Kandhaswamy, Pasanga, Saroja

கந்தசுவாமி - முடியலடா சாமி!
Apparently all main actors are falling into a rut and dishing out the worst movie of their career. Rajini came out with Kuselan. I thought it was the worst movie I saw in some time. Then of all the people Kamal came out with something like Dasavatharam. After hitting the forehead with a 'enna koduma kamal idhu..' I thought the worst was over. Then Vikram says I am also in the race. Everybody said his previous movie Bheema was pathetic and gay etc. I thought it was ok and not too bad. So to silence the few people who actually liked the movie he has now acted in Kandhaswamy.

The movie has a storyline typical of Shankar's movies. Kandhawamy is a CBI officer. He raids many corrupt and rich people and somehow syphons the money to good use. Seriously I don't remember how he does it. The movie was so bad with so many distractions I couldn't even remember what the exact story was.

The movie opens with a scene in Thiruporur outside a Lord Murugan (Kandhaswamy) temple where a woman needs money for some surgery. She writes on a piece of paper and ties it on the branch of a sacred tree. Next day morning she finds a bag of money in her home. Scared, the woman takes it to the police station where the apparently corrupt Inspector (Mansur Ali Khan) seizes it for himself. In the night, when Mansur is drunk and getting ready to sleep Kandhaswamy makes his entrance. He is dressed like a super hero and makes a grand entrance through the roof. He has the feathers of the Cock (Seval) which is the flag of Lord Muruga. So here is our super hero with a cape and stuff and few cock feathers on his head. The funniest thing is his mannerisms. He maybe the cock-man or whatever but that doesn't mean he has to act so cocky. Vikram imitates the cock as he chases Mansur Ali Khan around the room. He moves his head sideways, tilts it and then does a full throated crowing. The BGM was high adrenaline but the scene was so out of sync with it I couldn't suppress my laughter. I knew that moment that the movie is going to be a riot. Anyways, so Kandhaswamy goes about doing good for people as the cock-man and raids rich people as the CBI man. Shriya is the daughter of Ashish Vidyarthi who gets raided by Kandhaswamy. Ashish acts as if he gets paralyzed when his house is raided. Shriya promises to seek revenge and pretends to love Kandhaswamy.

Anyways, no point on talking about what happens for the rest of the movie because it is all so muddled up. Devi Sri Prasad did some decent numbers and the picturizations were decent. Other than that nothing much to remember from the movie except Shriya's omnipresent cleavage. Like a kitten, she tries to purr and rub againt the feet of the audience to seek attention all through the movie but only ends up irritating them instead. Also, I have no idea how long the movie was. I think it was like an interminable 3.5hours or something! What the hell.

I discovered my extraordinary ability to even tolerate some of Vijay's movies like Aadhi and Pokkiri in recent times. Even I was not able to sit through this trash. And I paid $20 for the tickets. Talk about being swindled.

பசங்க - Cute, realistic, childish and mature
This is a movie set in a small village in Pudukottai district called Virachilai (which is the native village of the debutant director of the movie, Pandiaraj). It shows the world from a child's point and how they perceive it. Anbukarasu is a new kid in the village's school. His father moved there recently due to many reasons which include cost of living, a disgruntled wife etc. Anbukarasu is a bright kid. He is the typical mundhirikottai of the class. Jeeva is the typical backbencher with two aides Kuzhandhaivelu aka Pakada and Kuttimani. The movie is about the friction between Anbukarasu and Jeeva, how their families go on the warpath because of them and how they end up together. The story has a gentle love story that is the trend nowadays ala Sasikumar (who is incidentally the producer of this movie).

It is a Director's movie. Pandiaraj has absolutely loved what he was doing and we can clearly see his fine touches in the movie. For example, the scene where the warring family heads slowly mellow down. There is a friction between them even though they sit down to talk(at 2mins in this video). They sit with their legs crossed in a sign of dominance between two alpha males. But as they begin to talk freely and the barrier breaks down they both uncross their legs and face each other. It is a very simple scene but I thought it meant a 1000 words. There are many such nuances in his direction. The way he has captured the rural life, the activities of kids in school, their dialect, the kind of games they play in free time etc are all etched in the movie. Pandiaraj has written the dialogues too. A friend of mine said 'Anubavichu ezhudhirkaan da'. That sums up the effort.

James Vasanthan is brilliant. He doesn't compplicate his works too much. He is not AR Rahman and is never going to compose songs like Harris Jayaraj. But he is brilliant. He proved the doubters that Subramaniyapuram is not a chance hit. His song Oru Vekkam is of the same genre as Kangal Irandaal and one cannot be blamed for drawing comparisons between the two. But his BGMs are equally amazing. He has this flair of using some Ilayaraja's blues in certain love scenes that are a bit comic yet effective. And his own pieces are exceptional too. For example, there is a violin piece that comes in 3 different instances. The first time is when Anbukarasu wants to hit Jeeva after being humiliated in front of the entire class. The music starts off slowly and gathers pace along with Anbukarasu's anger(at 3:50 of this video). The same bit is used differently when Anbukarasu's father apologizes to his wife thus bringing peace and relief to the family (5:55 of this video).
A must watch. Hopefully, movies like these encourage other people to attempt and veer away from love centric storylines.

P.S: I wanted to write a review on Saroja too but it is not relatively new. Anyways, I loved the movie. Another casual appearing movie taken with some serious intent from Venkat Prabu. Interesting characterizations and timely comedy scenes liven up the movie. Makes me eagerly wait for their next venture Goa.