!

The trailor of the movie is here:

Enjoy the movie without fail!

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Thithi, A Kannada Movie...Watch A Village Through A Window!

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Thithi, a Kannada Classic movie!

I am still savouring the nuances of this movie, 'Thithi'! I watched 'Lucia' a Kannada movie, a couple of weeks back.  I haven't watched Kannada movies for the past few years now.  Then heard about 'Lucia' and watched it.  It was quite impressive.  A 'different' type of movie. The same director, Raam Reddy has directed this movie, 'Thithi' also, so I was curious to see this movie also.  I did and was overwhelmed! Until now, Girish Karnad, GV Iyer etc. were the famous directors in Kannada movies.

The movie starts with an 101 year old eccentric man who is called Century Gowda, passing funny/luscious comments at the passers by.  Typical village scene...everybody takes them in their stride.  He was blabbering and walking on the street, suddenly buckles down and dies.  The whole hungama starts then! Everybody gathers together and starts arranging for his funeral.  His son, Gaddappa, who is also now, an old man, is roaming on the road, smoking beedi (sort of cigarette) and drinking 'tiger' brand local liquor and refuses to light the pyre of his father.  The villagers cajole and bring him over.  I love the easygoing nature of the villagers. They show later in the movie why he,  had become a recluse.  Gowda community is mostly rich farmers in Karnataka, as far as I know.

Now, the grandson of Century Gowda, Thammanna, needs large amount of money to conduct the 11th day 'pooja' of his grand father (an astrologer asks him to do it in a grand scale by feeding the whole village with meat feast). He asks his father, Gaddappa (means 'bearded father) to sign documents to name him as successor for Century gowda's 5 acres land.  Gaddappa refuses.  Thammanna looks for shortcuts to secure the land.  How he does in the village atmosphere is the plot of the story. 

Many other side stories, esp. the activities of Thammanna's son, the roaming shepherds, their lifestyle, their innocence...everything is picturized very naturally.  I loved them, their women and men and their happy innocence! All actors are amateurs, people from the actual village Nodekoppalu (co-writer of the movie, Ere Gowda's hometown) are cast in the movie.  Nobody was 'acting'.  They blended with the characters!

Wiki says:

The seed that gave rise to Thithi was planted during a visit that Reddy made to Nodekoppalu village in the Mandya district of Karnataka, the home town of the film's co-writer Eregowda. Reddy found the village, seen through the eyes of an insider, to contain within itself a highly cinematic world. Reddy then did a year-long stint at Prague Film School. Upon returning, re-visited the area frequently, conducting a three month exploratory process to better acquaint himself with the world. During this process, Eregowda and Reddy met and decided to revolve the film around three protagonists, Channegowda (Gadappa), Thammegowda S. (Thamanna), and Abhishek H.N. (Abhi), even before the idea for the story of the film had taken shape. Keeping the true life personalities of these three leads in mind, Reddy and Eregowda then began developing a screenplay that revolved around the death and thithi of a 101-year old cantankerous centenarian, Century Gowda. After Reddy and Eregowda finished the script, they had an ambitious 160 page screenplay with over a hundred characters. They then moved into pre-production work which included an eight-month long casting process to find actors to fill out smaller roles and putting together a crew for the film. At this stage, DoP Doron Tempert, Reddy's batch mate from Prague Film School, joined the development process and started building the story-telling style and approach with Reddy.

Award list:

Won
Best First Feature: Raam Reddy

Won Golden Leopard - Filmmakers of the Present: Raam Reddy

Mumbai Film Festival 2015

Won International Competition: Raam Reddy

National Film Awards, India 2016

Won Regional Award: Best Feature film in Kannada, Raam Reddy, Prspctvs Productions.

Palm Springs International Film Festival 2016

Won New Voices/New Visions Special Jury Mention		Raam Reddy. "The jury commended director Raam Reddy for taking his audience on a happily rambling journey, ...
Nominated New Voices/New Visions Grand Jury Prize:		Raam Reddy

Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) 2016

Won Festival Prize:  Raam Reddy

San Francisco International Film Festival 2016

Nominated Golden Gate Award: New Director, Raam Reddy

Normally, these types of village stories are branded as 'art movies'.  This can be said as a 'light hearted' movie.  But you are eager to watch the next scenes as if it is a thriller! 




