12th Fail: A Nostalgic Pass!

What sets you apart in life?

Your skill? Your intelligence? Your background?

None of the above.

Your attitude.

That’s what prevents you from becoming the chaff that slips through the sieve of life.

"12th Fail" is another reminder of this axiom, told through the eyes of a student, Manoj Kumar Sharma (real-life), and through the milieu of IAS exams (fondly known as Civil Services exams), arguably the toughest entrance exam in India. (Some would say IIT JEE, CAT, etc., but UPSC takes the cake in my opinion for the sheer breadth and depth of what the candidate must go through).

Picture this. About 1.4 million applicants (that is 1 out of every thousand Indians) appear for the ‘Prelims,’ the first hurdle. After passing through a couple more hurdles, 'Mains' and 'Interviews,' only fewer than 1000 applicants get inducted into Civil Services. A success rate of less than 0.1%! You must be kidding!

Being a top civil servant in India is a coveted job for millions. The power and opportunity that it provides to change the course of the country is immense, and many a starry-eyed youth attempts to scale this great wall every year, and some do it multiple times (max of 6 or 9 or unlimited – depends on where you stand in the social equity table). Don’t let the number fool you. Each time you fail, you do a grueling 'Restart' from ab initio. Go back to the axiom above.

When I used to work for a Public Sector company in India in the late-80s, I could see the craze of UPSC exams amongst the trainees. They used to prepare day and night and would rattle off the number of rhinoceroses in Kaziranga National Park and at the same time argue about why Bal Thackeray was right/wrong depending on whether they got Pooris or Rotis for dinner!

****

Manoj Kumar Sharma, from one of the most backward parts of India, wants to just pass his 12th standard (A-levels) so that he can get a lowly peon’s job somewhere in his village and fails repeatedly (Title aa gaya!). But life is a crazy little thing. Through a chance encounter with a righteous officer, Manoj decides that he wants to become a police officer and sets out into the big bad world. Does he succeed in his endeavor? What did he have to go through on his journey? Watch it on the silver screen, indeed!

From a movie and screenplay perspective, "12th Fail" is highly predictable. You can almost say what would happen next after every set piece, even to the extent of who will be highlighted in a particular scene! And the sense of #3Idiots déjà vu was palpable throughout! Vidhu Vinod Chopra perhaps thought that this generation needs a 3 Idiots equivalent! 😃 Vikrant Massey as Manoj was fabulous; so was Anshumaan Pushkar as Gauri Bhaiya, the restarter.

But what really makes the movie work are two things: a) the nostalgia of competitive exams and the adrenaline that flows through the applicant's taut body, and b) the performances of some of the actors in the movie.

…where Manoj misreads a question and fails one of his attempts, the educational exasperation just hits the roof.

…where a privileged student disses a Hindi-medium multi-attempter as 'waste of resources' only to get lectured passive-aggressively by the tea-stall-owner-cum-UPSC-coach.

…where Manoj’s father wants him to give up, oh so reluctantly, the son turns it back nicely on how he learned to be stubborn from his father

…where in the final interview scene (not sure whether it followed the real one or not), how Manoj turns his weakness (being a 12th Fail) into an advantage – good writing that!

…where Manoj struggles to write about himself in 200 words within 8 mins and 20 seconds, you realize the need for the crazy preparation on all topics under the sun!

****

"12th Fail" can be watched to feel good that there is a success story from the unlikeliest of places.

"12th Fail" can be watched to feel bad about how difficult it is for the Manojes of the world to come up.

Above all, "12th Fail" can be watched to feel nostalgic and ask yourself the question, ‘What if’?

#12thFail #sriGINthoughts #reviews #Hindi #IAS #IPS #UPSC

Henry Sugar Plus Two - Sumptuous (Roald) 'Dahl Makhani'

 #sriGINthoughts #reviews #Netflix #RoaldDahl

Roald Dahl is a fascinating writer, always with a penchant for throwing unexpected twists at you. If you think Jeffrey Archer can twist a story like a spring, I have to say that he doesn't hold a candle to Mr. Dahl! His stories are dark, even the so-called children's/young adult books.

