Iruvar the movie : A Pongal Flashback 25 years back

 Iruvar made my Pongal day memorable. It was 25 years back on a Pongal day, I hobbled on the steps of Woodlands Theater to see the film. ( I was in crutches and had two friends- RK and Charles as escort ). I wanted to see the film for two reasons -   I was the first to break the story that it was a film on MGR- Karunanidhi and secondly Mohanlal was playing MGR under the direction of Mani Ratnam and Santosh Sivan was the cameraman.

I was sitting under a tree in Old Woodlands Hotel chatting with makeup man M O Devassia. He told me about doing the MGR type makeup for Mohanlal and the the details of it that took place in Merryland Studios at Trivandrum. He did not realise that the casual info he was passing was something that Tamil media was groping around. A heavily guarded secret. After it was published in  front page of SCREEN , it was picked up by a top selling vernacular magazine. I remember Alai Osai Mani who  known to break such news come up and congratulate me. I kept Devassia name out of it.

I went to Trivandrum and managed to enter Merryland studios. The part where Iruvar shoot was on but it was a no entry zone. There was nothing I could get. After this story, all media was about Karunanidhi then CM going to crush the film release. It is said that Vairamuthu the lyric writer of the film combed the film and after a few cuts, got ok from Karunanidhi.

I sat in the ground floor back row as I did not want to take steps to Balcony. As the show started, there was hardly anybody in the movie hall. After some time, a couple sitting in front of us started to get amorous. My pal got up and took a seat that had nobody sitting in front of him.  The other pal told the couple to go elsewhere and continue.

Talking about the film's merits has no relevance -  masterpiece of Mani Ratnam and best of Santosh's camerawork. The empty hall broke my heart and created a confusion - Are we critics far away from reality ?. Mani Ratnam continues to blaze on and Tamil cinema has come a full circle- now we have Thalaivi , a biopic on Jayalaaithaa. Looking back , I find it amusing that it was a Northern heroine who played Jayalalithaa , in both the films. Aishwarya Rai in Iruvar and Kangana Raut in Thalaivi.

For Iruvar failure, it was said that MGR - Karunanidhi fans were disappointed as no one emerged victorious, For the poor opening , it was said by casting Mohanlal- Aishwarya Rai , the film did not relate to Tamil audience. A day later `Bharathi Kannamma' was released and in Southern Districts of Tamil Nadu it created  strong protests. It was about a Thevar girl falling in love with a Dalit youth, This film marked the entry of director Cheran and the controversy helped. If  ManiRatnam did not subject to unofficial censoring it could have a been a hit ?. It could have been banned also.   Kathalukku Mariyathaai which put Vijay on Superstar category released just before for Christmas  , replaced Iruvar in many theaters. In the running was Ajith's Nesam for Pongal and failed to create a stir.

Jai Bhim controversies : Baradwaj bad review gets mauled and Pro Hindi guys slam Prakashraj

How can a guy get slapped for speaking in Hindi and not Tamil ? asks a twitterati. Film companion South YouTube channel film critic Baradwaj Rangan says Jai Bhim is badly made film .  Has 1.59, 850 views and 12 K have disliked while others have liked it.

Let’s us take scene where IG interrogates a pawn broker who accepted the stolen jewels. Pawn broker says in Hindi that since the guys were from the same area and before he completes it, Prakashraj who plays IG slaps him. Pawn broker asks why did you slap me and he gets the reply- Speak in Tamil.

So what is wrong in it  asks twiterrati. Is it not an Indian language ? Another goes a step forward and points out that Prakashraj being a Kannadiga should be slapped for speaking in various languages on screen.

Now those disliking Rangan’s review of Jai Bhim  attributes  caste prejudice, not knowing reality and pointing out reviews where he praised actors who were stone faced  and being not able to digest somebody being better than Mani Rathinam ( Rangan  wrote a book on Mani).

Rangan has this disclaimer at the start - having a good story and good intentions automatically do not make a good movie and if you are a fan of Samudrakanni the director then you are going to like the film. The review is for those who do not belong to this category says Rangan.

Wonder why Rangan brought Samudrakanni in to it ?.At times, Suriya does sound like Kanni. It was only recently that Kanni informed that he was going to say no to the preachy kind of roles. Probably those who hated Samudrakanni decided to hear out Rangan.

 

Now the comments are that Baradwaj  praised Malayalam film Brahmam and rated Mamata Mohandas performance to be so good that one forgot Tabu’s in the original.  Rangan terms Suriya not being involved and  being in a hurry. He says a similar subject of three people going missing ( Naayattu) was handled well by a neighboring State ( Kerala)  with finesse and is it too much to expect such from Tamil audience and go on to magnify everything. I gathered from the whole review is that he did not like the police brutality overuse, magnifying of scenes and characters and lack of giving a personal dimension to the Lawyer character. In short, he says this not  an iconic movie.

Most of his  reviews or rather 99% of it never calls a spade a spade directly and describes it many ways. I have found him to go great lengths to find some `positives’ in a bad film. The majority of his core viewers seem to have liked what  he spoke about the film and so he knows his audience well. As for Nayattu- it did not happen in a environment like in Jai Bhim. I gathered from the scenes in he film  that Lawyer Chandru is a painter and he reads Economic and Political Weekly.  Mercifully, Chandru is not a tribal song writer cum singer and the teacher ( Rajisha ) a chorus singer.