What do U do when U make a gem of a movie like Kannathil Muthamittal and the audience turns it down? Won’t U feel desperate to prove that U can give a hit again? and this situation can get into the nerves of even a master like Maniratnam.
Aayitha Ezhuthu is a letter in Tamil resembling 3 dots and here it symbolises the 3 main characters in the movie.
Dot 1: Inba(Madhavan) and Sasi(Meera Jasmine) are a couple who fight at the drop of a hat. He hurts her, hits her, but they both cannot live without each other. Inba is a man with a heart of stone. Madhavan has done a good job. His body language shows the amount of home work he has done. The only weak spot is his accent which is still too anglicised to pass of as local dialect. Hez used as a hitman by a politician played by director Bharathiraja.
Bharathiraja essays his role to perfection, his vocal chords convey exactly what the role demands.
Meera Jasmine gets a chance to prove her histronics. The restaurant scene where she bursts out laughing with food in her mouth is enough to prove her natural acting skills. Hope others too use her properly instead of using her just as a doll.
Dot 2: Michael(Surya) and Gitanjali(Isha deol) have known each other from childhood. Michael is a modern day Che Guevara. He believes in science and violence. Hez a student leader who wants to clean up his own land. He even turns down a scholarship to do research in America. He believes in chromosomes and phermones but doesnt believe in marriage. Surya has done his best to portray this tough role but the problem is the audience of today. They can’t identify with student politics and Che Guevara. Isha deol is the only misfit in the film. Since Sync sound has been used instead of dubbing, she just falters at each and every frame.
Dot 3: Arjun(Siddharth) and Mira(Trisha) are the youth of today. They happen to meet at a disco. Arjun’s dad wants him to join Civil Services whereas his eyes are fixed on the U.S of A. Mira is about to get married to a wealthy groom. Till then, they decide to hang out together but the inevitable happens.. The ’’goodbye nanba’’ song picturised on this young couple proves again that Mani has got no equals in terms of visualisation. The way he has transformed a dull beach with no props or clean sand, only with the froth of the waves and the trolley of Ravi.K.Chandran’s camera is magical.
All the 3 stories have been carefully interwoven, till they bump into each other everythin is perfect.
All the 3 dots intersect on Napier bridge and thier lives change irreversibly. Thats what the promos for the movie said! but sadly only the life of Arjun takes a turn. This is where the screenplay fails. After that things happen too fast and end soon.
Well even then as usual all the ingredients of a Maniratnam Movie are all there. Sujatha’s dialogues are crisp as usual. For the first time Ar.Rehman’s background score remains as the BACKGROUND music instead of becoming the FOREGROUND music. Special mention should be made about the fight sequences. Don’t know whether u need to congratulate VIKRAM Dharma for that or the Computer Graphics used. Digital technology has been used in many scenes in a subtle way so that a normal eye cannot differentiate between the real and the artificial. When will other directors understand that Graphics is something that should be used to enhance a scene rather than use it just for the heck of it. (will somebody plz forward this page to Dir. Shankar)