I vividly recall reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" to my children when they were young and wondered how it could be called a kids' story with all the jealous, petty, snobbish characters strutting around with a madcap like Willy Wonka. (Oh, Johnny Depp was wonderful in the movie!)

But boy! Could Dahl spin a yarn?!

Among his many stories, two stand out in my mind: "Lamb to the Slaughter" and "Man from the South." The former for the sheer ingenuity of the situation—not the protagonist, mind you—and the latter for the depiction of how humans react to desperation (the story was smartly captured in the Tamil movie "Ninaithale Inikkum")

So, when Wes Anderson, that eccentric director, put out a Dahl series on Netflix over the weekend, it was binge time. Thankfully, the three offerings are short films, with the longest being about 37 minutes, and the other two just 17 minutes each.

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar – Can you see without your eyes?

This is a positive (a rarity from Dahl) story of a rich man finding his spiritual bearings and using his special powers for the benefit of the needy, like Robin Hood. 

But the do-good part is just a footnote. What's important is, as Rahul Dravid, MSD, and others have professed, the process of getting there. 

Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Kingsley are wonderful, and the concept of dramatized-stage-read (with action in the background and foreground) was a bit unnerving initially but grew on one eventually. 

If you put your heart, mind, eyes, and whatever you want into something, you can achieve it. More importantly, that effort will awaken your inner self. It's like the #KarmaYogi in action!

The Rat Catcher – Must one become a rat to catch a rat?

A sinister, rat-like man comes to a village to catch the rodents. He speaks, walks, and behaves like a rat ("You need to think like them rats to catch them!"). He fails in his attempt but tries to impress his employers with a couple of rat tricks. He loses them completely and scurries away, just like how he came. 

A simple story, you might think. Not quite! Ralph Fiennes shines as the rat catcher. I also learned that plaster of Paris is enough to kill rats. They eat it, and moisture makes the plaster expand and congeal, depriving them of air. Rats die in no time! Oooo... I liked the allegation (?) that rat blood is used to make liquorice in the chocolate factory, and the explanation of how they make it reminded me of Willy Wonka. 

The ending with the hook of "What did the rats find nutritious to avoid eating the poison?" was delicious indeed. Pun intended. 😊

The Swan – Can you truly break free and fly?

Dahl presents one of his more bittersweet tales, delving into the theme of bullying. The narrative explores how people cope with it, seek to escape it, and believe that distance, intelligence, or silence will provide refuge. Yet, nothing truly alleviates the pain, which lingers and festers even as one matures. Once again, the stark filming technique, employing prop-like sets while narrating the story and acting simultaneously, accentuates the disquieting atmosphere characteristic of Roald Dahl's storytelling.

######

You may not like the way the stories have been told, but these are exceptional narratives worth keeping in the recesses of your mind.

Oppenheimer: Gita on Celluloid

(PC: Universal Pictures)

You are extremely skilled. You are praised as the best of the lot. You face and win many battles. You are the main ‘man’ in the biggest battle of them all, and you are proud to be ‘the one’. Then, shit happens. Self-doubt creeps in. You ponder; reach out for help. You get it and move on.

Well, do you?

The similarities between Arjuna, hero of the epic Mahabharata, and Oppenheimer, the hero of Nolan’s eponymous epic, are uncanny in many aspects - multiple spouses/girlfriends included. 😁

Well, Arjuna had the best consultant at hand, Krishna, to help him through. Here, Oppie settles for the next best thing, the printed version of the handbook.

Whether Robert Oppenheimer wins that inner battle or not is NOT the crux of the movie. What it delves into is the way to that and the process that he goes through.

You will face trials – literally and figuratively.

You will face betrayals – inner and outer.

You will face enlightenment – Krishna vs Einstein/Truman/Kitty anyone?

