Ananda Thandavam- A one sided love story not well adapted
Print
Disclaimer- Spoiler Alert
Though Indians migrating to the U.S temporarily for education or work and then staying on permanently has been happening for ages, in the last two decades the phenomenon has been on the increase. In places like TN & AP especially the exodus has been all the more severe due to the number of engineers working especially in the software sector. And of course in the matrimonial market the U.S employed men always found a good demand back home in India. So why am I writing about all this here? Well one of the more anticipated Tamil films in recent times is Ananda Thandavam. And why wouldn’t it be anticipated- after all its based on late writer Sujatha’s well known novel- Pirivom Sandipom,produced by Aascar Ravichandran ( the producer with the Midas Touch), directed by A.R.Gandhi Krishna whose previous venture –Chellame was a reasonably good movie and stars the hot & happening Tammanah ( after Padikathavan & Ayan ).
At the very outset let me inform that I’m guilty of not having read the novel, but I know the synopsis of the same as it was very popular having been serialized in the well known Tamil magazine- Ananda Vikatan. So while the novel very well made sense at the time it was written as it gave an insight into the typical syndrome of a prospective bride’s family wanting an U.S based groom, the travails of a an Indian student in the U.S etc, the very relevance seems slightly watered down today. Going on to the movie, Ananda Thandavam begins reasonably well enough. One sees the hero ( newcomer Siddharth ) trying to commit suicide by jumping down from a waterfall somewhere close to Ambasamudram in Tenkasi and we know that it’s a case of love failure as evident from what is seen.
From then on the movie goes back into the flash back mode and you see Raghupathy an engineering graduate trying his luck at getting a job, returning to his father’s (Kitty is back after a long hiatus) place. His father is an Asst.Engineer in a beautiful reservoir and the new Chief Engineer has just moved in with his family which includes his mischievous daughter Madhumita (Tamannah). Now within no time you see Raghu falling in love with Madhu & surprisingly her family is only too glad to accept Raghu as Madhu’s groom & even get them engaged. All the while Raghu’s dad is suspicious of the whole thing, but Raghu is too much in love to bother. Trouble comes in the form of Radhakrishna ( Rishi ) a rich man from the U.S & now Madhu’s family breaks off the engagement with Raghu & instead fix her wedding with Radha.
So Raghu makes a suicide attempt but is saved instead. Now his father advices him to fight back in life & advices him to go the U.S & study further . So Raghu goes to the U.S & enrolls in NYU. One day he bumps into Madhu once again & he is now confused as to how to take things forward. There’s also Ratna (Rukmini who was appreciated in Bommalattam) who is interested in Raghu. So what happens to the 3 of them? Does Raghu’s love succeed? Or is Ratna the one to fall lucky? All this is what the rest of the film tries to tell us.
While the camera work by Jeeva Sankar is truly amazing with some brilliant visuals captured especially in the 1st half and the music by G.V.Prakash is also more than decent, the same cannot be said about the screenplay and the performances. The director seems to have made an attempt to stick as close to the novel and hence in the process slipped considerably in maintaining a tight control over the screenplay. The resultant story hardly looks contemporary and the characters especially Madhumita’s character comes across as someone very irritating- at times naïve and at times cunning. But still Tamnnah has done a decent job as Madhumita, Rukmini as Ratna is good in a brief role while Siddharth is strictly ok. Kitty is the best of the whole lot.
For any love story to succeed, one needs to connect to the on screen romance. Here in the first place –there’s actually no romance. It’s a one sided love that Raghu has for Madhumita (she never actually loves him) and similarly Ratna also feels the same for Raghu. So with no real romance that you connect to on screen, it’s really tough to appreciate the end product all the more.
While the movie had raised a lot of expectations, at the end it comes out as a half baked attempt. Probably not all literary works can make great films and this is certainly a good example for the same. In a recent interview director Gandhi Krishna had talked about how he did Chellame only to be noticed in the industry and that he wants to make realistic movies like Ananda Thandavam. My only answer to that is that it’s probably better to make a commercial movie like Chellame rather than an artistic ‘misadventure’ like Ananda Thandavam. Looks like Aascar Ravichandran has missed the bus this time.
