Favourite films
மாநகரம்: pitch-perfect is the word. An exercise in style without a false beat. What's most remarkable about the film is it is slick *and* tonally serious. The plot interlocking here is obviously derivative of Guy Ritchie and the like but it's interesting how Lokesh Kanagaraj wants his film to be more serious and gritty that ultimately aligns the work more with the best of contemporary Tamil cinema than any of the tongue-in-cheek/ironic distance that usually characterizes such derivative works and Guy Ritchie's own filmography. The film also decidedly stops short of becoming a truly grim portrait of the urban landscape (for all the violence in the film, nobody dies! incidentally the director has also talked about how this was a conscious choice...) or a deeper exploration of the proverbial "what's the right thing for an individual to do?" à la Mysskin. But there's often a lurking sense of this question and the film cleverly opts to only point to it rather than dwell on it for its own running time. In other words, the entertainment/thrill of the film's yarn relies on the very violence the film means to decry. But I'd argue the film, to its credit, offers a specific (interesting if sketchy) perspective on violence through one of its lead characters (a very effective Sundeep Kishan). This character clearly (as if to mirror the film's own impulse) emerges as the more forceful/compelling figure in the film than the other lead (Sri's casting here seems a nod to his role in ஓநாயும் ஆட்டுக்குட்டியும் playing a character in a somewhat similar helpless good Samaritan role, though that film is otherwise set in a universe of a very different worldview).
குரங்கு பொம்மை: exceptionally well directed film. This is a film of interiors, all of them so well realised and shot, brilliantly demonstrating how cinematic a film can be even when you're not shooting in real exterior locations (the latter is without doubt something many Tamil filmmakers since காதல் have excelled at). All the turns the film takes are not effective (some of them come off as rather prosaic) but even in that respect, I appreciated the film's earnest attempt to imbue its story with a sense of wider meaning (as opposed to solely into being clever in tying its yarn together).
Interesting but have some/quite a few reservations
தீரன்: அதிகாரம் ஒன்று
Does one thing and does it well. H. Vinoth's project is to imagine an action thriller out of a real life criminal case/investigation. The film has it both ways by making us aware of the broader social context in which the crimes/criminals occur (primarily in just 2 animation segments) and at the same time refuses to let that come in the way of fashioning a straightforward police actioner. The Bawaria gang is villainized in very obvious terms but I liked how the film also in some ways undercuts this by acknowledging that they exist outside of the broader system/nation-state that has marginalized them (primarily via dialogue but also in the way the gang is depicted from a distance not fully accessible to us except as demonic eruptions); and more importantly by showing, even if only fleetingly, the colonialist nature of the conflict - in the way it depicts the overall operation as one of a modern well-equipped governmental force encountering a primitive group that is much less equipped but also 'untamed' for that very reason and systematically eliminating them (the return of the repressed, if you will).
அருவி
mishmash of multiple ideas, some work, some don't
8 தோட்டாக்கள்: at its best when it is a gritty urban landscape story, less effective and limited when it becomes something else wherein the Mysskin-esque melodrama/sadness and the Hollywood-friendly "heart of darkness" (à la 1 man's descent into pure darkness) seem awkwardly sandwiched, cutting off each other's effectiveness.
(Acclaimed films) I found quite boring and overrated:
ஒரு கிடாயின் கருணை மனு
துப்பறிவாளன்
அறம்
மாநகரம்: pitch-perfect is the word. An exercise in style without a false beat. What's most remarkable about the film is it is slick *and* tonally serious. The plot interlocking here is obviously derivative of Guy Ritchie and the like but it's interesting how Lokesh Kanagaraj wants his film to be more serious and gritty that ultimately aligns the work more with the best of contemporary Tamil cinema than any of the tongue-in-cheek/ironic distance that usually characterizes such derivative works and Guy Ritchie's own filmography. The film also decidedly stops short of becoming a truly grim portrait of the urban landscape (for all the violence in the film, nobody dies! incidentally the director has also talked about how this was a conscious choice...) or a deeper exploration of the proverbial "what's the right thing for an individual to do?" à la Mysskin. But there's often a lurking sense of this question and the film cleverly opts to only point to it rather than dwell on it for its own running time. In other words, the entertainment/thrill of the film's yarn relies on the very violence the film means to decry. But I'd argue the film, to its credit, offers a specific (interesting if sketchy) perspective on violence through one of its lead characters (a very effective Sundeep Kishan). This character clearly (as if to mirror the film's own impulse) emerges as the more forceful/compelling figure in the film than the other lead (Sri's casting here seems a nod to his role in ஓநாயும் ஆட்டுக்குட்டியும் playing a character in a somewhat similar helpless good Samaritan role, though that film is otherwise set in a universe of a very different worldview).
குரங்கு பொம்மை: exceptionally well directed film. This is a film of interiors, all of them so well realised and shot, brilliantly demonstrating how cinematic a film can be even when you're not shooting in real exterior locations (the latter is without doubt something many Tamil filmmakers since காதல் have excelled at). All the turns the film takes are not effective (some of them come off as rather prosaic) but even in that respect, I appreciated the film's earnest attempt to imbue its story with a sense of wider meaning (as opposed to solely into being clever in tying its yarn together).
Interesting but have some/quite a few reservations
தீரன்: அதிகாரம் ஒன்று
Does one thing and does it well. H. Vinoth's project is to imagine an action thriller out of a real life criminal case/investigation. The film has it both ways by making us aware of the broader social context in which the crimes/criminals occur (primarily in just 2 animation segments) and at the same time refuses to let that come in the way of fashioning a straightforward police actioner. The Bawaria gang is villainized in very obvious terms but I liked how the film also in some ways undercuts this by acknowledging that they exist outside of the broader system/nation-state that has marginalized them (primarily via dialogue but also in the way the gang is depicted from a distance not fully accessible to us except as demonic eruptions); and more importantly by showing, even if only fleetingly, the colonialist nature of the conflict - in the way it depicts the overall operation as one of a modern well-equipped governmental force encountering a primitive group that is much less equipped but also 'untamed' for that very reason and systematically eliminating them (the return of the repressed, if you will).
அருவி
mishmash of multiple ideas, some work, some don't
8 தோட்டாக்கள்: at its best when it is a gritty urban landscape story, less effective and limited when it becomes something else wherein the Mysskin-esque melodrama/sadness and the Hollywood-friendly "heart of darkness" (à la 1 man's descent into pure darkness) seem awkwardly sandwiched, cutting off each other's effectiveness.
(Acclaimed films) I found quite boring and overrated:
ஒரு கிடாயின் கருணை மனு
துப்பறிவாளன்
அறம்
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