I recently went for the Tamil movie "Kalloori" directed by Balaji Shakthivel. I entered the theater thinking that it will be yet another movie about college. It had all the elements like friendship and love which you can expect in a Tamil movie which is based on college life. The climax was a shocker, we didn't expect the movie to end this way. The director has portrayed the bus burning incident that happened 4 years back in Dharmapuri when three of the student lost their precious life.
I have seen movies that portray real life incidents (sufferings) or the internal problem of people in a particular society (for e.g., No Man's Land , Paradise Now, Kannathil Muthamittal, etc..). Most of the people in the world are not aware of these kind of sufferings that's happening every moment in some part of the world.
Directors from all over the world have started to show the "real" situation in which people around the world has suffered ( Schindler's list, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond) or suffering (Paradise Now, No Man's Land). Cinema is a powerful media where you can send powerful message to people but unfortunately Indian directors are far behind in this kind of sensitive subject. All the producers and directors want to portray a hero as a larger than life hero and pocket millions. The actors also expect the same from the directors, they don't want to portray sensitive things, they want to enhance their image in front of their fans.
Its high time our actors and directors turn to the social issues plaguing our society. India is the second largest movie producer in the world and most of the movies that are started are not finished and some of the movies are finished with heavy financial backing (and with no story) and only the actors and directors are benefited by this and not the society.
The day after watching kalloori, the 3 accused in the Dharmapuri were sentenced to death (The sentence was nothing to do with the movie) and I thought it was perfect to end this way. Alas, today the court have stayed the sentence. Like the ending of the movie, we will never know if the accused will be brought to justice.
Directors like Vittoria De Sica, Kieslowski, Fellini, Satyajith Ray were daring enough to show the "real" human conditions and emotions. Will we ever see a period like that in Tamil Nadu if not in India? Thats a question for which we will never know when we will find answers.
"The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing." -- Hany Abu-Assad
I have seen movies that portray real life incidents (sufferings) or the internal problem of people in a particular society (for e.g., No Man's Land , Paradise Now, Kannathil Muthamittal, etc..). Most of the people in the world are not aware of these kind of sufferings that's happening every moment in some part of the world.
Directors from all over the world have started to show the "real" situation in which people around the world has suffered ( Schindler's list, Hotel Rwanda, Blood Diamond) or suffering (Paradise Now, No Man's Land). Cinema is a powerful media where you can send powerful message to people but unfortunately Indian directors are far behind in this kind of sensitive subject. All the producers and directors want to portray a hero as a larger than life hero and pocket millions. The actors also expect the same from the directors, they don't want to portray sensitive things, they want to enhance their image in front of their fans.
Its high time our actors and directors turn to the social issues plaguing our society. India is the second largest movie producer in the world and most of the movies that are started are not finished and some of the movies are finished with heavy financial backing (and with no story) and only the actors and directors are benefited by this and not the society.
The day after watching kalloori, the 3 accused in the Dharmapuri were sentenced to death (The sentence was nothing to do with the movie) and I thought it was perfect to end this way. Alas, today the court have stayed the sentence. Like the ending of the movie, we will never know if the accused will be brought to justice.
Directors like Vittoria De Sica, Kieslowski, Fellini, Satyajith Ray were daring enough to show the "real" human conditions and emotions. Will we ever see a period like that in Tamil Nadu if not in India? Thats a question for which we will never know when we will find answers.
"The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing." -- Hany Abu-Assad
5 comments:
I have an opinion that movies should be a reflection of our life and they must also comment on the social happenings to some extent. These Kind of movies are becoming rare, but Kallori defied the trend.
Balaji Sakthivel's interest over social problems was shown in his first movie Samurai, but in this movie he showed real character by having such a climax. One more thing which I liked about the movie was the subtle portraying of love between Muthu and Shobana. These kind of unsaid love can be seen more in our day to day lives, but they very rarely find a mention in Movies.
Certainly Kallori ranks among some of the best Tamil movie I have ever seen.
i agree that movies must be worth the buck paid and must appeal to showcasing Reality but do we as an audience accept mature cinema?? take for instance an "anbe sivam" or "Vishwa tulasi" these are films that must've stirred audiences as if they were socially inclined but the films fell flat on the box office!
You should have guts to show the reality. Kieslowski and Zulawski moved from Poland and made movies in France because they tried to show the travails of common man in their country
padam sema reality... the reality element is the most to note and appreciate.. a very good addition to tamil movies.. no punch dialogues, no colours, no rowdies, no kutthu songs, no overactions, based on a true story, a daring climax.. sooper appu
and of course, no vivek and chinni jayanth as college students, no college election wars, no extra dummy-pieces, no lovangee overloads, no veNNira aadai moorthy as professor, no tea kadai arattai, no aunty mania, no prakashraj and co, no paper rockets...
reality comes as fresh as that in this movie... somethin we all were starvin to see in tamil movies...
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