(PC: New Yorker)

Oppenheimer is a fascinating peek into a complex human being who wants to kill his tutor with cyanide, is multi-talented including learning Dutch in 6 weeks so as to deliver an intricate Physics lecture, makes mistakes in math, gets involved in what he believes in - communism & human rights but pulls out from not going the whole hog, is super-confident of his abilities yet fragile, holds on to the schoolboy code of camaraderie to his own detriment, has this naiveté to believe that his actions are for the greater good despite indications otherwise, and has realization kicking in and breaks down once the fruits of his actions are out of his hand…

For those who are looking for the Gita controversy… In what could be termed as a harbinger of the destruction he is to cause, he quotes ‘I am become death, the destroyer of the world’ when in bed with a nubile Jean Tatlock. That is that.

(PC: ISKCON)

But the bigger (and better) Gita moments are when he meets President Truman...

O: Mr. President, I have blood on my hands.

T: (waving a clean white handkerchief wanting him to wipe it off), Dr. Oppenheimer, do you think the people of Hiroshima are mad at you for the bomb? They are mad at ME! (But, I had to do it!)

…and when he meets Einstein by the pond, where what the great man says makes the penny drop for Oppie, setting the path for his next many years of trials and tribulations and peace.


...and when he has only one student to teach for his first course at UC Berkeley not unlike Krishna 😌

...and when a fellow scientist wants him to remove the put-on military dress and 'be himself', one did get reminded of 'vaasaamsi jeernani' Gita, 2:22 😇

Like the Greek god Prometheus, Dr. O did give the fire of atomic weapons to humankind. But the eagle which kept eating Prometheus’ liver only for it to grow the next day, was the gnawing that Dr. O had to go through day-in and day-out, seeing the nuclear proliferation with the guilt that it was his doing.

Did you need iMAX for this? Perhaps not. As some wags pointed out, except for the 20-second Trinity test, there is nothing visually spectacular in the movie, and they keep talking and talking and talking. But therein lies the irony. The movie never sagged more due to the screenplay – alternating between the worst moment of Oppie’s life – the trial to revoke his security clearance, interestingly shot in color, and perhaps the best moment of his life – the Senate hearing of Strauss where Oppie gets kind of exonerated, again interestingly shot in black-and-white.

Potential Oscars for Cillian Murphy for acting and Nolan for best adaptation from a book. 💜

A worthy movie to watch a few times. Waiting for the OTT release to appreciate the intricacies and enjoy the spread more.

#sriGINthoughts #reviews #English #Oppenheimer #BhagavadGita

 

Modern 💓 Chennai - Touching Most Parts

6. Heart Emoji

Almost a Maniratnamesque escape episode. Heroine reminded me of the ‘Cinema Paithiyam’ Jayachitra – crazy about movies and sees movies in everything and vice versa. Her approach towards love isn’t any different. Her love affairs get egg-puffed; cheated; ‘caste’d out and finally resigns to an arranged marriage only to find that the guy she gets married to is the real deal. If this reminds you of ‘Mouna Ragam’, pat yourself in the back! 😊

#LoveReelly?

5. Imaigal (Eyelids)

How would you react when today could be the last day that you can see them forever?

Behind all the glitz and materialism that pervades in our lives, there is still that axiom which lives to say: love goes beyond the end-credit of ‘…they lived happily ever after…’. Throw in the
physical problem that the protagonists encounter, you get a good Kumbakonam degree coffee. The scene where Devi and Nithya fight in the roadside… it resonated so much with us that we were like, ‘yes, this is like how we fight!’ The ending was a bit contrived but left a warm feeling, nevertheless.

#WideAngledLove

4. Margazhi (December)

Roll back the years. In an almost homage to Bharathiraja’s Alaigal Oivathillai, puppy love is celebrated sweetly in this episode. If it was Radha learning music there, it is Milton learning keyboard here. If it was the beach there, it is the hilltop here. You get the drift. But the poetic depiction is palpable, and one could almost feel Jazmine’s happiness as her first love blossoms. Use of Raja’s ‘Poove Sempoove’ song and its Western equivalent in that piano scene was shiok!

