MANI's RATNAMs - 1

1) PALLAVI ANUPALLAVI






2) UNARU



Mani's second wind. Its like the character Prof. Gnanaprakasam, from a recent flick called "Mozhi", says - "Mani Ratnam - brilliant boy. Mark my words, he'll come up trumps. (Ivan oru naal periya aal a varuvan - transliterated askew but fits the bill)"

I'd hoped to find a Tamil movie. But the die had been cast & history's already been written. Malayalam was the language in which the movie was shot. Having never seen this film, I had to resort to crawling web-pages that describe this movie. As to what "Unaru" means, my speculations lead me to believe - "Arise".

Here's what I found & liked about this movie -
I liked the theme in particular - it assumed a Machiavellian hue as opposed to "Pallavi Anupallavi" and the director besotted himself with portraying life or something like it from within the ranks of red Kerala's Trade-Unions. Escape from Poverty and Unemployment are depicted as being synonymous with blatant political overtones and alignment with Trade Unions. In particular I read of a scene where Mohanlal, with his grand on-screen presence, presumably the protagonist, arrives at a town, goes to a tea-stall and asks for tea. In return he's asked which political party he belongs to. Upon riposting & conveying his non-alignedness, the tea-stall owner retorts that if such was the case, he can't serve him tea! Throw in a bit of religious fanaticism and mallu-charm and you have the skeleton of Unaroo/Unaru. Gotta have More cowbell. ;-)



3) GITANJALI



What a breath of fresh-air ! I saw this movie in Telugu and didn't bother to see the Tamil version of it called "Idhayathai Thirudaathe". I remembered the songs in these films, partly because they were played at home, quite often, on the tape-recorder in the 90s. I had a creepy-crawly, hair-stood-up-on-the-back-of-my-neck flashback moment as the theme song "O Priya Priya/I Love You" was introduced while the title and credits rolled out(at the beginning of the film).
What I didn't remember was that this film was about two terminally-ill patients. Nagarjuna enacts and embodies the rowdy college-goer to perfection in the first few scenes of the movie...reminds me of Shiva (not a Mani-Ratnam movie, but a RamGopal Verma venture, his first to be precise).

The accident soon follows (after a foot-tapping number called "Jagada Jagada", plagiarized in RamGopal Verma's new Shiva as "Hosh mei, josh mei or whatever") and Nagarjuna gets a glimpse of the sorry future that lies ahead of him. His spirits sag but in the lead-up, the dialogue bears trenchant wit even as he asks the doctor to marry him, since he is well and fully-recovered.
Nagarjuna's character Prakash decides to take a trip to Ooty, far from the madding crowd, as a possible recourse to choking and fading away to non-existence in the city.

Scene shifts to a girl dancing her heart out as it rains over the plains and the hills and the vales (stop!). Nice catchy number. However, in my impressionable days, as I'd shied away from Telugu and adopted Tamil instead, I seemed to have caught only "kaavali" from this song. So she wants something, eh ? Just kidding, the song's called "Jallantha Kavvintha". Gitanjali (played by Girija, where did she disappear? ) ends up late for a meal & is asked to leave the table by her loving and caring dad (played by Vijaykumar, does he speak Telugu? I don't know, I've seen him in many a Tamil movie. I guess AP is only across the border. So no bother.) . Again, Mani's direction and Girija's kiddishness shine as Gita gathers food from her siblings and manages to slip out unnoticed were it not for - ok ok too much detail.

"Aamani Paadave Haayigaa" is a wonderful song picturised on Nagarjuna, who folds his arms around his body to protect himself from the cold & takes a casual stroll across the mountains and the plains and the hi...(choke) Ooty's scenic beauty, but he manages to convey a picture of Devdas too ;) - damn here's where I curse myself coz I can't understand a thing that Veturi's intending to convey in Telugu. He is promptly followed by Gita and gang, who make quips and joke about his bearing and mannerisms and disappear into the all-pervading Ooty mist. An interesting scene ensues when Prakash visits the local hospital.
Boy meets girl. Girl fakes it. Boy scares girl. Girl cribs to grannie saying boy wants them to elope from that hill-station. Grannie reprimands boy. Boy follows through and actually kidnaps girl. ;-) tadadadaaa boy gets to know girl's terminally ill. This is the second layer and brings interesting perspective into play. Gita doesn't get to know of Prakash's malady (of body & of discontent ;-)) yet. Prakash is stunned at Gita's vivacity and liveliness and is equally stunned at Gita's nonchalance in saying everyone dies at some point in time and its just that she's destined to die a few years before them. She'd rather live in the present than in the future. Love happens. A rather poignant depiction of their love and the theme song - "O Priya Priya" in a Laila-Mejnun fashion, is preceded by SPB & Chitra's awesome rendering of "OmNamaha", that whole song where they share a kiss (or more) in a room that fills up with Ooty's ethereal mist.

Rudely interjected into the film are a few irrelevent, irreverent, coarse and bawdy humor-sequences. Please get your formula right well in time before Roja. ;-)

A stoic performance from Sowcar Janaki too, who plays Prakash's mom. The end may not be worth watching. The third eventual layer must come when Gita learns of Prakash's terminal illness. And you might not be blamed for missing all scenes & songs save one - "O Paapa Laali". :-) Ilayaraja's music serves that creamy upper-layer to an altogether enjoyable movie.

Music from Gitanjali here

Here's "Aamani Paadave Haayigaa" -



Here's "O Priya Priya" -



Here's "Jallantha..." -