A 'MUST WATCH' MOVIE! It is with English subtitles. Now, let me watch the same director's other movie, 'U Turn' soon!

Read about this 25 year old director of the movie, here:

Raam Reddy, a 25 year old writer-director-producer, studied in St. Stephen's College, New Delhi, one of India's premiere institutions for Liberal Arts. During his time at St. Stephen's, Raam passionately pursued photography, writing and film; he won several photography competitions, started writing his debut novel It's Raining in Maya at the age of 19, and wrote and directed several short films. In 2011, Raam wrote, directed, shot and edited a Telugu short film called Ika (meaning "Feather") that has won national and international awards and has been screened at close to twenty international festivals.

I have never noticed a Kannada movie being screened here, in Chennai.  But 'Thithi' was screened for 2 weeks, I think!



P.S.: The real village and the real characters can be seen in this video.  Very interesting! But it is in Kannada.  Is language a barrier? You can guess!

This Old Black & White Movie Was Interesting, Even Now!

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This old black & white movie,  'Anupama' brought back many memories for me...some happy and some are not so happy...I was in school when this movie was released (1966).  I had started admiring (!) Dharmendra and my mother went to this movie in Ashok theatre (Chennai) with her cousin, without telling me and I remember crying and not talking to her for some time! Feel silly now! No, we were not going/taken to movies regularly (we were 5 siblings!), but mother used to take us to good movies.  This movie had become famous mainly because of the songs (courtesy: Binaca Geet mala, radio prog.) I didn't get the opportunity to watch it until now!

My ankle has got a ligament tear now which needs lot of rest, so I seem to be watching movies in most afternoons! Because this is a black & white movie, I was postponing, though watched Gurudutt's 'Pyaasa' and some other black & white Bengali movies.

I think I need not go into the full gist of the story of this movie.  This is a 'father-daughter' relationship story, mainly.  The father gets married very late in his life and is very attached to his wife.  She delivers a girl baby and dies.  The father (Tarun Bose), who is quite rich,  hates the sight of his daughter (Sharmila Tagore) because he thinks that she was the reason for his wife's death! he becomes an alcoholic.  She is brought up by their house help.  Because of her father's hatred for her, she becomes an introvert and never mingles with anybody.  Because of the heavy drinking, he falls  ill and is asked to take a break and father and daughter go to Mahabaleshwar.  There, the hero Dharmendra (Poet and teacher) enters.  He is the friend of Arun (Deven Verma) who is supposed to marry Sharmila as per the father's choice! But Arun falls in love with Anita (Shashikala), the father's friend's (David) daughter...oooof...too confusing?!! Well, Dharmendra meets the beautiful eyed, silent girl Sharmila and their love blossoms!

You can see Dharmendra, a bit plump and young one, watching Sharmila, in the above song. 

I remembered this song (the tune led me to this song...the music directors are different, though) by Mubarak Begum.  Lovely song, my favourite!

One more surprise is Deven Verma.  He became a famous comedian later but here, he has acted very well and another surprise is Shashikala who is singing this beautiful  song. She became famous in negative roles later!

David was at his best.  He used to get this type of roles mostly in all the movies he had acted.  He and Shubha Khote were always, old people.  Shubha is Dharmendra's mother in this movie!

The hero and heroine never danced or sang together for even a single song, in this movie! They sang separately!But this movie was a hit in those days! Music ruled then!

This is the only song for Dharmendra in the movie.  Lovely song with good lyrics.



I liked Dharmendra in this movie.  He has acted very naturally.  This song is an example.  It looks as if he is really singing...he takes breath at appropriate places too! Hemant Kumar is singing this song and he is the music director for this movie.  This movie became famous for the songs and Sharmila's eyes were 'talk of the town' in those days (My mother's views!).  I was a Dharmendra fan in those days (Did a post on my childhood/teenage, here!)

This 'ankle-rest' break has shown me, that I have my mother and grand mother's 'movie-buff' streak! My mother had a cousin and both of them used to go to movies together often.  She used to tell us the stories at night, I still remember.  We were taken to movies very rarely, but stories, we knew! I can't narrate a story like her, any day! She was good in narrating mythological stories to my sons with all the minute details with lot of expressions!  She used to read a lot, both in Kannada and Tamil.  She worked in a library and used to bring heavy mythological books and read them as if they were fiction books.  I think this movie has triggered my mother's memories...I remembered her often while watching it.  She used to send us with our cousins to very good movies (she would watch them first!).  I think she has influenced me so much that I am able to watch Kangana Ranaut's 'Queen' or Sathyajit Ray's 'Apur Sansar' with equal interest! Unknowingly, we are influenced by our parents and by the time we realize it fully, they are no more.  It hurts sometimes. 