#EasyNotes

3. Ninaivo Oru Paravai (Memory is but a bird)

It is a film or a meta-film. You can consider it either way and end up tearing your hair. 😉

Jokes apart, the film succeeds in showing the how a situationship (?!) can turn into a relationship and then can breakup over a trivial matter (good direction of not telling you what the breakup was over) only to be put back on track by quirk of fate. I like the concept of ‘World got created last Thursday and all the earlier memories were pumped into us to kind of give a sense of continuum.’ A delicious way of looking at the short duration of life and shorter duration of love/relationship within it. Thiagarajan Kumararaja has dealt with the treatment of memories quite adeptly including the use of long corridors and the appropriate colour combination – pleasant in gold and sad in red… There are a number of Super Deluxe memories – lighting, camera angles, sets etc. Pardonable. Ilayaraja’s music in this segment is epic. One cannot stop wondering how an octogenarian can swing so much pep, vigour and relevance into the proceedings! Salute!

Of course, if your friend walks in with a red star on the back of his palm, you know what it means! 😉

#LoopyMemories

2. Lalagunda* Bommaigal (Lalagunda Dolls)

Talks about the fact that we are all puppets of destiny, and the strings are held by a mysterious Supremo. 😉

So much gets stuffed into each frame of this episode that it makes us rewind and watch it again: The doctor who spouts ‘Attraction! Abortion! What else do you know?’; the online rummy-playing fake godman, the love/infatuation induced by extra pani pooris; the peeled-skin-feet of the girl who got her fetus aborted; ‘You can’t live with men; you can’t live without them too!’ juxtaposed with ‘You can’t live with women; you can’t live without her too!’…

A delightful nugget. Vasundara as the loud-mouthed, do-gooder Vaiju stole the show. The ‘gaana’ song ‘Jingrudanga’ was fresh and so was the twist in the end.

*Lalagunda Masjid is a place in Korukkupet. North Madras.

#TastyPaaniPoori

1.     Paravai Kootil Vaazhum Maangal (Gazelles those reside in a bird’s nest)

A true tribute to Balu Mahendra by Bharathiraja including the subtle and sophisticated handling of a tricky topic.

Separation is difficult. Acceptance, reconciliation, moving on… really tough! In a classic BM triangle, you have the clueless man, an I-won’t-give-up new entrant, a I-can-give-up-but-don’t-know-how’ incumbent. The acting by the three main characters is so top notch, that you think that no one can knock them over. But then you have Delhi Ganesh! Even the extra pause he gives while on the other end of the phone is pregnant with acting!

We loved two bits of no dialogue action: When Ravi sees a groom in the metro being followed by Rohini, he thinks that she has left him to get married to that person and his face changes; only to change into a smile as the actual bride follows Rohini. And when Revathi explains her situation to Rohini about how she is willing to give it all up including the children, Rohini says, ‘I don’t know whether I could do all that you could do…’ There is a small ray of hope in Revathi’s face – after all, maybe she is going to go away… But when Rohini ends it by saying, ‘…but I want to be in it!’, the ray just vanishes. Fantastic acting!

There are so many nice directorial touches in the episode (the cigarette score, the selfies, the complementing outfit of two women…) And it did leave a heavy feeling in the heart even though it seemed to be an amicable arrangement.

#SeparatedUnion

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Otherwise, true to Web Series grammar, there are a lot of cusswords, double-entendres, kissing & bedroom scenes, rampant smoking and drinking etc. If you look past all that, these six stories do show the mirror to the society on what it is morphing into. 

Apart from a few nice vignettes of Chennai (it is no longer Central station & the beach, but the metro trains these days!), the city in itself is absent, both physically and mentally. It is a city that is still conservative in many aspects. Granted it has moved up (?) the chain. Except for the token Delhi Ganesh character, that conservative approach is shown to be truly out of the window. For a 50+, it is perhaps difficult to fathom; maybe it is the truth, though one corner of the heart says that it could be an exaggeration. Maybe?

