Movie- Raavan. My thoughts
Let me come straight to the point. Raavan worked. For me, it definitely did. If you read further, you will come across spoilers. So if you're the kind that hates to know the story before watching the movie, and if you haven't watched it and you plan to watch it, then you will be well advised to to hit that small cross on your browser tab and say bye, now.
There are a number of things that I liked about the movie. I must admit, I didn't think the trailers were awesome. I liked a few songs and didn't like a few, when the album released. I didn't like what I read after the release. It turns out, the lowered expectations only gave me a great seat to watch the movie and the movie soared.
Yes, I liked the cinematography. Santhosh Sivan and Manikandam have done very well. But that's not the best thing about Raavan. Infact Raavan didn't surpass even Ashoka in camerawork. It definitely didn't out do Dil Se or Roja.
I liked the awesome BGM. The discerning ones among the ARR fans who've seen the movie would be able to recollect the Kannalane's Gum Sum Gum Sum Guppu CHUKK- inspired piece that comes twice or thrice. There is one interlude that reminds Thiruda Thiruda. And there is Jaa Re Udd Jaa Ree which gave me goosebumps when it came with Beera falling in SloMo. And there is this awesome Mangal Pandey like desi beats that run riot each time the Beera gang went on a rampage. But, there are bits where I felt Rahman could have done better. In the Song department, Kata Kataa and Behne Dee are my favorites. The others were good. But I couldn't appreciate Thok De or its placement or its relevance. So clearly, Music is not the overwhelming aspect causing me to care enough to write this review. That said, I have super high expectations from AR Rahman, higher than any other person who is credited for music in movies, and Rahman has lived up. Nice.
What really really worked for me is Maniratnam's brilliance. One thinks Mani has clearly reversed the goodness of the prime character's of Ramayan. Or that is what it seems upon cursory watching. That's what promos and pre release intuition would have us believe. But is that really the case, I beg to differ. If you notice carefully, Dev looks so unidimensional. We hardly adore the character. To top it Dev shoots Hariya. And he wears Ray Ban. And he utters hindi in rubbish accent. We naturally come to the conclusion that Dev is evil. We feel Mani wants us to hate the Ram of Ramayan and has been painfully obvious in his attempt. But look deeper. Did Dev commit any crime. Anything unworthy of a worthy police IPS. He did kill Hariya, but wouldn't it be naive of an IPS officer to let a dreaded criminal's aide go scott free. He could have taken him to custody or could have shot him, Dev chose the later, because Maniratnam was trying to fool us into thinking Dev was bad. I'll come to the polygraph test part later.
Lets come to Beera. Beera is supposed to be a dacoit known for killing police and looting guns for killing police. There is one scene where he is shown burning down a crowd of cops (2+ is crowd, isn't it). He kidnaps the IPS officer's wife to kill her because some khaki wearing people raped his sister. Yes shit happened to his sister. But Shit happens. The raping incident was never shown as Dev's fault. Beera's intentions of murdering Ragini changes only because he has a pretty_girl_jumping_off_the_cliff fetish. He is overcome by lust. From moment Ragini jumps off, his only agenda is to have Ragini stay with him. For all those overly concerned by lack of fear evoked by Bachchan in portraying Beera, he was supposed to act the seducing_married_girl act and not the spine_chillingly_cold_fear_inducing act. So chillax. In my opinion Abhishek Bachan did just fine. The plot mentions but doesn't delve on cruelty of Beera, by choice. Again Maniratnam's way of fooling us into thinking he is simplistically glorifying the Raavan of Ramayan.
Ragini is the witless, naive and fickle character. She falls for a totally_not_ubercool murderer who kidnapped her, gagged her mouth (the close up on Ragini's jaws forced apart by cloth was graphic, un-cool and un-sexy) and who is her husband's arch enemy from beginning. She is naive because the moment she knew that Beera is avenging for his sister, she starts feeling Beera's actions are justified. She is fickle because, at the slightest hint of being slighted by Dev she runs off and does and returns a Jhik Jhik Bukk Bukk to Beera to confess her love. But thankfully, she showed some decency by resisting the temptation of settling in Lal Mati with Beera till Dev takes care of the guilt part by questioning her chastity. If there is a character which is decisively different from Ramayan's portrayal, it is Sita's. Sita was as white as white, in Ramayan.
Do I even have to explain the Polygraph test. Dev never doubted Ragini. He reads Ragini's body language and learns that manipulating her could lead him to Beera. Which he does. Ragini falls for the bait. Dev follows her to Beera and kills him. I have come across reviews where authors have shown excessive concern about the future of Ragini's character after the movie ends. Guys come on, give me a break. She will either divorce Dev and live with her parents or marry again. Or she might even overlook that she was manipulated and go back to Dev. If she does it, in all probability the street-smart Dev would forgive and take the dancer wife back, for the high investment in mirrored bedroom that he has made.
If this version with a good Raavan and a bad Ram were the one that Doordarshan had shown us in scores of episodes in the eighties, Maniratnam wouldn't have had any problem in reversing the characters and showing Ram as good and Raavan as bad. Infact the Ram of Ramayan was guilty of doubting Sita. This Ram is whiter than that. Maniratnam has deftly attempted a double-double cross where ultimately Ram is not bad and a very smart, Raavan is a murderer and lusts married woman and holds married woman in captivity and waits for them to relent with no intention of releasing or killing or raping them, which the original Ramayan is anyways. The character that gets manipulated in all these manipulations is Sita's as I explained earlier. Mani Sir has just given his interpretation of Ramayan without touching the story. In summary, Raavan is a mindgame that is superbly shot and has great music. It is a pity that learned many could never get beyond the slow pace of the first half of the movie.
Dear Maniratnam, if you calculate lifetime value of your customers, us, double the amount that you expect from me. After Raavan, I will pay more to watch your movies irrespective of the reviews. Take a huge bow, Sir.
