Mahanati/ Nadigayar Thilakam

A fitting tribute to the “Prima donna”. It’s all about bringing back to celluloid, the life of a successful actress in her prime and her publicised fall from grace.

The prime characters portrayed - 

Savithri -  a majestic actress turning into a damsel in distress, becoming a prey to adultery, intoxicated in grief, with a heart that loved once and hands that’ve soiled by giving, lives a pauper while leaving.

Gemini Ganeshan - a womaniser with well recorded history of hatred against the institution of marriage, married twice yet unsatisfied, loves her, marries. Her , incensed by the jealousy of her fame commits adultery, drifts away from her with his flings.

To the actress and other memories -

The paint clad Keerthi Suresh recreates the illusion of Savithri. Her depiction of innocence, somewhat childish vigour and some of the camera angles make you feel that she’s Savithri in flesh and blood. She adapts to the role like duck to water. This might be one of her career best performances.

The cinematography is par excellence. It sets you on a picturesque journey into the biography of the Mahanati.

Dulquer Salman plays the role of “Kadhal Mannan”, Gemini Ganeshan, a womaniser, an adorable charmer. He plays it quite well. His dubbing could have been better in Telugu. 

Other cog in wheel characters have done what it takes to be part of this good movie.

Summary  - 

This movie is like watching a rare flower in all its glory wither away into the abyss painfully, wind stricken, well noticed yet unattended.

The movie might not not have too much depth as the director/script writer has tried to cover every facet of her life.

Its definitely worth a watch if one likes a well portrayed biography covering all important aspects and of course a decent watch for every fan of the Mahanati/Nadigayar Thilakam Savithri.

For wants of words - Prima donna borrowed from Subtitles 

Pic Courtesy - http://www.kushlosh.com/2018/03/19/mahanati-telugu-nadigaiyar-thilagam-tamil-set-simultaneous-release-may-4/

Taramani

A beautiful romance with interwoven romance, reality and morality. Excellent storytelling effort by director Ram.

With the author's voice interlude setting the tone in several scenes.

The story of a love lost scavenger and a faint hearted widow dealing with the atrocities  of society over single women. A love story destined for doom and  another destined for glory. Definition of a bitch by a commoner without knowledge . The suspicion of a lover, futility of hope when the notion of infidelity rears its ugly head. The wisdom of understanding the fallacies of the Rumour mill. All the stories interwoven into a moral rendition of excellence.

Excellent performance by Vasanth Ravi as the scavenger, the Innocent, the heartbroken and the forgiving lover. One of the best performances by a newbie ever. 

Apt casting of Andrea as the Anglo Indian widow in search of originality and a soul mate. 

Maybe the movie is on par  with the best of moral romances to come out of the Tamil movie industry. A refined people version of Karthik Subbaraj's Iraivi with lesser layers and more focus on the story at hand. Please promote gems like these for they'll fade into the abyss without our support! 

Pic Credits : http://img.nowrunning.com/content/movie/2013/Taramani-/stills/Taramani-Movie-04.jpg

Dunkirk

"Does irk" with the pace at times, but patiently original. Starts at Dunkirk, France, at the time of World War II, the British troops sent in the defence of France are surrounded by the Germans in Land combat. Evacuation plans are on to rescue these troops.

The land mass of Dunkirk, France and Dover, Great Britain are separated by a meagre distance of 55 nautical miles. But as the adage goes “So near yet so far”, the narrative harps upon the painful, nerve wrecking and heart-wrenching operation of the evacuation of soldiers.   Tragedy has befallen on some and  

Explained in a format of The Land( The mole as Nolan puts it), The Sea and The Air, it explains the modus operandi of the mission evacuation and the tragedy laden path to safe return.

