Maniratnamesque

As I beat my suddenly engulfed loneliness by resorting to cooking therapy, I switched on the TV today. “Iruvar” was playing.

There are some reasons for which am not a big fan of mani ratnam movies. Cinema to me is a medium that lends itself beautifully to capturing period themes. Iruvar is one such storyline.

Its about the friendship of MGR and Karunanidhi. How realistic a plot can you get than this?

As I write this now, I am just half an hour into the movie.I see a few unnecessary exaggerations that are typical of maniratnam movies.To me, maniratnam's characters are etched to me rememberable if not realistic, cute even if its out of place, always have an admirable (yet unnecessary) modulation (If you don know what I mean - Hold your neck with one handral tight, hold your breath and start speaking - Arvindsamy,madhavan they all did that)..

Now cut back to Iruvar, as a case in point.

To show MGR and Karunanidhi’s friendship – For no reason they are in each other’s hands almost all the time they meet and they are in some eccentric spell of poetic madness. From when did tamil culture promote hugging as a form of sharing affection between men, at least in public? When you make history you hug, But you do not make its lead characters hug all the time, when you make a ordinary scenes in a history movie!

Aishwarya Rai and Mohanlal’s marriage – Their honeymoon night. They run around the bed a la madhavan/shalini in alaipayuthe. Come on – That was not how 1960’s girls were (even if it were jayalalitha types)

Maniratnam one liners –
Sample this : ML”: Ena pidichirka? Aish: Naliku solren (No they don’t talk that way. Do they?

Cinema Set – You are showing black and white era and the set shows twilight in its blue, orange and yellow. From when did art directors give real colors when they know all that’s going to be shown is black and white?

Prakash Raj’s idealism – I understand he is a poet in this movie. However poets who are idealists talk regular tamil under normal circumstances. They don’t have to ooze idealism in poetic overtones whenever they speak. It does add to the aura, but that’s very maniratamesque! A thirvaroor based tamil young man in 1960 speaks with the same modulation that arvind samy speaks in minsara kanavu. How realistic is that?

In short maniratnam’s characters are cute in their own way, well etched and they act for an audience but not really realistic!