Harish Film views

There was a time when Nolan used to be a complete filmmaker, a puppeteer if I may, controlling everything happening on screen and inside your brain with just two hands. By the time Prestige became an instant cult, Nolan had by then gotten a name for himself for pulling all the strings at his disposal to drive home a single idea. Then Batman happened. As his visions started getting grand, the compulsion to set up every string in the film towards that single idea became paramount. In a black and white world it would be easier to say this fetish of his is undoing him; that now he has a string attached to himself to which he will always be binded. But if you look at the glass as half full, this string isn't a chain around the neck, but around the torso to not let him fall as he reaches for the stars. And with Interstellar he has gone beyond the stars into a new galaxy in the safety of this string. Yes, Interstellar is convoluted, delusional and at times fabricated to drive ho...

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...

Director: Selvaraghavan What remains of a thousand people after their Chola king dies of failure, carry him to sea, whilst (we have to guess) the Indian army (!!!) commanded by the last of the Pandiyas sleeps. They scarify their life to empower the only one (Aayirathil Oruvan), who had escaped the wrath of their tormentors earlier, to continue their battle; for Pandyas may have won the battle but not the war; ending the movie ala Dark Knight style. The problem is not what Selva wanted to say, it’s how he has chosen to say. The Cholas on their escape had set up 7 traps, but those “traps” are shown to be a kid’s play which Reema like a superstar with just 2 pistols in stand-at-ease pose crosses. The frivolous execution continues, as sun’s ray hits a pillar creating a shadow that falls on the same side as sun, forming a Nataraj shape to reveal a map, leading us to more such juvenile attempts filled with songs that are meant to be concatenated with the flow, but end up being concocted du...