Four years and recounting – Pithamagan
It was October 2003 when audiences in Thamizhnadu (Tamil Nadu for uninitiated) were swept away by cinematic brilliance of Pithamagan. Personally it was one movie that made me realize that movies need not be all beginnings, middle and endings, not to say that this movie broke any rules of cinematic grammar. There is more to a movie than scripts and lightings. There is more to a movie than locations and sets. A movie can tell more than what its scripts and dialogues on paper. Pithamagan to me is one movie which manages to elevate itself overcoming its shortcomings and the reasons are not just the usual ‘reasons’ like great acting and fabulous cinematography. It is these reasons that I have always wanted to write about and ‘recount’ as a part of my cinema learning experience.
1. Character is the king:
The Story itself is just an excuse for the audience to take a look at the people in a movie. This is particularly true in case of Bala’s movies. His characters , Sethu, Nandha, Chithan, Sakthi, Gomathi have managed to live on longer than the boxoffice shelf life of the movies themselves. His formula being, make them absolutely real or absolutely interesting. While Sakthi and Gomathi were as real as anybody on the streets, Chithan was absolutely out of deeper realms of the director’s imagination. The dynamics of the characters themselves when they are facing each other elevated the movie into a new realm hitherto never seen in the regular friday releases. Nothing more interesting than the way different characters react to Chithan’s raw reactions to people around him. For the villagers, he is a puzzle and abomination – a reminder of their ultimate doom. For Gomathi, he is a pitiable creature – much like herself. For Sakthi, he is a friend and sometimes a funny scarecrow with which he can shoo away people and for Manju he is someone who covets more attention from her man. Finally for Mahadevan the villain, chithan is the symbol of loyalty and power. His behaviour and strength are something to manipulate and control. Dont let the reviews mislead you into thinking that these are the only characters to watch out for in the movie. There are a multitude of small, interesting, funny and dangerous characters, like the ganja addict who wishes has a unique last wish from Sithan,sidekicks of Sakthi, the swamiji in jail with foreign devotees, magistrate with a bad cold. They come and go in just few scenes, but the way they have been created, conceived and enacted is something that we can take and treat as a lesson in character writing and enactment.
2. Add Literary depth:
Our country has a deep literary tradition. Stories and songs from our ancient heritage contain inspirations to convey millions of ‘insights’. Whenever possible Bala has not failed to use it in the appropriate manner to provide a rich subtext to the character, the backdrop and to the proceedings themselves. In Sethu, it was the backdrop of temple, the traditional siddha asylum and the ethnic backdrop of the heroine providing the ‘grounding’ of the movie in semi rural setting. In Nandha it was the plight of refugees from Srilanka, the background of Rajkiran as the scion of Royal sethupathis of chedi, aptly inserted pasurams from Sri Andaal’s Thiruppavai and the bewitching Rameshwaram – a town where Rama cleansed himself of his sin of killing a Brahman – Ravana. In Pithamagan, Bala gets back to his own life and recreates the unheralded small town of Bodinayakkanur, its people and the silent, yet deep and disturbing Western Ghats. A rehabilitated addict himself, Bala leaves no stone unturned in recreation of the Ganja cycle as he saw it in his own life. This recreation visually amazes and leaves the audience spell bound at the disturbing detail behind a trade that drowns a generation in sea of lost identities. The setting also establishes the cause of conflict between the protagonists and the villain. Though this might be a give away of things to follow, it also makes one wonder and expect with fear the impending tragedy. This fashion of manipulation of audience’s feelings is something of a Bala trademark. Finally Pithamagan derives its core literary strength from the awesome depiction of death, funerals and the ceremonies surrounding it. When your theme itself is about a man who faces death every second finding the meaning of life for a brief while, death itself becomes another character and the literal derivations one can make while watching the movie is simply endless. It is further solidified by the careful insertion of Siddha songs in the movie heralding and commenting pithily on Death and impermanence of the human life bound by body. For a normal movie, nobody cares to add so much of subtexts and symbolisms, but Bala is no normal film maker and this one is unsurprisingly rich and meaningful.