The narrative includes; shell shocked Briton soldiers, cowardliness as an aftermath of combat, the sinking of the Destroyer and Vanquisher (The armed rescue ships from Britain), Oil spills annihilating humanity while seasoned with a spark, the mole where the ships are to be boarded, German Air Juggernauts -lock and load, fire and vanquish, bombing away to destruction, teenager aiming at a name, Shell shocked Soldiers running toward the sight of life like a can of crabs trying to outpace another to escape the clutches of death, Civilians Ships enlisted to evacuate,  Civilians with a modicum of duty sailing to Dunkirk to do their bit in salvaging what is left of the soldiers, a humanitarian Briton rescuing a French using camouflage, the liberation of rescue, air superiority of the Royal Airforce over the German bombers, the sacrifice of a pilot who saves Britain and lands in enemy territory to be imprisoned, Men abandoning life for duty and becoming war prisoners, the guilt of the soldiers abandoning duty and returning homeland to shame, a rapturous welcome to the returning in homeland, All in a package of reality without an ounce of melodrama.

The Hans BGM sets the scene, and at times irately. The movie has more to do with visuals than acting.

Captures true emotions at play captured through the vision of a genius. But reality always requires patience, as the mind has been numbed and seasoned to expect average melodrama played to our wants. If one appreciates reality without expecting mind-blowing overtures of the stereotype, he would sense the emotion and thoughts at play captured vividly without the intervention of commerciality.

Pic Courtesy:https://www.amazon.com/Dunkirk-Miracle-Deliverance-David-Boyle

Kaabil

An aesthetically pleasing couple who are vision impaired, a set of thugs waiting to violate the beautiful, aftermath of violation, a separation, ineffective and clueless police, revenge drama, victory be unto the blind.  

Above is a succinct depiction of a mediocre melodrama , which even includes a dance sequence by Hrithik and Co, the cinematography is at times picturesque. The plot is highly predictable but the execution is decent. Hrithik has done well, but he deserves much better. Yami Gautham plays the girl who smiles too much while happy and thinks too little while troubled. 

After a series of horrendous scripts, Hrithik chooses to continue to bemuse us with his ability to do the mediocre. Though this one is better in execution than the last few. In a hero centric movie, this commercially catered cinema will succeed through sheer mediocrity catered to masses. A one time watch for Hrithik, but a tale that renders the viewers blind owing to its script. 

Pic courtesy

https://www.2free2.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Kaabil-songs-mp3-download.jpg

Ae dil hai mushkil

A divorced poetess, a heart broken girl looking for friendship but not love and a Casanova who has failed in love, come together to dance to the memoirs of Karan Johar. It's a porridge of old Hindi songs enjoyed by youth supposedly and  vintage shayaris that end up confusing the normal.

I'm neither faulting the  shayaris nor the songs, hope one gets the essence. That is - Love is a poisoned chalice, while one is drunk with friendship, people can have either and not both. 

Ash the drunk poetess, Anushka the Confucius, Ranbir the confused . The most befitting summary of this movie can be  extracted from the breakup song - it's music in our heads which outsiders are supposed to interpret as chaos :)

Anushka has done justice to her role, Ranbir is the most befitting cast for this script and Aishwarya wants to reintroduce herself with the swerve of a seductress . 

The first half is fun and frolic. A one month Fling, heartwarming love / friendship, marriage of the loved, heart wrenching failure of the lover. 

Second half continues to enthral you with The poetess(Ash) being seduced by a failed Casanova(Ranbir), they hang out and within one another, the poetess falls in love, while Ranbir the lover finds solace in coitus (profanity intended) in order to distract himself from his heart. One fine day the married Confucius (Anushka) returns to see her so called friend ( Ranbir ) spoiled in the home comforts of a seductive poetess. The latter realises she can never be loved by Casanova. She breaks up with him, while he rekindles his love and reminds Confucius of the same. 

In the meanwhile, as a prelude Ranbir likes to sing , as an interlude he sings quite well as he has sorrow in his heart and voice that can convey his love, it seems. He becomes a singer. 

One fine day Karan saw the first cut of this movie and couldn't cry enough so he had to script cancer onto it. Just so that he could eek out those droplets of sadness from your eye sockets. 

Thus the Climax nears, supposed to be followed by Mohabbataen tears, as death by cancer nears :) Who dies ? Please watch as I can't be more sarcastic as I'm feeling sleepy. 

I have used the word Confucius because - he was known as a philosopher with strong morals like the highly moral and principled  Anushka's Character , who perfectly knows the difference between friendship and love that only the scriptures authored by Karan Johar  could have told :) 

Pic courtesy - Wikipedia