Avvaiyaar – awesome woman power and spl effects in 1945!!
Thamizh cinema post talkies introduction were in catch 22 situation.
They couldn’t make bold social themes like “Thyaga Bhoomi” as british censorship
was too tight and that meant only to go back to religious mythological stories and tell them
with loads of songs – all devotional and in natak (drama style) style singing. High pitch range and exagerated. Then three people happened to thamizh cinema who changed the way mythological movies were made. SS Vasan, K.B.Sundarambaal and Ellis R Duncan. SS Vasan – owner of Ananda Vikatan and the famous Gemini Pictures was keen to make a film on “Avvaiyaar” a matron saint in ancient Thamizh Naadu who wrote many devotional songs and songs that taught people the “right way”. Having decided on the subject, SSVasan and story discussion board (those days they had a huge group researching and writing stories and dialogues – these days too there is a huge research team in US or Europe doing the hard work. Our guys just translate and put their name on it), they wanted to cast the right person. Those days in stage, men used to play women parts (Example: Sivaji Ganesan’s first stage role was that of Sitha in Ramayana and there was this great Avvai Shanmugam who specialised in playing Avvaiyaar on stage). However SS Vasan felt that the role would be best played by K.B.Sundarambaal, an excellent artiste with great voice and the right stage back ground. In addition she was also the wife of late Kittappa who was also a famous hero in films. One hesitation among the advisors of Gemini pictures was that KBS was a widow and it was a taboo to cast widows in lead roles, be it plays or movies.
So SS Vasan had to reluctantly shelve the idea. ..
This news reached Mr.E.V.Ramaswamy who is known to everyone as Periyaar, a revolutionary politician. He chided SS Vasan for his backward ideal and persuaded him to start the project with KBS in lead. All this inspite of the fact that he was an atheist and was regularly ridiculing movies made on hindu mythological characters.
Still the project didn’t start as KBS was reluctant to act after the demise of her husband. To stop the Gemini pictures folks from pestering her, she flatly demanded a sum of Rs. 1 Lakh.
To her surprise SSVasan agreed to pay the money and she had to act in the movie.
The movie would have been a routine mythological movie with songs, but for SSVasan’s vision and the able technical support and vision provided by Ellis R Duncan, an american who made popular and hugely successful movies like Mandhiri kumari later(*ing M.G.R and penned by M.Karunanidhi). The project was challenging as there were some big sets that had to be erected and some literally “ground breaking” earthquake scenes in the climax.
Though the story was the life of a lady saint singing songs and contributing to literature, it had plenty of action towards the end where Avvayaar prays to Ganapathi to save two daughters of the slain King Paari, Angavai and Sangavai from the Chera king. The result ?
Some hundred elephants charge the fort of the chera king and destroy it . The whole scene was a momentous triumph for SSV and Ellis Duncan as the special effects were at par with world standards.
Notwithstanding all this, the soul of the movie was the character of Avvaiyaar who was like grandmom travelling all over Thamizh Naadu of ancient times, winning the hearts of many with her wit, knowledge and wisdom. There were many fictional accounts of Avvaiyaar circulated in the literary media. SSVasan and team used them cleverly into the script keeping the audience enthralled.
The movie was a huge hit in 1945 and the profits propelled SS Vasan to make his next huge venture “Chandralekha” in Thamizh and hindi.
The success of the movie avvaiyaar was a triumph to the spirit of Vasan, astuteness of the director Ellis Duncan and the acting skills of KBS, who proved that women can excel in films equally if not in a better way than men.
Interestingly SS Vasan had tried in vain to get KBS act as Nandhanaar, a medieval saint who though born in lower caste and oppressed, rose through sheer devotion to the status of one of the eclectic saints in Shaivism in Thamizh Naadu. Nandhanaar was a guy and KBS was probably the first woman to be offered to play a guy’s role.
Special note must be made of the cinematography and dialogues of Avvaiyaar. The dialogues were for the first time very easy to comprehend in a more purer form of Thamizh with little sanskrit mix.
I saw the movie courtesy doordarshan and the experience of watching a good , positive mythological movie still stays in my mind. Avvaiyaar started a new wave of thamizh devotional movies which culminated with the legendary A.P.Nagarajan who made many delightful mythological movies with Sivaji Ganesan and Gemini Ganesan. Movies which remain fresh in the hearts and minds of the thamizh people till date. It is a pity that these days there are not many takers for mythological movies.
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Abhay Deol
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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
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I find these vintage stories as interesting as vintage memoribilia. Thnks for sharing.
i am a great fan of this movie. For nearly 7 years now i have been searching for this movie as a vcd or a dvd – but in vain. does anyone know where i can get this? if so , i request you to please mail me – you will get a students best wishes!
hari smarans,
Jay.