Modern Love Chennai is worth your time just to recharge those love batteries. 💝💝💝💝

#ModernLoveChennai #Anthology #PrimeVideo #Tamil #Reviews #sriGINthoughts

 

 

Ponniyin Selvan – 2: Mani Ratnam’s Touch Rules

An edited version of this review appeared in Page 8 of Tabla 12th May 2023 edition.

Also, a Tamil review of PS-2 can be found here...

*********

Roughly at about the halfway mark of Ponniyin Selvan – 2 (PS-2), there comes a scene where Mandakini (played by Aishwarya Rai) reaches the royal quarters of Sundara Chozhan (Prakash Raj). The king, in broad daylight, is sleeping, oblivious to the dangers that he is facing. The lady jumps in and saves his life in the nick of time, and in the process, loses hers. The song that follows lamenting her death is from the great Tamil literature Purananooru, about how no one in the country used fragrant flowers after the death of their beloved king. Mani Ratnam brings out the irony of a tired, sick king being saved by a brave, deaf-mute woman who he had jilted in the past. 

The power of PS-2 is in such moments that are spread across the 2:45 hours of delightful presentation. When Ponniyin Selvan – 1 (PS-1) hit the screens about seven months ago, the excitement was palpable. On the contrary, the promotions for PS-2 were muted, to say the least. Except for the songs that stormed the charts (Veera Raja Veera, Aga Naga, Adi Sankara’s Nirvana Shatakam, Thiruppavai were impressive), there wasn’t anything huge going on.

One even thought that the team did not care too much to carpet bomb the media with advertisements. In hindsight, they were perhaps confident with the quality of the product that they had produced. 😊

Yes, PS-2 is a fitting conclusion to this attempt at bringing the much-loved novel to the screen. Indeed, the fanatical following that the book has created may not approve of the several artistic licenses that Mani Ratnam has taken, but the adaptations were seamless, mostly.

Picking up from where PS-1 left, when Arunmozhi Varman aka Ponniyin Selvan (Jayam Ravi) is lost in the sea along with his lieutenant Vanthiyanthevan (Karthi), PS-2 dives headlong into the political intrigue that surrounded the Chola empire a thousand years ago. The internecine squabbles among the members of the family threaten to tear them apart and cause irreparable damage to their relationships, aided in no small amount by the scheming Nandini (Aishwarya Rai), who has her reasons for seeing the downfall of the Chozha empire. One of the reasons is her unfulfilled love with the crown prince Aditha Karikalan (Vikram), an impulsive, repentant warrior-par-excellence, which turned to hatred beyond redemption due to what he did to Veera Pandiyan (Nasser).

How the knots are unknotted, and how the squabbles are resolved, and how the enemies are won over, form 99% of the movie. And as in Kalki’s written work, the last 1% was the twist, a-la last-ball six to win the game! Well, here the twist is not as per what Kalki wrote and left a bit undercooked as the buildup to that climax was incomplete. To that extent, it was more a boundary to tie the game than winning it completely.

Having said that, the movie was a full paisa-vasool, as they say in India. Unlike PS-1, where the premise had to be set, Mani has the freedom to set the pace and bring in scenes of import at will. Apart from the Mandakini scene mentioned earlier, a few others stuck in one’s mind… 

• Where a blindfolded Vanthiyathevan meets Kundavai (Trisha), and they profess love to each other with the song Aga Naga lilting in the background. The cave where they meet even resonates with Vanthiyathevan’s position, who has such a small land to rule and has his world, Kundavai, in there to make him happy.
• Where a seething Aditha Karikalan reaches Kadamboor and confronts the conspirators atop his white steed, displaying power and authority to no end.
• Where a smoldering and red-hot Nandini meets Aditha Karikalan for their final showdown. The tension in that scene could have been cut with the sword that Nandini held 😊
• Where the brotherhood of Buddhist monks crowds out the killers disguised as monks while chanting the mantras, making them drop the knives not by physical force but through forceful love.
• Where Vanthiyathevan, accused of a dastardly crime, appears in front of the King and pleads for punishment for dereliction of duty.

