Director: Selvaraghavan
Selvaraghavan's films
post Pudhupettai, for reasons best known to him, traverse between goose bumps
inducing and vein popping moments. While the ingenious plot in the second half
of Aayirathil Oruvan overshadows its shortcomings, Mayakkam Ena disorients me by
juxtaposing between nerve wrenching silly moments and heart drenching emotional
sequences.
Over the period of
these two movies, having observed the inconsistency of Selva's narrative grammar,
I became prepared not to be bogged down by the leads' forced comic moments with
their supporting casts. Accepting his narrow minded approach to acting for what
it is, that which can be convincingly portrayed only by Danush, this time
around I also didn't bother about the uniformly terrible acting his casts were
going to display. Also, the incomplete backdrops, blind eye to details or
shallow grandeur that goes in vain weren’t my concern. Because, I realised, in
a Selva movie, the tools for conveying the emotions goes beyond the individual
elements in the screen and transcends the skills of the artists, whom he only
uses as a reference point in frame to communicate with us
through visual artistry.
These minor sacrifices
started to pay rich dividends as I plunged into Irandaam Ulagam - a story of two worlds. While, I
grinded my teeth through the artificial acting of Anuskha's friend and the lazily
written Goa portions, I was bathed in poetry during the sequences where both
Arya and Anuskha struggle to get in terms with their love. But, the story being
about love stories in two parallel worlds, while these wonderful moments were
coming only from the 1st world, the 2nd world looked too bland. Though I could
understand that the callousness of the 2nd world was by design, and while I
could also appreciate the much hyped hunting sequence, the 2nd world couldn't
break beyond the intriguing shell it was trapped in. As boredom started to seep
in, by a master stroke, Selva raises all hopes on the movie when he ingeniously
charts a map between both worlds; but only to fall short of that promise in the
aftermath of the surreal event.
Once the Messiah of
love is brought from the 1st world to inadvertently spread pure love in the 2nd
world which is devoid of love, Selva squanders the opportunity to express in
terms of visuals one of the best ideas in recent times. For a film that intends
to infuse first love into a disoriented land, nothing much was done in the
screen time to sow the seed of love and water it, only through which the roots
could have spread and let the love seed blossom into a flower. Instead he is
satisfied that some shots of tears and few photographs are sufficient to drive
the point home.
Another film, 'The
Fountain' which dabbles on similar waters, doesn't shy away from going the
length to establish the depth of love. Ironically its success stems from the
fact that the film concentrates only on the couple and nothing else. Whereas
Irandaam Ulagam dilute the concepts with a lot of unexploited characters -
especially the 'Amma' role – once again clearly showing the inability of Selva,
a past master in handling complex characters, to handle complex environments.
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