Note- The movie has also been dubbed & released in Telugu by the same name.
Tags: A.R.Gandhi Krishna, Aascar Ravichandran, G.V.Prakash, Kitty, Rukmini, Siddharth, Sujatha, Tamannah
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
There is a jinx about Sujatha and his novels and their success as films. I guess the jinx continues to remain.
loading...
ananda thandavam is also a very beautiful song composed by msv saar, picturised on jayaprada & kamalhaasan in singapore by kb saar. jayaprada sings it under influence of heroin injected into her by the villian. tell me movie name if you remember.
loading...
@ NRI- well that’s simple my friend.its one of my fav movies- Ninaithale Inikkum.The song is sung by L.R.Eswari.
@ Jai- yes you are right about the jinx continuing to remain.Lets see if somebody makes another attempt again.
loading...
very good sethu. i love that song. btw in that movie there are other small-small songs ( not full length, just snippets ) with very good music. not included in audio cassette but only in movie. i liked that choice of kb. there’s one snippet that accompanies rajni when he is searching for tape sundari and jayaprada is in skating rink with kamal, also very good music.
loading...
NRI- yes the combo of KB & MSV rocked in the movie as far as music is concerned.Another aspect that I like is they way KB-MSV conceived a whole song with just 2 words- Ninaithale Inikkum the title of the movie.Years later K.B’s one time assistant Vasanth went on to do the same in his 2nd movie- Nee Pathi Naan Pathi with a whole song with just one word- Niveda.
loading...
Hey sethu i finally found that tape sundari bit song god i am so happy now so many memories flooding my mind!
one kind soul has put up internet link here
http://tamillyrics.hosuronline.com/read.asp?NewsID=4009
It was nizhal kandavan naalumingae.
i wonder why they never made it a full length song, it had great lyrics by kannadasan.
btw, i saw nee padhi naan padhi in my teens, at that time it was big hit i remember. that heroine was hot and ramesh aravind was hero.
i think real talent in not KB or vasanth but the unsung ananthu. that is the behind the scenes gossip, that ananthu does all the real work in kb movies
loading...
Thanks NRI for the link.Would like to make a small correction – Nee Padhi Naan Padhi was critically acclaimed but not a big box office success. It had Rehman as the hero & not Ramesh Arvind.The heroines were Heera & Gauthami.
I was in my teens myself when the movie released.Well your news about Ananthu might be true I guess.
Yes Heera was hot
loading...
@Sethu/NRi..there seems to be a confusion on the song ‘Nee Pathi Naan Padhi’ from Vasanths first film…Ramesh Aravind, Anju and his second film ‘Nee Padhi Naan Padhi’…Rehman, Gowthami..I prefereed the 2nd film better..it had a cyclic storyline..pretty amazingly written..
@NRI what about this Ananthu? Interesting..I assumed KB was a genious..do you have any more details..
loading...
Ram,
you are right, I was thinking of Vasanth’s first film “Keladi Kanmani” which had the song “Nee Paadhi naan paadhi” in which the hero was Ramesh Aravind & hot heroine Anju who wore some skimpy clothes ( well skimpy for our 1980s generation. Nothing compared to Minisha Lamba in Kidnap
As per tradition Vasanth made “Nee Padhi Naan Paadhi” into a movie as well with Rehman & co as sethu pointed out.
About Ananthu, well this rumor started during KB’s times and has only strengthened after ananthu’s death. Many ppl including Kamal, Rajni have said Ananthu was the main guy. He is credited in almost all KB movies – not as AD or writer, but “Thanks to Ananthu” type credits. As if to prove the point, all movies made by KB post-Ananthu have mostly been inferior.
loading...
Ram,NRI- yes I thought as much that the confusion has to be between the movie & the song of the same name.Yes even I preferred Nee Padhi Naan Padhi to Keladi Kanmani.
NRI- I dont think you will find Anju hot any more
loading...
@Sethu..10…Anju is hot as ever…ha ha…
loading...