The other movies I liked during my movie marathon are:

Selma...I remembered 'Mississippi burning' while watching this. This is a movie on Martin Luther King. Good one.

Diksha...a many award winning movie with a very serious story. The story takes place in Dakshina Kannada, my native place! Nana Patekar, Manohar Singh, KK Raina, Sulabha Arya...a memorable movie. 

The Bridges of Madison County... Clint Eastwood directed and acted with my favourite Meryl Streep.  A good romantic movie.

Saving Mr.Banks... Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks movie based on Walt Disney.  Enjoyed.

Contact... a Jodie Foster movie.  A very well made film, though I had watched it many years back. Still enjoyed!

The Constant Gardener...watched this with a heavy heart.  Good movie.

Man of Fire...my favourite Denzel Washington's movie.  Still remember it.

Tamil movie, Devar Magan... A very well-made Kamal, Shivaji Ganesan and Revathy movie.  Had already watched in the theatre, still, watched it again.  Good movie.

Well, I watched so many (one was, 'Sanshodhan', a Nihalani film, but something was missing in the story. Everybody acted well, though.)  but remember only the movies I enjoyed watching.  I am still relaxing! Any recommendations?!

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Raavanan... is Manirathnam happy with this movie?

I had been waiting to see this Tamil movie 'Raavanan' (Wiki link) of Manirathnam for a long long time now! I had read so many tidbits about the movie before its release. When my niece came home during her semester holidays, we planned and went to two movies without much gap in-between, which is very rare, for me. I am not a movie buff! The other movie was 'Rajneeti' (I don't feel like writing a review for this movie!). Here, I am not going to mention the story much, it is in the Wiki link.

The movie starts, with Vikram jumping down from a cliff into deep water, head down. The scenery is beautiful. He swims like a wild animal and kidnaps Aishwarya. Then the storyline slows down. We had known that story of the movie resembled the Ramayana. Vikram acts as Raavana, here, a modern Robinhood-like character. He has done his job very well. But reminds a lot of his role in 'Anniyan' (dubbed in Hindi as Aparichit), when he is shown with dirt and anger on his face and like Sethu, when he blabbers 'bakbakbak', like a madman. Aishwarya is the Seetha in this modern Ramayana! Ram is Prithviraj, quite a good actor, who did very well in 'Mozhi'. He acts like an 'encounter specialist' who is after Raavana who kidnapped his pretty wife Seetha!

The best part of the film is cinematography which is done by Santhosh Sivan and Manikandan. The story is very weak. It is as if some clippings are joined together without any proper thread. Maybe they think that we know the story of Ramayana and we will understand!

Aishwarya, doesn't show any emotion. It takes a long time for us to register that she had started loving Vikram after she knew why he had kidnapped her! She just utters 'bakbakbak' in a weak tone, to express her softness towards him! They show her falling from the cliff, head down and hanging on a branch of a tree and walking back on rocks...she must have done some hard work, here.

Even Vikram's story about how his sister was gang-raped by policemen, doesn't make us feel sorry for him...some drawback here too. All these things are shown in short clippings! The storyline doesn't flow smoothly. In-between, suddenly Vikram acts like a madman and shouts 'bakbakbak' or 'dandandan'...we have to assume he is half mad! His role could have been shown as a strong leader who wants to avenge the police who were killing his people, raping their women, unnecessarily, without proper reason.

Here, the character of Ram is not shown as a good man! He uses everyone, even his wife, to kill Raavana!

The camera work is very good. Stunt shows are amazing, esp. the last rope bridge fight. Most of the shooting was done in the forest areas of Kerala, Ooty, Maharashtra etc., it seems. The dance sequence under actor/dancer Shobana's choreography, to A.R. Rahman's beautiful music is quite memorable. Very normal dialogues by Suhasini Manirathnam, doesn't add life to the movie.

During the intermission break, we were asking each other, if anyone understood the story? The last half hour had SOME story!



Photo courtesy: Google