His entry did not give a boom to the industry, but slowly he began to create a style of his own. Maniratnam is from a family of veteran film makers of Tamil and Hindi. Son of Venus Rathnam, he is a MBA grauate . Never assistant to anyone, he ventured into film making with ’Pallavi Anupallavi’ in Kannada, as Kannada films were of a different genre then, with experimental and parallel films.
The film starred young Anil Kapoor and Lakshmi with cinematography by Balu Mahendra and music by Ilayaraja. It should be noted that Balu Mahendra was the cinematographer for many debut directors like Bharathan (Prayanam), Mahendran (Mullum Malarum) and many others. And the next film he directed was ’Unaru’ , in Malayalam, a typical I.V.Sasi style film with Damodaran Master as the script writer. Starring Mohanlal and Sukumaran , the story was woven around labour union politics around Kerala, particularly Kochi Harbour. The cinematographer this time was Ramachandra Babu, the elder brother of Ravi K.Chandran and the music was by the Maestro.
Only his third film was made in his mother tongue Tamil -’Pagal Nilavu’ Produced by the son of another Venus partner Govindharajan, Thiagarajan, this film was an average commercial film, but defenitely with a different note and Ramachandrababu was the cinematographer. This film should be taken as a trailer to Nayagan, which he directed later. The plot was loosely based on ’The Godfather’, with a don ruling the countryside, and his sons, who are villains. The film gave a different face lift to Sathyaraj, who was doing petty villain’s roles at that time. The film also had Goundamani, the super comedian, somewhat alien to Mani’s style. ’Idayakoil’ was his next, with Mohan as the hero and Rajarajan as the cameraman. The film is still remembered, only for the great songs of Ilayaraja.
Only with his fifth film ’Mouna Ragam’, Mani began to develop a special style and class. Cinematographer P.C.Sriram’s long association began with this film. It centred around the matrimonial misunderstanding between a young couple, excellently performed by Mohan and Revathi. Karthick gave an unforgettable cameo performance as Revathi’s boyfriend. This theme had been handled by different directors before. The veteran L.V.Prasad had already directed ’Iruvar Ullam’ decades back, with Sivaji as the hero, and M.Karunanidhi, our present CM, as the scriptwriter. But Mani’s treatment was really different and Ilayaraja had done an extraordinary job.
’The Godfather’ syndrome must have affected Mani very much. ’Nayagan’ was based on it ; the hero’s character Velu Naicker was Mumbai’s don Varadaraja Mudaliar’s replica. The make up of senior Naicker was picked up from DMK leader Anbhazhagan’s face. Kamalahasan gave one of his career’s best performance for this movie. Mumbai played a crucial part in this movie, which is still a landmark in Tamil film history. Tinnu Anand, the Hindi director faced the camera, with a memorable performance. Many Hindi actors like Amrish Puri (Thalapathi), Pankaj Kapoor (Roja) and Anu Agarwal (Thiruda Thiruda) were to follow. ’Agni Nakshatram’ was his next film in which second generation stars like Prabhu and Karthick played as stepsons, pitted against each other. To justify the title, P.C.Sriram shot every second scene against sunlight, with scorching backlight adorning everyone’s face, even when they are facing each other! The climax was another irritating exercise to eyes, with blinking lights. As usual Ilayaraja contributed great music and songs, and in one of the song sequences, Prabhudeva could be seen as one of the group dancers.
Mani decided to make his next film in Telugu, and dub it into Tamil, a style which he began to adopt later. ’Geetanjali’ starred Nagarjun and Girija, as patients counting their days and fall in love. The locale was Nilgiris, with meadows and shady avenues to highlight the main characters; pathos and romance. Sriram had his field day, and the film was so cool, that whenever a door is opened, mist entered the room like a snake, thanks to dry ice! The songs were super hits even in the dubbed versions.
’Star Wars’ and ’ET’ must have affected him very much, ’Anjali’ had many scenes inspired from these films. The film was on the lines of a Hollywood musical, with children singing and dancing all through the film, with a mentally retarded child as the pratogonist. Sriram left way for Madhu Ambat, and there were complaints that the movie was mostly shot in the dark, and you will need a torch to see the film.
Rajnikanth wanted to do a film with Mani Ratnam and ’Thalapathi’ was born. The ’Karna’ episode was lifted from Mahabharatha, and Rajni was the illegitimate son of Srividya (his first heroine in Aboorva Ragangal). Malayalam superstar Mammootty was Duriyodhana, and debundant Arvind Swamy was Arjun. Santhosh Sivan was the cinematographer. As the hero’s name was Surya, a yellow tinge was given to the entire film. Rajini , even with his superstar air, was given ordinary clothes to wear. He was made to underplay the role and gave a subtle performance as a gangster who thrives to decide between friendship and blood relations. The film had a neat script and was very different from other Rajini films. Ilayaraja’s swansong with Maniratnam had lilting and soul filling music.
Ilayaraja was the reigning King of film music in those periods and every director wished he should be his music director. With a very humble background, Ilayaraja conquered the filmdom, and his name began to appear in the ads bigger than the Director. Many of the tycoons couldn’t digest this. They frantically searched for someone to replace him. The young boy Dilip, who used to play keyboard for Ilayaraja was selected. Son of a Malayalam music director Sekar, Dilip converted to Islam, changed his name to A.R.Rehman and was introduced as the music director of K.Balachandar’s home production ’Roja’ with Mani Ratnam as the director. Rehman swept the filmdom like a fresh breeze of air and became the country’s leading music director. ’Roja’ was based on a kidnap incident of an engineer by Pakistani terrorists. The story began from a south Tamil Nadu village, travelled to Kashmir and smelt patriotism. Mani’s experiments with national, religious and territorial sentiments began with this film. Camerawork was by Sivan and A.R.Rehman’s music became super hit, and most of the people from Ilayaraja’s camp dived to his camp with lyricist Vairamuthu in the lead.
Mani, it seems, must be fascinated by Kurosawa. In Thalapathi, he shot a song with Rajini dressed as a samurai, and the shots like that of Kaghemush or Ran. In ’Thiruda Thiruda’, the entire concept was based on 2 village thieves, a style reminiscent of Kurosawa’s films. The story was developed along with another wizkid Ramgopal Varma, and PC returned as the cinematographer. The entire movie was racy, pastoral and bright. The highlight of the film was two top singers S.P.Balasubramaniam and Malasya Vasudevan were cast in the roles of cops. Babri Masjid demolitions triggered Mani to make ’Bombay’. A romance between a muslim girl and a hindu boy, their marriage, Mumbai riots, Manisha Koirala and Arvind Swami- all were mixed together to make this film. Initially Rajeev Menon was opted for the role of the hero, and when he refused, he became its cinematographer.