Of course, Mani Ratnam resorts to some throwbacks to his own movies: Sundara Chozhan, remorseful over his love affair, does an Iruvar reprise; the boat-ramming scene from Raavanan, etc. 😉

The battle scene at the end was force-fitted and probably needed cinematically. After watching some of the other war scenes (that Baahubali again!), there was nothing much to write home about, except that this one had less CGI, if that helps! The screenplay was a bit rushed, with one incident following another, though sound. Of course, as in PS-1, the flow was marred by poor dialogues. And in the interest of changing the ending, some of the key characters from the book were delegated to the margins.

Although it has its flaws, PS-2 is a deserving and commendable sequel to PS-1, creating a cinematic achievement that will be a landmark in Tamil cinema. Despite its imperfections, the two films' enduring legacy will be to make the reels-happy youth and old alike of today turn their attention to the rich history of Tamil people and India as a whole.

Viduthalai Part 1: Free-flowing (a bit cold) Lava!

 

Alexperience - A Successful Experiment

Towards the end of #Alexperience yesterday (Singapore, Carnival Cinemas; 21/Jan/23), Alexander Babu won me over completely.

Not because he was energy-personified for over three hours having a 1000+ audience spellbound.

Not because he touched up on subjects dear to one’s heart – music, Ilaiyaraaja.

Not because he was making fun of ‘Ji!’ and complimenting him in a back-handed way!

Not because his humour was clean and did not make you squirm in your seats.

But because he used the second line of the great Kaniyan Poonkundranar’s Purananooru #192.

*****

We all have heard and even used it (without realizing its full potent):

யாதும் ஊரே யாவரும் கேளிர்

Well, it is perhaps the most cliched Tamil expression (or a line from a verse) after வாய்மையே வெல்லும், கற்றது கை மண் அளவு, வீழ்வேன் என்று நினைத்தாயோ… you get the drift.

You see, Mr Poonkundranar wrote this poem more than 2.5 eons ago. But it kind of became famous after it was inscribed in UN HQ in NY. More famous after Kalam spoke about it in a conference in Europe and of course entered pan-India (!) mainstream after Modi referred to in his speech during 74^th UNGA.

What does it mean?
Simbly and Humbly:

Every place is ours. Everyone is our kith and kin.

(Maybe Putin took this to his heart and forgot that it takes Zelenskyy also to tango! 😊)

*****

Using this as the starting premise, Alex in his new show #Alexperience (after the wildly successful Alex In Wonderland – subtitled in 10 languages on Amazon Prime – Dei!), dived headlong into his USP: Music.

Instead of ploughing through many songs, he chose to stick to one song (whutt?) and map from there.

The song was தேர் கொண்டு சென்றவன் from the movie எனக்குள் ஒருவன்.

He got into it proper & finally went west to God’s own land & picked up a song from ஙஞணநமன Malayalam: Vaalittezhuthiya Neela Kadakannil from the movie Onnanu Nammal with the same tune/raga.  😊 That பீலி வீஷி ஆடும் மாஆஆமயிஇஇலோ briga was hilarious!

Discussed it threadbare too and finally allowed us to go – reluctantly – for both parties!

Here is the YouTube of the song... (read it like Blue Sattai Maaran 🤣)

The show had everything that you can expect from Alex.

