SINDHU SAMAVELI REVIEW BY BEHINDWOODS

There are good movies, there are mediocre ones and then there are the downright bad ones. But, we know that all these movies started out with the intention of being good entertainers. Some got there, some did not, but the effort was never in doubt. But, there are certain movies which make you feel that even the intention of producing a good and clean entertainer is not present. It seems to be made only upon perversion and an inexplicable affinity for socially unacceptable themes. The failure to make a good movie can be pardoned – it is human to err. But, the absence of intention to make a good one cannot even be condoned. Sindhu Samaveli falls in this unfortunate category.

Director Sami has never been the one to make films that were clean family entertainers, like Uyir. He has always treaded on uncomfortable themes that would have made quite a few people squirm and it is not surprising that he has courted controversy more than once in his career. But, with Sindhu Samaveli he has crossed all lines of acceptability and breached a kind of unwritten code of propriety that has made Tamil cinema popular with family audiences all these years.

Incest is always dangerously uncomfortable territory, both for the film maker and the viewer (if there are any!). There is always perversion, profanity and questionable morality involved. Things that can get more uncomfortable than the explicit use of expletives. Yet, it is difficult to explain how and why such themes find ways to be made in mainstream commercial cinema with the backing of a banner that has produced at least one highly acclaimed product.

It is shocking and painfully ironic that when Tamil cinema is poised to take flight to the next level, courtesy some fabulous artistes and film makers, there are still such regressive elements that threaten to undo all the good work done by the others. Glamour that borders on vulgarity is not alien to any film industry and Tamil cinema too has its share of such elements. Sindhu Samaveli is certainly not the first movie to cross the line. But this is certainly one of the very few products from the industry that have been constructed solely on a perverse theme, which makes it deplorable.

The censor board granted it an A certificate but one hopes that a rating system is soon developed which demarcates adult content from perverse content. At times when movies like Dasavatharam have been dragged to court because it ostensibly hurt religious sentiments, one wonders how such a movie that hurts human sensibilities got into theaters without opposition.

The movie carries a tag line ‘Situation makes people bad’. One only wonders what was the situation that prompted some people to make this movie. Let’s pray that Tamil cinema not be marred with such instances again.

Verdict – Perversion – as sick as it gets!