3. Project the location in meaningful manner:
The backdrop and scene setting recreation and projection add a whole new dimension to the story and Bala is a modern master when it comes to this area. The way Bala has collaborated with his art directors to recreate a backdrop that aids in creating the mood and enhances the ability of actors to blend in to the surroundings and be the characters they play is very special. No other film of his demonstrates this more than Pithamagan. The cemetary where the story begins, the village tea shop where Chithan enters the village, the banyan tree under which Gomathi sells dope, Gomathi’s mud walled house, Mahadevan’s house atop a hill (symbolifying his power), Awesome prison setting where chithan meets sakthi, the cannabis farm and tree platform, every little location aids in moving the story forward, adding depth to the scene. There is not one scene when there is a feel that we as audience gets a ‘drama staged’ feel. This overarching sense of pervading reality (which becomes dramatic / enhanced reality by the actors) helped by the location and an eye of the director that ensures the right location are chosen(for outdoor ones) and recreated ones (by the art director) is something for every connoisseur.
4. Treat no one as a star:
The movie had atleast two happening stars, both fresh from big grossers like Saamy(vikram) and Kakka Kakka(Surya). No quarters were given to them as they were made to brave harsh weather, acquire tan, disfigure themselves to unbelievably unspottable proportions. No actor was treated more important in the script, while Sakthi’s character brings the house down with humorous antics, Chithan and Gomathi are the backbone of rivetting and serious drama. Sangeetha, a struggling artiste herself was shocked to hear the climax where she has to beat the character of Chithan with broomsticks and much to her surprise this scene was filmed as narrated with more than 2 takes and what it delivers is a strong scene where a star ceases to exist and a great actor is born and Sangeetha earns her name in thamizh films because of the fabulous scene. Surya, physically pushed himself to play dead inside a gunny bag in a pivotal scene. The end result of the unpatronizing attitude shown by Bala is a movie where the stars and their images disappear in the trailblazing glow of their characters.
5. If it ain’t special – dont say it!!
Bala, true to his tutelage of Balu Mahendra relies on the visual medium to communicate more. At the same time, when compared to his guru’s movies, his movie are not devoid of chatter. However the chatter is present only when essential. The delightful chitchat between Sethu and his friends provided a heartwarming portrayal of man and his friends. The discourse of ‘Periyavar’ to Nandha made for rivetting viewing. In Pithamagan he uses dialogues only if they are really necessary and important. Also the contrast of Chithan who is always in a shell and distant with the rest of his company of boisterous Sakthi and Manju is well brought out by dialogues that were consistently funny. When it comes to the powerful situations, Bala made sure that no character spoke a sentence that was too long to dilute the effect. When someone had to speak, they did in a free flowing manner – Sakthi luring manju into a simple game of street gambling or selling fancy stuff in train or selling fake herbal remedies on the street, they caused stomachaches due to incessant laughter. In my 6th time viewing of the movie, there is not one dialogue that was not necessary.
6. Show things and don’t keep telling them!!!
The whole film had some fabulously cranked scenes that were staged with almost no dialogue, yet conveying what the maker wanted to say. One such scene is the ‘visit to the cannabis farm’ where Mahadevan who is a bigshot in the village travels to his secret cannabis farm. The whole journey through rough roads in a jeep, over a tough terrain in a palanquin carried by able bodied henchmen (denoting his powerful stature) and emerging on foot into the big plantation of cannabis that is introduced to us with a sweeping long shot panning across the plain in between the protective hills is an exhilarating visual journey.
In another scene where Chithan fights with an inmate in the prison, he is pinned down by Sakthi to the ground, gets up with a shake of his body similar to an animal shredding particles of dust into the surroundings. This scene was all captured in a striking manner that underscored the character of chithan adding one more bit to the character.
Another fabulously staged scene or set of scenes are the ones in the collage that play out in the background of the song ‘Ilangaathu Veesudhe”. A collage that is beautifully shot, progresses the story forward to convey the bonding of the curious bunch of characters drawn together by fate.