• Music – his voice is a marvel - pitch-perfect even after three hours of standing and walking, jiving and doing some Mohanlal moves (actually those don’t count!).
• Instruments – Slew of percussion instruments including the beauty -Parai: பறை, harmonium and what not.
• His knowledge and faultless execution: singing and playing of the instruments were above par for even ‘paarsaarathyswamisabhamaamas’ like me 😊
• Clean humour – Except for the short 30 seconds when he had to kinda explain/unexplain Vairamuthu’s touch-and-go line in the first stanza of the Tamil song, the humour was clean as a whistle. Of course, being from Tamil Nadu, you have the liberty to pull Modi’s legs and have no elbow room even to talk about Stalin, which is a bit… பிழைப்பு நடத்தணும் இல்லையாப்பா! (Interestingly, some of those jokes about Modi did not elicit as much a response as he would perhaps have got in Chennai or Madurai, I felt!)

He did touch upon a few elephants in the room - #MeToo (start from your home!), #WomenEmpowerment (we will get there; but don’t take away our benefits 😊)…

Yeah, he could have gone easy on the ragging of Malayalam language in itself. After the initial laughs, poor Gayatri and Gowri – perhaps the only two Mallus in the crowd felt like the punching bags. That cute rejoinder by someone in the crowd, ‘Alex! Your Dubai programme is cancelled!’ kind of summarized it!

Some of the flows were predictable – Vairamuthu and #MeToo, the picturization of great Ilaiyaraja songs being screwed up badly, Malayalam language/movies and their making… But then, I am perhaps an old 90’s kid! 😉

And whenever he played the Tabla & Dholak, the words were drowned out. Can correct it by Monday, I suppose?

*****

Coming back…

So, what was the second line of Mr KP that Alex used to end the programme?

தீதும் நன்றும் பிறர் தர வாரா!

(Good and Bad don’t happen due to others – it is all yours!)

This has been my go-to axiom for long and has helped me to approach life in a much better manner. It is all in your hands and as Alex said, ‘Experienssss is a choice!’ (No, Nithy was not spared; neither was Ravi Ashwin who made it to the programme – அவராலே மட்டும்தான் தூஸ்ரா போட முடியுமா?!) and it is the ‘pattern’ one must seek to follow!

Thanks for that, Alex. 🙏

It was my first live stand-up comedy show. I thoroughly enjoyed it with good company and popcorn, of course!

I believe Monday’s show is sold out. I am sure you will get it on OTT at some stage. Have fun!

#Alexperience 3.5/5 #sriGINthoughts #standup_comedy

When Abused Women Go Martial!

An edited version of this review happened on Tabla! - The Heartbeat of the Indian Community dated 13th Jan 2023. Screengrab at the end of the post. 

Violence against women, whether at home or outside is something that is deplorable and disgraceful. Yet, we see news pieces that sprout often in the media about the ‘freak fire accidents,’ ‘violence-induced abortions,’ ‘broken bones due to beatings,’ ‘active and passive sexual abuse by caretakers,’ the list goes on. A study even went ahead to establish that during large international sports tournaments (FIFA World Cup, anyone?), domestic violence increases manifold. Oh! The testosterone-high alpha male cannot take his country’s loss in a mere football game with equanimity, can he?

Got to watch three movies recently.

All three of them had the woman as the oppressed party; men of different shades: downright bad to half-good-half-bad; chauvinistic, abusive etc.

All three of them had Malayalam roots. (Surprise, Surprise!)

All three of them talked about how women escaped the clutches of abuse from their partners, parents, and society at large. No, they did not just walk out of the relationship after things came to a pass. Neither did they traverse the labyrinth of legal systems to seek succour. Yet, they took the justice into their own hands, literally!

I am tempted to say that the heroines of these three movies took a leaf out of Agent Tina’s handling of baddies in last summer’s blockbuster #Vikram. The lady in question there used the humble fork as a deadly weapon to show men on what would happen if they misbehaved!

*******

Teacher

(Malayalam; available on Netflix)

A PE teacher Devika (Amala Paul) gets drugged and raped - naturally, she does not know who did it. After tracing the culprits, she talks to her 'loving' husband. And he does the usual: denial, victim-shaming, worry-about-society, staying away.

