Mani Ratnam’s Mouna Ragam(1986) deals with arrange marriage issues. Mouna Ragam is what India’s arrange marriage institution is all about and prime example of why Indian marriages last forever despite husband-wife’s differences. It’s story of troubled marriage of free-spirited girl and well-behaved guy against her wishes and how they overcome their marital problems with love, mutual understanding, and importance of marital life.
Story
Divya(Revathi) is young college girl lives with her family(parents, two young sister, brother, and sister-in-law) in Madras. While she still wants to do study, her family wants her to marry and settles down. After knowing groom prospect will be visiting her house at evening, Divya decides to hang out with friends up until late night so she doesn’t have to face groom. When she gets home at night, on her horror, she is surprised to see prospect Chandrakumar(Mohan). After initial conversations, Chandrakumar gets agreed to marry Divya. After prospect left, she refuses to marry him but later seeing her dad having heart attack because of her refusal of marriage, she agrees for wedding.
After being forced into arranged marriage, Divya shifts to Delhi with her husband. She opposes husband’s advances and during heated conversations, she asks for the divorce. Chandrakumar purchases two gifts for Divya - one silver anklets and another divorce paper. One of the reason for divorce was she already loved once a guy named Manohar(Karthik) in college and even though he is dead, her heart is no longer with her. After listening Divya’s confession, Chandrakumar asks Divya to choose one of them and whatever she chooses, he will accept. Divya, who doesn’t have heart on her forced marriage, chooses divorce paper.
Next day, when Chandrakumar and Divya meets tamil lawyer, she tells couple that they can’t get divorce according to Indian law. Since they married only for 7 days, they have to wait for 1 year before divorce gets processed. Same lawyer advices Divya to reconsider her position and describe the importance of the successful married life. After filing for divorce, they decide to stay in separate rooms under same roof without any marital relationships.
After self-introspection and deeply thought about what lawyer said, initially Divya ease out her anger on forced marriage and slowly and slowly tries to understand marital relationships. One incident after another throughout the year changes her thoughts about Chandrakumar. She starts understanding values of the marriage, and starts respecting and changes her heart for Chandrakumar.
Will Divya and Chandrakumar decide to go ahead with divorce or stay together? Will Divya acknowledge her change of heart for her husband? Will Chandrakumar refuse to accept Divya’s advances after her initial refusal?
Analysis
Mouna Ragam is subtle, tender, and poetic magic talking about gentle husband-wife relationships in arrange marriages. The way film handles the complex relationships between the husband and wife in simplistic way leaves everlasting effect on viewer’s psyche.
Mouna Ragam is indeed Mani’s classic poem on post marital relationships. The way things unfolded during pre-marriage chat and post-marriage scenes, first Revathi opposing Mohan’s advances before singing up for divorce and Revathi’s makes up scenes after divorce is highlights of this film. Even though overall screenplay is poetic, it does have its share of flaws. Some of the scenes like the way Mohan behaves when Revathi’s parents visits them in Delhi, Mani is successful sending his points to the viewers that why he was behaving like that but some of the scenes when Mohan repeats what Revathi has done to him in post-divorce scenes(making his own coffee) and pre-climax scenes(bugs are crawling) mars overall effects of the screenplay.
Mouna Ragam is full of memorable scenes - be it Revathi and Mohan’s first meeting and Revathi’s outburst on arranged marriage system or Revathi’s insults of her husband’s advances or Revathi’s demand for divorce or Mohan’s two gifts - anklets and divorce paper or Revathi’s parents visit to her Delhi house, or of course climax sequences of their acknowledgement of feeling for each other.
Mani Ratnam movies are known for its share of cliches. Just like Rajkapoor, he is notorious for making movies for both masses and critics and that pushes him to weave some unusual scenes in his films be it Geetanjali, Anjali, Bombay, or Dil se. Mouna Ragam is also one of them - Just take a look at the scene when Karthik parking his bike in front of public transportation bus creating traffic jam. Another scene when Karthik gets killed, truck hitting police car and accidental shooting seems uneven and poorly edited. Although comedic episodes of Mohan’s Sardarji friend and his Tamil boss seems funny at times, Mouna Ragam could have been more effective without them.
As far as acting, even though it’s starred by two of Tamil cinema’s stars, Mohan and Karthik, its out and out Revathi’s show. Revathi as free-spirited, rebellious, and tradition-defiance Divya is power player of this film. Some of the scenes like when she rejects her husband’s advances and links it to the feelings of an insects crawl or her playing with bangles when family deciding fate of her marriage are showcase of her acting prowess. Her agony for passionate lost love and unwanted marital life is brilliantly done throughout the movie. As far as male performances, Mohan as Revathi’s soft-spoken husband is most heartfelt character in the film. Karthik as Revathi’s revolutionist boyfriend is defiant, energetic and leaves great impact in half an hour screen appearance.
If Mani’s subtle touch and treatment on Mouna Ragam’s story and Revathi’s powerhouse performance are main pillars of the movie, Illyaraja’s evergreen background score and brilliant soundtracks are main soul of this classic. Haunting background score gets played whenever Revathi and Mohan on the screen bring out many nuances of couple’s emotions throughout the development of the story. Even though I don’t understand Tamil, all soundtracks, Nilavae Vaa by S. P. Balasubrahmanyam, Mandram Vandaa by SPB, Chinna Chinna by S. Janaki, Oho Megam by S. Janak, and Panivizhum Iravu by S. Janaki and SPB are haunting. They say music and melody sees no boundary and barrier of language and Mouna Ragam’s soundtracks proves that saying. If Chinna Chinna is rare example of beautiful combination of melody, vocal, and musical instruments then Nilaave Vaa is memorable for its brilliant cinematography with multiple mirrors reflecting Mohan and watery Revathi.
Conclusion
Mani Ratnam heralded as one of the greatest filmmaker of India and Mouna Ragam considered as one of his greatest masterpiece. As I said earlier throughout my review, I wouldn’t consider Mouna Ragam as his best of the bests because of certain flaws, its still one of the rare masterpieces of India talks about arrange marriages. If you ignore typical Mani Ratnam cliches then its great movie otherwise it’s an average affair. Overall, if you put together story, acting, screenplay, music, background score, and cinematography, its one of the most subtle movie India ever produced. It’s a must see for Mani Ratnam’s die-hard fan.