Ratnam the master, is back in action with his steamy, racy, thought-provokingly built film. As such Ratnam has finally thrown away his slowly-built narrative style and plunges into making a film which is so powerful that it amazes one with its fast screenplay. With ’Aaiydha Ezhuthu’, Ratnam heads towards yet another direction, he plunges himself into an energetic, racy movie but with his trademark maturity, content and logic intact. The movie is racy ....agreed, but nowhere does it stoop to low levels of cheap masalic film making.
The film defies the basic structure of film making, and it straightly takes the viewer into the pivotal incident that happens on the Napier bridge in the opening itself and from there on it spirals down and forth to build the three lead characters and the path which leads each one of them to the incident. The whole narrative style is not exactly a new one, as such Ratnam has polished his ’Alaipayuthey’ narrative style and has used it here, only thing he has filled the same structure with a racily built screenplay which fuses three different stories together.
The tactfully structured narrative, spirals around in an unpredictable fashion and builds each character in flashback structure and their associated happenings in a remarkably engineered screenplay, so the viewers take some time to gulp down the happenings on screen. A normal viewer may be confused as the incidents that happen in one track looks incomplete and vague and then it gets complete when the other track gets its turn onscreen.
Ratnam’s basic theme in the film has a strong political strain to it, Ratnam insists that today’s youth should plunge into politics to clean it rather than just remaining a mute spectator. He justifies it through the film but maintains plausibility throughout within the constraints of commercial cinema, unlike the other politically themed movies which portray some illogical, impractical and implausible solutions to today’s social problems.
Ratnam’s protagonists in the film are three, Michael Vasanth called as Mike (played by Surya), a revolutionary, brilliant optimistic student who is the student chairman of his college(Madras University), Inba sekar called as Inba(played by Madhavan), a street thug, who is absolutely unpredictable, violent and money thirsty, Arjun (played by Siddharth) is a typical yuppie who dreams about flying to U.S, flirts with girls and shakes his legs in those neon-lit discotheques.
The character sketching of the lead men and their love interests steals a considerable period of the movie, so that the actual hub of all the happenings gets very little to display onscreen, the second half is dense and the all the three tracks fall in their respective places to take the viewer into yet another mindblowing incident in the climax.
The final scene doesn’t close the film in an usual fashion, rather it seeds a beginning, allowing the viewer’s imagination to take the conclusion, there lies the brilliance of the movie, again a normal viewer may find the ending abrupt. The movie defies the usual structure of finishing the opened threads, rather it highlights the main happenings and stops there.
Surya as Mike plays the character with ease, he is absolutely convincing in all the places, has remarkabe timing of dialogue delivery and is equally energetic in those meticulously designed stunts. His love interest Geethanjali called as gigi ( Esha) looks inadequate, and just manages to play her character in the very little time she gets on screen.
Madhavan as Inba , again looks odd, the man with a romantic, urban face struggles to portray the typical street thug, his grins and smiles aren’t enough authentic to justify him as the man on the streets, but his wife Sasi(Meera jasmine) does a wonderful job, the actress gets a considerable time to show her histrionic skills, she excels in her dialogue delivery and body language, we have a talented actress here in M.Jasmine.
Siddharth is adequate and does a commendable job, Trisha as Mira is again convincing as a new-age girl, she gets a considerable onscreen presence and she defineltely excels in the role given to her. The female leads aren’t just a female support to the movie, but they become a part of the romantic angles of the lead men, so the actresses have a significant role to play, not just a glamorous support like in the Hero-dominated movies.
BharathiRaja as Selva Nayagam does an amazing and mature job. He casually underplays his role and in those close up shots, his facial expressions and dialogue delivery prove 100% authentic and realistic. The supporting cast including Sriman, Janagaraj, Krishna(of 5 star fame), and Suchitra Ramadurai does a commendable job.
Art direction by Sabu cyril is both convincing and unconvincing at points, the sets of slums for Madhavan looks unrealistic at some angles (especially in ’Sandai kozhi’ song), the colour contrasts adopted in the movie are rather explicit, Madhavan’s screen presence is filled with Red throughout, whereas Surya gets green even in those jail walls, hospital walls and curtains, Siddharth’s basket ball court, the discotheque are irritatingly bluish, even Trisha comes around with blue dresses which looks pretentious and unnatural, these color contrasts would have proved brilliant if they were subtle(like in other Ratnam movies), but here it shows that Ratnam has deliberately tried to make it understandable even to the normal viewer.
The cuts and edits by Sreekar prasad needs a round of applause. Surya gets his long and neatly composed shots with less cuts, whereas Madhavan’s character gets a raw, unpredictable, rapid cuts to bring in the violent and unpredictable quality of the character. Siddharth gets bumpy, avid cut and edits to portray his youthful energy.
Sujatha’s dialogues are appropriate and adds strength to the situations and characters, but none stays with you as hard hitting one liners which Mani’s movies are so famous for.
Rahman’s songs sounded so and so in the audio, but they splendidly come alive onscreen, such a racy, upbeat movie needs such synthetically composed songs in it, and all the songs sound appropriate in the situations. Rahman’s BGM is again commendable here.
Cinematography by Ravi.K.Chandran is fantastic, it captures the mood and essence of the scenes in remarkable angles. The song ’Fanaa’ in the discotheque is stylish, ’Hey good bye nanba’ is again pleasant and surprising in its visuals, ’Dol dol’ is a track used for conveying Madhavan’s business climb up, and it is remarkably shot, the sound track is absolutely appropriate here, and now one realises the purpose of composing it that way.’Sandai kozhi’ is filled with hugs and kisses, ’Nenjamellam’ is used as a bit piece of background song, ’Jana gana mana’ with its visuals and soundtrack added with the amazing lyrics of Vairamuthu generates the necessary energy before the climax.
The climax is again a meticulously designed racy stunt, Vikram Dharma the stunt director, very carefully adds a bit of exaggeration here and there to the otherwise realistic stunts, the added exaggeration proves energetic but mature, and it pulls the viewer to the edge of the seats. The specials effects look authentic and adequate.