7. When Raja is there – dont worry about music
Every student of film institute in Chennai, dreams one day of making a film with the music of raja. Bala in his second film with raja has pushed himself to create visuals and situations to inspire the aging king of thamizh film music and raja responds with scintillating background numbers in the movie, ‘Piraye’, ‘Ilangathu veesudhe’ and the majestic ‘adada’. He also came up with his trademark bit song ‘Yaradhu YAradhu’ that marked the beginning of friendship between Chithan and Sakthi. The movie had unobtrusive backgound bits that created the right mood for the scene to complement Balasubramaniem’s awesome camera work. The way the beats of drum that create a eerie mood start in the scene when Mahadevan decides to put a stop to Sakthi’s life gets one’s tummy and when the ragtag group of friends leave the cinema theatre after watching emotional climax of Anbe Sivam, the background music gets absolutely another character conveying shock, tragedy and angst in a way no amount of words or songs or visuals would have. The use of the same background score that began the movie at the end of the movie to denote and signify the round trip the character has undergone provides more meaning and depth to an already rich movie. Though i have posted out of adulation and personalized the music of the movie, it is indeed denoting the grand stature of raja in this area and his impact on the movie so much so that the movie opens with the title slide ‘With the Grand music of Maestro Ilaiyaraja’ much like how Serpico invoked the name of Mikis theodorakis in a special way.
4 years after and awaiting the return of Bala, Raja and Balasubramaniem to Naan Kadavul, they have to go one up on what they have achieved in the fall of 2003.
Tags: Bala, Ilaiyaraja, Pithamagan, Sangeetha, surya, Thamizh movies, vikram
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
I am waiting for Naan Kadavul. I consider Aamir,Bala and cheran as tamil new wave film makers. Paruthiveeran is a milesstone in tamil cinema. No wonder it was shown in Berlin film festival. Aamir and Bala belong to the BaluMahindra school . In their movies each and every frame speaks volumes.
“Ilangathu Veesuthae” is a beautifully picturised song. Especiallly the cycling sequence and the “on top of the bus ” sequence.
Elangaathu Veesudhae is a mini book in song picturisation. It has every element that makes a song immensely watchable and ergo likable. The song is loaded with emotions that are subtle, and very dramatic, expressive at the same time, and in a perfect blend. As Prasanna put it “on the top of the bus” sequence is oh! so full of breeze. I like characters and situations that breathe in open air literally contrary to hot, claustrophobic, unimaginative set pieces dancing to 1,2…1,2 dinchak steps. It is important to note that there are no perfectly color coordinated and stable frames to draw attention. The song is set to story in progress told in pieces. Sangeetha is brilliant in her emoting power in the song, Laila not bad, Vikram manages to rein himself at the right time, and the absolute cracker of a performance is Surya with all his histrionics. I wonder if it is easy for superstars to take their roles when they are fringe in terms of casting with the same sincerity as when they are the center of attraction and attention.Talk of fringe in the movie! Scenes to be watched out for; Sangeetha’s reaction to Vikram gifting her the saree, the dramatic yet cute scene in the train, the scene atop the bus with the four characters, and the barber-abuse-Surya-Vikram-run-blue-robes scene. The last is goddamn so visually appealing in its long shot with one superstar chasing another! RAW visual appeal at its best
Did I forget Ilayaraaja?!
not to forget the rank butchery of the same by R.P.Patnaik in the Telugu version of the same :( :(
Thanks for bringing back the memory lane of heavenly feeling.I am in awe of tamil movies since my college days in chennai, there countless movies which made me think even to date…from Bharathi rajas evergreen classics to Bala’s vision.
Bala is the true indian in cinema sense, the characters, story, art and more importantly the realism which oozes in his movies.
@ Santhosh
good films are always accepted..Sivaputhrudu (pithamagan) is a blockbuster in telugu as well.
I personally feel it was brilliantly dubbed and was in tune (RP patnaik has done good job too).
Its Pity to see the trend of commericial tamil films lending stories from telugu; i personally feel its killing quality tamil films which are to be seen in good numbers.
I am exited about Nan kadavul but i have mixed feelinsg looking at the posters n story line..which is extreme dark, i m sure it would be quiet disturbing movies as always wid maverick bala..
Srikanth,
Every time I am reminded of this song I play the Tamil version, or watch the same on YouTube. Adding to the beauty of the track is the soulful rendition by Sriram Parthasarathy who doesn’t let it slip into sugar candy which I am afraid happens with R.P.Patnaik’s version at places. Mind you it is not being fashionable/with the flow in pulling down a Telugu version and I am not even referring to his “flat singing” that he has been so accused of. May be on just relative terms the Tamil one works for me.
