What would one expect when an ace director, a supremely talented actor ,the most celebrated asian music director, arguably the most popular Indian actress and a remarkable cinematographer join forces - A visual treat and that is exactly what Raavanan is.
The film opens showing the Veerayya (Vikram) gang outwitting the police forces and successfully abducting the wife(Aishwarya) of SP Dev (Prithviraj) as a revenge for something the police had done earlier to the forest guardian Veera. What follows is a cat and mouse game of who wins who. That’s the story in a nutshell. This is being told in a way that makes us relate the lead characters to the lead players of Ramayanam. The climax portion reiterates the Ramayanam connection poetically and fits smoothly.
Maniratnam doesn’t cease to amaze me when it comes to the radical perspectives he offers in his films. Be it Iruvar,Bombay,Guru or Ayitha Ezhuthu. Here he offers Ramayana from Raavanan’s view point. He takes the applauses for being successfully able to take this one-liner into an interesting journey with some poetic scenes explaining the ‘poles-apart’ thoughts that run through the mind of Veera. The dialogues as usual carry the Mani stamp and ooze class every now and again even though the credits for dialogues are attributed to his wife Suhasini. What makes Maniratnam tick is also the way he fully utilizes the potentials of his crew. You get to see the best out of the lead & supporting characters and the men behind the making as well.
Vikram as Veera is a delight to watch. He seems to be at home when he is given such unconventional roles. In the scenes where he speaks, he expresses things the way they ought to be and when he doesn’t speak, it is even more enjoyable. His facial expressions do them all. What an actor!
Aishwarya Rai looks beautiful and acts adequately. She pulls off her monologues quite well and that is as much to tell about her role. Prithviraj,as the cunning and sly SP Dev looks the part with his physique and he seems to have successfully thwarted off the malayali accent from his tamil. Prabhu,as Vikram’s brother once again shows that he can act as well if not much better as anybody who could be fitted into the roles he plays. Karthik , who plays the role of a forest officer is refreshing and adds some humor to the proceedings. Thankfully,he doesn’t speak in his famous plum-in-the-mouth accent.
The locations and the picturisation are big,big pluses in Raavanan. The film has entirely been shot in rain forests across the country and the efforts seem to have paid off, with the output looking spectacular and scenic. All credits to the cinematographers Santosh Sivan, Manikandan and their teams. The art,SFX and editing are perfect. The climax fight sequence is ample proof to this claim.
The songs of A.R.Rahman add fervor to the events and have been shot brilliantly which is a given in any Maniratnam film. The Ila Arun version of ‘Kaatu sirukki’ is a pleasant surprise. There usually is a complaint that Rahman,these days,isn’t giving much importance to background scores in his films. The background score in Raavanan is the silent Rahman answer to all those complainants. There are quite a few scintillating tracks I am waiting to rip and get my hands on.
Now to the minuses. The purpose behind the police launching an attack on Veera on the day of his sister’s marriage isn’t clear. So is the reason for Veera choosing to kidnap the wife of an officer and working not to kill her! The Ramayana connection seems obvious and they could have done away with talking about 14 days & 14 years frequently. The role of Karthik is analogous to Hanuman’s in Ramayana. But to make him jump and creep across trees to reinforce that point seemed needless.
The confluence of the crème de la crème doesn’t disappoint. It has given us a visual
poetic spectacle. In short Verithanamaana Vikram, a spectacular Sivan, a refreshing Rahman and the mastermind Mani have rocked the Raavanan ship ..no.. the Raavanan luxury cruiser!
Don’t miss this Veera,for,you don’t often get to see characters like him!
-Vikram bowls us over with a knock out performance after 2005 ...
ReplyDelete- ARR reinforces his huge talent at BGM which made commercial movies like Padayappa, Muthu, Indian and Mudhalvan such a rage. There are some classical BG bits.
Rest of the pluses are too obvious
The bridge fight sequence took some extra cinematic liberties though it was STUNNING to the eye
I would agree with all aspects of your review except the dialogues part ... I find no fault with the dialect used but it was a reason which prevented me from getting the dialogues fully ... I also liked the hallucinations part very much which is not done frequently enough in Indian cinema for me ...
ReplyDeleteHopefully Mani will give a continuous run of films with Vikram like he did with Madhavan ... Vikram deserves it like no other ...