My first two blogs were rants indeed, and i needed to neutralize with a positive comment. That's why i chose to review the film Polladhavan released in 2007, starring Dhanush, Kishore, Daniel Balaji and others. The film was a box-office success, and the success was mainly attributed to the realism in portrayals by Dhanush, and his family. People were fascinated by the lack of overdone fight sequences, and too much of sentimentality. In short, people felt it was a mirror image of today's youth.
But i think otherwise, for i felt that the film was unbelievably surreal, with a lot of darkness induced in the camera work, that made it stand out of movies ever released in Kollywood. It is, as far as i know, the only movie before Anjaathe, that used the darkness of hues to maximum effect, shooting a lot of night sequences, and even the most romantic portion of the movie, in the absence of lights.
The effort of everyone was commendable, if not exemplary. Sure the film had its negatives, for instance, the heroine, and the songs, which hamper the overall masculine touch of the movie, with the muscles being the rugged Daniel Balaji, and the muscular Dhanush, sporting a four-pack for a change. But he doesn't flaunt it - A level of maturity which makes me frown at SRK, and Hrithik...
The camera, the music (Background score) and the screenplay were majestic really. The use of morph shots to change the perspective of narration had a tint of City of god, but the local flavour of the movie was well maintained. The direction was fantastic, unbelievable work from a debutant director, Vetri Maaran. The lesser amount of dialogues in it, make the movie racy, and the decrease in fight sequences (only two) is a touch of finesse...
All i can say is that we can expect a lot more from the cast and the crew, who say they are planning to recombine. Polladhavan for me, is a film that reflects the post-modern thoughts of the director, who doesn't want his film to be the usual piece of shit tamil films are. A rebel with a cause.
As a reviewer, i would give Polladhavan 4 stars out of five, for screenplay, direction, camera, a real performance from a less speaking Dhanush, and an extraordinarily creepy Daniel Balaji.
2 comments:
I should agree with you on most of the points. But, how could you say its surreal ? are referring to the visuals alone, dude ?
I think, the movie still have to go thru some trimming process to cut some slack..yeah the heroine and songs does come under that category..But, the distributors are fuckin' demanding on these areas..you have got adjust :)
Tamil film industry is producer-oriented,and the director has no free hand. So, you have to give the man credit for bringing up such a dark movie (And i mean dark!).
I say surreal as anything that we cannot be expecting to happen in reality is surreal. Yes, i'm referring to the visuals, and some extent to the exaggeration in the ploy of switching lights on and off, and also to the hero moving so quickly when the lights go, and he corners the villain to a drain. But overall, polladhavan is to me, a great new attempt.
And also bro, i say post-modern, cause though Vetri is just modern, just because the others are still ancient, he surely has to be considered post modern. You geddit???
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