Subjective, I know.
Ippudu saripoyinda?
Great post on an awesome movie Santosh, after Mahanadhi, if any other movie left me stunned and shocked it was this.To date cant forget Vikram’s expressions in the graveyard when he breaks down on Surya’s death. Raw and primeval, it was one of the best pieces of acting i had seen. Vikram totally deserved the National Award for this, for the life of me, i could never understand how some folks thought that Hrithik should have got it for Koi Mil Gaya.
@santosh mama……..
I agree wid u n i too prefer tamil one !!! but wht abt poor guys who doesnt know tamil…
RP as u say is not a great singer but this song is one of his good work..kudos to the music rather his singing.
It is a news to me that RP has sung the Telugu version!!
Offcourse you guys must also tell me how the villain role played by Ramaraj who is known in thamizh as “Pithamagan” Mahadevan was done. It was one helluva casting according to me. Somehow he fitted with the character perfectly.
Thanks for writing about this film. Just saw the song on youtube, it’s fantastic. Any idea if one can get the DVD of this movie (and Paruthi Veeran’s) with English subtitles. Saw lots of movies from the South with subtitles during the Doordarshan era. Waiting for an intelligent DVD company to fill the gap.
hi jaiganesh, nice write up…. good that you mentioned about Illayaraja’s background score… here is a detailed write-up on IR’s backgroudn score for Pithamagan with audio clips
http://backgroundscore.blogspot.com/2008/03/listening-pithamagan.html
mani ratnam was once asked to name the next great director of tamil cinema and he said bala is one director to look out for ….this speaks volume of the talent this man posses…. eagerly waiting for his next one……
@rabindro
Tamilini has the DVD of pithamagan with english subtitles.
The sub titles are kind of fine. If you are living abroad, nearby Indian grocery store must have it. I dont know if it is available from netflix ot italkies.com
Thanks.
Jaiganesh: Thanks for this writeup. The last decade or so, Sethu and Pithamagan (I have to watch Nandha once again, saw it in a grainy desi grocery store print!) have been the movies that have really left me with a lump in my throat. And of course, I am still waiting for the next Raja soundtrack of note, after Pithamagan. Surprising (not pleasantly) when I realize that it has been 4 years! And yes, Elangathu Veesudhey is the song of the album!
As Ratnakar says, I don’t understand that Koi Mil Gaya fixation either. It goes to show how much “under-viewed”, good Tamil cinema is. But then, the last few years, quality wise Tamil cinema has been going down the drain too.
Thank you for the intelligent analysis of Pithamagan. I am ashamed to say that when I first saw the movie in 2003 (I had only seen one Vikram movie up to that point –Gemini — which gave me a headache, and I had no idea who Surya was. I only knew of him as someone whom Jyothika was supposed to be involved with. I remember thinking at that time, “What! Of all the men she could have she chooses the insipid son of Sivakumar?” This my dear readers was before I saw Khaka Khaka in 2006. My life has never been the same since. Overnight I became a fan of Surya. I have all the DVDs of the movies Surya and Jo made together and now belong to the I-never-miss-a-Surya-movie-club) I did not like it, I must have dozed off at some point and remember being very irritated by Laila’s character. Now that I am older and wiser, I saw the movie again some time ago and was amazed at myself at how blind I was to all that was being depicted on screen. I realised that my personal prejudice to Vikram (I had not recovered yet from Gemini) made me totally shut off the movie in my mind.
This is what happens when one goes to the cinema with a preconceived notion or with some prejudice and not an open mind. You can be served a classic but to the closed mind it is only crap because one only chooses to see crap. Now that I have read your analysis of the movie, I shall certainly watch it again with different eyes.
I am not a fan of Ilaiya Raja (I only started listening to Tamil music after the coming of AR Rahman) but I must agree with everyone that the music for this film was excellent especially for Illam Katru Visuthay (it is the only song that I remember from the movie apart from the song and dance sequence with Simran. The song is a perfect example of how the picturization of a song can tell so many stories to help propel the story further. And the lyrics are so touching. While Vikram deserved the National Award, Surya should have gotten the national award for best supporting actor because he was excellent.