Writers Shajikumar and Vivek (who directed the movie as well), have built a taut two-thirds of the movie where not only the protagonist but also the viewers have an uneasy sense of foreboding.

As they unravel what had happened – with no gory details, thanks for that! – one braces for the usual sermonizing and even expect that the husband will change.

Yet in a classic twist, the mother-in-law comes to Devika’s rescue; sows the seed of revenge in the woman’s mind; pushes her to use her martial arts skills to bash the rapists.

The cameo by Chemban Vinod Jose was classic Mollywood writing (when Devika talks to him cautiously lest he also molests her, he deadpans, 'I am not into women!').

After all the build-up, the ending was a bit unsatisfactory. The fact that Devika was adept at using nunchaku was contrived and forced. So, you know what would happen as soon as she picks the weapon up. Instance justice outside the courts!

But for that unsatisfactory ending, Teacher is okay.

3/5 #NunchakuKiller

*******

Jaya Jaya Jaya Jaya Hey

(Malayalam; available on Hotstar)

What do you do when you are constantly put down for being a female?

You get your elder brother’s broken toys to play. You get his tattered clothes and books. Your name is a fraction of his name – Jaya for his Jayan!

The need for your education is questioned. Your relationships are microscopically analysed exploited, and you face physical abuse. Duh!

Yet you bite the bullet; roll with the punches and agree to the next forced move: marriage. You hope for the best.

Then as you enter the husband’s house, you notice that the glass panes on the tables, cupboards and windows are cracked; you notice that the TV remote control is broken and is held together with rubber bands.

Remember the sense of foreboding? Yes, that is the one!

Soon you find the husband is a habitual beater and says, 'I will hit you when I am angry and then shall take you to the nearby restaurant to feed you chicken curry and you should be happy!'

The camel's back breaks: Karate kicks in & the house comes down - literally!

Directed by Vipin Das who wrote JJJJH with Nashid Famy, this movie is a light-hearted take on a very heavy subject of wife-beating. Of course, one gets reminded of ‘Thappad’ by Taapsee Pannu, but the treatment is entirely different. Again, the extent to which the families don’t even realise that they are gaslighting a woman to be subservient is brought about in a striking manner.

Darshana Rajendran as Jaya and Basil Joseph as her husband Rajesh have lived the characters!

Yes, the ending was a bit contrived though the court scene prior to that was a scream! Yet, JJJJH talks about the victory of a woman who does not take physical abuse silently and is definitely the last line of the Indian national anthem!

3.75/5 #KarateMeetsThappad

*******

Gatta Kusthi

(Tamil; available on Netflix)

There was Dangal then. There is Dangal now. Girl gets into wrestling from young. Can't get her married off. Lie about everything from hair length to education to skills. Get married into a chauvinist environment. In a transformation scene worthy of repeat viewing, saves her husband from the baddies. Husband sulks. Throws her out of the house. Do they unite?

That is Gatta Kusthi (Tied Wrestling) for you.

Aishwarya Lekshmi as the wrestler Keerthi from Palakkad (where else but from Kerala!) and Vishnu Vishal as her boastful, husband Veera do grapple hard to pull the movie forward. But it is Karunas, the male-chauvinist-par-excellence uncle of Veera who steals the show in the scenes that he appears – especially the scene where he convinces the officer to register Vishal for a wrestling match against his own wife!

Yes, several dialogues are misogynistic – but they only make you root for Keerthi more. Yes, they took the commercial route (wrestling matches; bad, lecherous coaches; intermission-block transformation scene; hero changing mind over five minutes of sermonizing by someone…)

But what made it enjoyable was that except for one (mandatory?) fight sequence in the end, the hero had to play the second fiddle throughout to the heroine.

2.75/5 #CommercialKusthi

*******

So, dear men! If you are about to throw some tantrums and get physical, be ready to get some punches thrown at you too! Teacher, JJJJH and Gatta Kusthi have shown the way! 😁

#sriGINthoughts #reviews