Slices of south - South of Nowhere

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Pudhupettai – An annal of Madras rowdism – Movie Review

There is a belief among certain film creators that movies are a means of recording culture, customs, behaviours, languages and social patterns. I believe Selvaraghavan has recorded Madras rowdism to fine depths through this movie than what we have seen so far in kollywood. A special congrats and also thanks to Selvaraghavan on this aspect.
Pudhupettai is a movie that traverses a slice of the life of “Kokki” Kumar, where he gets his path in rowdism steady and finds the road of his life. There isn’t any concrete story as such but the movie holds steady the subject it has taken.
There are quite some cinematic moments with loud drama, especially in the second half, but the good mix of realism backed by the research gone behind, is evident on scre
en. One thing is for sure - this movie doesn’t have any similarity in scenes with the “rowdy mela” of tamil movies currently doing rounds. That alone deserves applause for Selva but the same factor might work against the commercial endurance of the movie. (We’ve seen “Chithiram Pesuthadi”, “Pattiyal”, “Kokki”, “Thalainagaram” to name a few, in not very past!).
The music by Yuvan works extremely well and actually adds pace to the otherwise slowly narrated movie. The songs are already chartbusters and not routine. There needs to be mentioned the special efforts of choreographer, who has taken care that all the dances, though dappanguthus have been differentiated to the beats of Yuvan.
A special mention is needed for Arvind Krishna who has used super-35 camera superbly and has really added special impact elevating quite a few frames. The close-up shots, colour tones and rapid movements add energy to the movie overall.
On the acting department, in the author-backed role,
protagonist Dhanush has ample scope to perform and he has grabbed it with both hands. There are few scenes where a carry-over from “Kadhal Kondein” can be felt but still there are many other scenes where he has differentiated and established himself. He should reduce the loudness in voice in a few places. But he has made the audience believe that a rowdy can exist in such a thin skeletal frame and that speaks a lot about his performance. Sneha has the next best role of a prostitute who also lends shoulders the protagonist to quite some distance. In many places, just through facial expressions she narrates and takes forward the story in a calm and assured way. Sonia Agarwal does not have much to do. The fellow-rowdies, minister, politicians and whoever comes on screen for more than 30 seconds register their faces well. Almost blemishless on the performance front by all. A special pat for the actors who played minister Thamilvendan, Anbarasu and Moorthi.
The first half of the movie breezes through with quite a few memorable scenes and focuses on the upward career graph of the protagonist. The second half focuses on both personal and career front and here’s where cinematic drama comes in good dose. The loudness, exaggeration and over-indulgence increases aplenty as the movie moves towards the climax. But still there are quite a few positives to take from there. Politics handshaking with rowdism, operational rowdism in day-to-day life has been touched upon pretty well on both halves of the movie.
Pudhupettai is certainly not a perfect movie. Please note - some minor spoilers in this paragraph. The uniform way in which all rowdies across gangs use mainly swords as their weapon doesn’t suit the otherwise well-researched script. The protagonist never gains sympathy and hence the scenes of his child being caught with the enemy gang and the melodrama after it doesn’t sink at all. Sonia Agarwal’s character either should’ve just been touched upon or should’ve been the main focus of the movie. But being neither, the sequence looks “inserted” and does not impress. The method of protagonist telling the story as though through a monoact is certainly a nice idea and helps the movie jump forward in some places. But it misleads to think that he is mentally affected and unstable. The role of police could have also been touched upon better as they should be a major factor in the operational aspect of this business. The “Godfather” act, where the protagonist s
its in office while his aides do the necessary work all across to bring change of status to the protagonist overnight could’ve been a bit more original.
The climax may not be welcomed by one and all but I certainly liked it. That’s the way it is and why not?
It is certainly different and better than “Pattiyal”, which was quite a bit superficial, and “Chithiram Pesuthadi”, which was not all that impressive - overall, especially in depicting the nuts and bolts of Chennai rowdism. Selva has certainly improved on his directing skills in quite a few places but has taken a couple of steps back in screenplay department.
Overall, do go and watch it – for the departments of direction, cinematography, music, acting and research (story sequences) – in that order with negligible points to differentiate.

5 Comments:

  • Good review. I have seen some negative reviews also, so this is a good balanced review.

    By Blogger nivas, at May 27, 2006 12:12 PM  

  • Thanks Nivas. I was sceptical about the movie before I went for it. Mainly bcoz of the misleading review from Sify (unusual). Anyhow, am happy that it was "Paisa Vasool"...

    By Blogger Bart, at May 28, 2006 2:10 AM  

  • Imperfect human makes imperfect movie which this particular imperfect human liked!

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at May 28, 2006 4:21 AM  

  • Tamizha, an imperfect comment, though I welcome it :) I do accept nobody is perfect...

    By Blogger Bart, at May 28, 2006 7:47 PM  

  • Super site!
    prilosec
    http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/0000034f.htm?prilosec
    [url=http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/0000034f.htm?prilosec]prilosec[/url]
    levaquin
    http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/00000350.htm?levaquin
    [url=http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/00000350.htm?levaquin]levaquin[/url]
    fosamax
    http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/00000351.htm?fosamax
    [url=http://www.csusm.edu/ScienceAndSociety/_LBST301-99/00000351.htm?fosamax]fosamax[/url]
    Best wishes.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at February 23, 2007 1:23 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home