It is a pity that the Hindi-speaking belt will probably never get to see this film. This is one of the sad facts about the Indian film industry. While the South does watch Hindi films, sadly, the Southern films hardly ever penetrate the Hindi-speaking belt except when it is remade. It is a sad state for country that even after 60 years of independence the Hindi-speaking belt seems unawares of Southern cinema. While the whole of India, even the South knows of and have seen Amitabhs, Shah Rukh Khans, Rajesh Khannas etc very few in the Hindi speaking belt have seen the performances of Sivaji Ganesan, Prem Nasir, Vikram, Surya, Mohanlal, Mammooty, Chiranjeevis, Nagarjunas etc. India must be the only country in the whole where one half of its population never watches the films of the other half (read South). Hopefully this will change over time.
Menaka Baskaran
MenakaBaskaran@gmail.com
Meena!
Thanks for those wonderful words.
however after a while of travel – here is the fact.
How much of Bengali cinema do the south indians know?
How much of Malayalam cinema classics to the people of chennai are aware of?
There is an Oriya director B.P.Mondal (also a great cinematographer) whose works are condemned to just the boundries of his state. Everybody (north or south or east or west) is equally to be blamed on this count.
And offcourse, there are so many small gems being made in India which gather little attention as they are inside a box.
@bgscore!!
Suresh!!! Great work of archiving the amazing music of Pithamagan with aptly written notes..!!
Jaiganesh – Thank you.
In that note on indifference, i woud say India is the most discriminative country in the entire globe. As an indian we must atleast speak or udnerstand our national language, it would be utter foolish to to think it as unnecessary.
Coming to flip side, one must be proud of thier mother tongue, often you see North people commenting or mimicking south language just for the sake of fun which is ridiculous. The same may be seen in south but not that common.
Teasing rajnikanth n calling south heros as Fat bastards sometimes gets on your nerves.
@Jaiganesh -Expecting a similar writeup on Paruthiveeran from you
@20 by the way there is this common misunderstanding among Indians that Hindi is actually India’s national language.India does not have a national language.Hindi is just the official language along with English. So no one needs to feel this obligatory acceptance of Hindi as a necessary part of your Indian identity.
Sorry i dont want to make any contoversial statements here.
But…..
“I am proud Indian and i can speak the language which majority of our fellow country men do”.
// “I am proud Indian and i can speak the language which majority of our fellow country men do”. //
couldnt resist the urge to comment after reading this..
no offence meant.. but u have any idea what percentage of people in India have HINDI as their mother tongue ?
Theres no national language for India.. there are 15 languages included under an “article” in the constitution and they are the “official languages” of our country. All of them have the same status.
@prasanna – http://passionforcinema.com/paruthi-veeran-ameers-passion-continues/
This is something I wrote early.
Would write again when I see it again.
I hope we can keep out of the silly language debate in this site atleast. Lets all agree that we are all wrong and get going.
srikanth reddy sangala, if you are proud of speaking hindi, are you not ashamed that you cannot speak the language of the uneducated native of Chikmagalur or theni or or midnapore or tiruchur or baramati?
I can speak most of those apart from hindi and your own language – the one spoke in bapatla, karimnagar and cuddappah – so does that make me a better indian than you? I’d like to think it doesnt but if you say knowing hindi makes one a better indian, I am one of the best around, if you see what I mean ;-)
VPJ,
Just finished watching Pithamagan…I know long overdue…I loved many aspects of the movie which you have mentioned above- Raja’s mesmerizing music, Balasubramaniam’s photography, the story of Chitan from the cemetry to hills of cannabis, from the jails to the company of fateful friends…Vikram was fantastic…
But I somehow expected more in other aspects. Probably, since there have been many more movies from the Bala, Ameer school which have the same common ingredients…
What i didn’t like was the whole Simran interlude aimed at the front benches…a bit of a compromise perhaps. Plus the romantic track of Sakthi was a bit too loud for me. Somehow I wasn’t endeared to Sakthi and his girlfriend which was the objective of the director I guess…