Showing posts with label Ganja Karuppu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ganja Karuppu. Show all posts
Movie : Sindhu Samaveli
Director : Sami
Music : Sundar C Babu
Starring : Harish, Ghajini, Amala Paul, Ganja Karuppu
The controversial director Sami’s (Uyir, Mirugam) latest Sindhu Samaveli is a different kind of a brave new film. It has its flaws but it must be watched by anyone who cares for cinema of sense and substance.
Just because Sami’s earlier films were shocking and explicit; don’t go expecting anything visually shocking or sensational. He has handled a very sensitive matter on relationship beautifully. Technically it is one of the best films to have emerged in recent times, with stunning locales, eye catching camera work by Utpal V Nayanar and exotic sets by Thotta Tharani.
Sami’s presentation and theme has a different flavour about it. The director likes to take the road less travelled. It is about human relationships and has traces of Malayalam cinemas golden age films of directors like Bharathan and Padmarajan, who made films on forbidden relationships.
Anbu (Harish) is a brilliant student in a village school, somewhere in Kanyakumari area. His mother teaches in the same school and his dad Veerasami (Ghajini) is a CRPF soldier in Assam. His classmate is Sundari (Anakha), who is a failed student and elder to him by three years falls for him.
One day, his father gets injured in a militant attack and takes voluntary retirement and comes back to the village. The father dotes on his family especially his son, but tragedy strikes as his wife dies due to a snake bite.
Both father and son are heartbroken. Anbu decides to fulfil his mother’s dream of becoming a teacher. Around this time, his father and other relatives pressurize him to marry Sundari. The love birds live together for hardly a month, before they are separated as Anbu has to go to the teacher’s training school.
Sundari is left in the house to look after his dad, and soon due to certain incidents and circumstances they enter into a “forbidden relationship”. One day Anbu comes back and finds out the bitter truth leading to a taut nerve wracking climax on the high seas.
Sundar C Babu’s music is in sync with the theme, though there are too many songs which hampers the narration. His background theme is the highlight. Utpal’s camera and Thotta’s set’s especially the house in the midst of a valley bordering the sea is appealing. The director has matched Tellicherry sea side and Vagamon (both in Kerala), to create this picturesque village in Tamil Nadu.
The performance from the lead actors, Harish, Anakha and Ghajini makes it believable. The atmosphere is surcharged as there is a constant battle in the heroine’s mind, about the two men in her life- father and the son! The film sags a bit in the second half as it becomes melodramatic. Some of the happenings and twists are hard to digest.
On the whole Sami can be proud about Sindhu Samaveli, as the theme and presentation is unique and fresh.
Verdict- Strikingly Different
Starring: Arulnidhi, Sunaina, Ganja Karuppu
Direction: Pandiraj
Music: Taj Noor
Production: M K Thamizharasu
Direction: Pandiraj
Music: Taj Noor
Production: M K Thamizharasu
Kishore belongs to the tribe which excels in rekla, silambam and other such games and always comes up trumps in any activity that he is involved in. Jayaprakash on the other hand belongs to the sect which avenges any form of humiliation. Not withstanding Kishore’s triumphs, he kills him mixing poison in his liquor. Jayaprakash’s intentions are to completely erase the clan of Kishore. However Kishore’s wife, who was pregnant during the time of her husband’s death, decides to raise her offspring away from the habits of her husband which brought him his untimely end. Fortunately for her, Jayaprakash spares her son.
Arulnidhi, son of Kishore is a very timid boy, a post graduate in Botany who minds his business. Unable to manage a cow (Asin), he sells it to Sunaina’s family but Asin runs back to Arulnidhi’s house. This leads to interesting interactions between the couple which ultimately blossom into love. Asin plays the messenger of love between the couple and the reason for their frequent meetings.
Meanwhile, Sunaina’s father who belongs to the clan of giving out justices, hands out a verdict in favor of Jayaprakash’s servant who was ill treated by him. Irked by the disgrace Jayaprakash kills him. Upset by this, Sunaina throws a pail of dung over Jayaprakash’s face in open street which is the pinnacle of ignominy for a person in the community. This triggers the series of revenge episodes in a relay fashion and where it all leads and ends form the rest of Vamsam.
In the department of performances, a deglamorized Sunaina takes the cake revealing that she can deliver any type of role. Although Arulnidhi fits the role of a docile, educated boy, he has a long way to go. The sequences where the couple in love talk in botanical terms is something new to Tamil cinema in recent times and would be enjoyable for Botany students. Ganja Karuppu and Arulnidhi take care of comedy department which are enjoyable. Kishore delivers a neatly crafted performance and so is Jayaprakash.
The screen play does tend to get wobbly at times and meanders here and there making it to difficult to connect with the film. Although there are incidents of killing, they have not been depicted grotesquely. The Thiruvizha scenes stand out in their native grandeur and the camerawork by Mahesh Muthusamy is laudable. The explanation about killing during Thiruvizha times is something new.
Music director Taj Noor; an erstwhile assistant of A R Rahman, shows potential especially in the pada pada pattampoochi number. He is efficient and sure to go places with the right kind of opportunity.
Pandiraj is successful in showcasing the life of a community in its various facets which could be interesting to some. He has fused realism and cinematic elements in the right proportion and has sliced his way through the path less trodden with considerable aplomb this time also.
Verdict – Illustrious lineage!
