Topic started by Will (@ 61.1.203.72) on Thu Dec 4 01:32:43 EST 2003.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.
This is my personal review of Pithamagan:
Actually, I hadn't yet seen Thirumalai, but, I had seen Pithamagan long before.
And, I just couldn't help but comment that it would have been better had I seen a BBC Documentary instead of this film.
Let me back up my comment:
First of all, I shun the very idea of the director Bala's self-escalating his directorship.
It was hard to watch the Pithamagan Promotional Piece on SunTV on Diwali day, with everybody praising Bala for his perfectionism. For, every person who had tried to achive it knows that it is impossible to be perfect. A famous scholar (whose name I currently don't remember, but I will tell you if you insist) once told "Don't worry about perfectionism. You will never achieve it". And, everybody in that episode were commenting that Bala took shots UNTIL "he" was satisfied that it was "perfect". Well, well, well!
Very Next thing was, I couldn't see a single of that thing in that film (in settings, etc.). Only the camera showed some touches of professionalism but, that could well have been that of the cameraman!
Moving onto the film itself, first thing you note is the vulgarity depicted in the film. The times when Vikram fights with people (especially him trying to tear the mouth of a jail-worker), and women being beated thrice in the movie (especially Laila being beaten by Surya).
Immediately follows, is the vulgar dialogues of Surya (thank god, atleast Vikram had almost no dialogues in that film, or Bala would have urged the writer to include vulgar dialogues for him too). This is especially evident when Surya goes as a pedlar and also when he speaks to Laila at the jail.
Those were the things you notice on first look. If you look a bit more deeply, you can find that the film has absolutely no story line at all! Two friends meeting, and one takes revenge for the murder of another. That is the story? Well, again!
The only appreciable fact is the bondage between two friends of different bringing-up, being shown in a sort of different but adorable fashion.
And, of course, not to mention about the screenplay. Now, people are comparing Bala with Shankar and Manirathnam! Definitely, anybody who knows what screenplay are would not say anything of this sort! Atleast anyone who had admired the "screenplay" of films like Roja, Nayagan, Agni Natchatram (wow! what a screenplay that was!), Indian, Gentleman, Mudalvan, would never even compare them with the screenplays of Sethu, Nandha, and Pithamagan.
The screenplay was, at the best, sluggish! How did Laila and Surya start loving each other? Or, how did Laila like Surya, when he insulted and badgered her at every given oppurtunity? And that too, immediately after that jail scene! Maybe, the director thought that the audience would understand something that he doesn't depict in the film or he thought people would concentrate on the main part (surya+vikram friendship) and leave the other minor parts, I do not know!
It is concentrating on every minor aspect that makes a "good" director.
And, finally, people are talking about excellent characterisation. This is agreeable to a certain extent, but still, this could be done with a "little" bit of imagination or by actually visitng places like lunatic asylum, or even some really OLD villages or the like places, watching many people there, merging their characters and going on from there.
But, definitely, Vikram's acting was simply excellent. Three cheers to him! In this thing, I will appreciate the director a little, cause he is the one who usually influences in(or even makes) artiste's acting.
So, finally, I give a rating of 5 Stars for Vikram, 1 Star for Bala (for the daringly different way he had shown the bondage between friends + for making Vikram act the way he had), and 1 Star for the film itself.
Thanks, and I would like very much
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