Kannathil Muthamittal – My first Tamil movie
I am always sceptical about films with children. They have to be really convincing to please me. Otherwise I just can’t stand them. I have this idea that children are usually made to act as if they were really silly (just because they are children?) or as if they had to be more mature than they are supposed to be, when all they have to do is exactly that: being children.
The good thing about film festivals is that you end up watching so many films that it comes a moment when you don’t have a clue which film you are going to watch next and what made you select it when you made your schedule. Of course, this can turn out to be the bad thing too, when you wonder what on earth made you select that film.
I had selected Kannathil Muthamittal being a Mani Ratnam film as it is, and I am glad I did. Due to my amnesia and my problems identifying Indian titles I had completely forgotten Steve had recommended it to me before and it had been mention several times before on PFC. Oops! :”>
An Indian film that focuses on the relationship between parents and their offspring instead of love affairs was so refreshing for a change. I knew the film by its English title Peck on the cheek, which I then discovered is a phrase from a poem. I kept thinking why this title, but (apart from the poem) I must say I now understand why such a title. I kept feeling like hugging and squeezing P.S. Keerthana - and why not, pecking her cheeks too- throughout the whole film. This girl is a gem. Her acting is flawless. Her expressions are superb. Her acting is absolutely natural and that is what made the film so enjoyable for me.
I had only seen Madhavan in a film I didn’t like (Dil Vil Pyar Vyar) and Rang De Basanti. He didn’t impress me much in the former as I found the film so insipid but he made me think highly of him thanks to the latter, although unfortunately his role was very brief. I think he is fantastic in Kannathil Muthamittal as Thiruchelvan. The guy is so watchable! I completely fell in love with his character through the movie.
Simran is superb as Indra too and she is such a beauty.
Like in Keerthana’s case, Simran’s expressions are crucial. The scenes in which she doesn’t say anything but you can see what she is feeling just by her gestures are magical. I loved the scene in which they have to collect Amudha after she run away and the father hugs her avoiding telling her off but then the camera moves towards the mother and you can see the way she looks at her. You can see her anger behind her tears and how she is trying to control it. But you can also see that above all, her anger is just the result of her helplessness to make her daughter understand how much she loves her and worries about her. And all that without saying a word!
I loved the songs that showed the relationship between father-daughter and mother-daughter. As I mentioned before, it was so refreshing watching songs focusing on parental love. They were shot with such a good taste. And of course, they are A. R. Rahman’s work!
Other great moments for me were when Thiruchelvan answers his daughter’s question “why did you adopt me?” with a “we didn’t adopt you, you adopted us”; Thiruchelvan’s and Indra’s flashback scene in the porch when they decide to marry and can’t stop hugging even in front of Thiruchelvan’s sister; or that moment in their bedroom when Indra is crying to her husband that her daughter doesn’t like her and just when he is hugging her Amudha enters the room and asks if she can sleep in between them.
Nandita Das has a very small role in the film as the biological mother, but she shines as usual. I simply adore this lady.
The only weak point I found in the film was that in my opinion the end was a bit forced. The idea of Nandita not showing up the first time they arrange to meet, but just when they were going back through the park was a bit disappointing. Too much of a coincidence. Why not meeting the first time straight away? I guess so that Indra gets hurt because of her daughter, but that could have happened even if the meeting was successful the first time.
Summing up, I think this is a film everyone should watch at least once. I am already looking forward to watching it again myself!
Oh, and for the record, I want one of those Indian swings at home! Why can’t I have one? :((
Tags: Tamil
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
Finally!!
You have seen it!!
I couldn’t agree more…I loved this film instantly when i first saw it, and i rank it as one of Mani’s best!
My only regret??
Not being able to see it on the cinema!
I was gutted when ‘Devdas’ was India’s official entry to the Oscars back in ‘93 and not this film, although it was in the same catergory.
So real, so believable, so entertaining… the performances were brilliant, the cinematography highly impressive!
And yes, i’m aware quite a few people don’t seem to like this film too much, but its definitely one of the most decent films to come out India.
Nice one Monica!!
Memories. I was in Hyderabad when Kannathil Mutthamittal released. I first watched the Telugu dubbed version (Almost all Tamil movies are dubbed into Telugu and vice versa).
I loved the music, cinematography and the dialogues. One of the best Mani Ratnam’s movie but commercially this film did not fare so well…I still don’t understand why.
But the best movie from Mani Ratnam’s stable is and will remain “Mouna Ragam”. I can’t forget Karthik shouting “Mr.Chandra Mouli! Mr.Chandra Mouli!”, the scenes in the bus, library etc.
Well, talking about Mouna Ragam and going off topic, another favorite movie of mine, but not directed by Mani Ratnam is Idhayam. I still keep listening to the song “April May”, which had Prabhu Deva dancing on screen for the first time (Agninakshatram was the second?)!
The thing with Tamil movies is that they are simple but the way they express emotions is beautiful. Here in Hindi Cinema, no one will understand a scene where a shy girl is looking at the boy she likes in the bus, but in Hindi they show a girl in a short dress, walking up to the boy boldly and planting a kiss on his lips!
This makes me wonder, what happened to those beautiful movies which showed the cute love between Bhagyashree and Salman in Maine Pyar Kiya, the “Maya” Madhuri who makes you want to fall in love after watching Dil Toh Pagal Hain etc? Recently a movie that touched me is Amrita Rao in Vivaah…
Whatever the DVD culture prevailing and the so called intellectual cinema coming in, no one can take our deep rooted Indian culture out of our films…That’s what makes them tick…
Hey Monica,
I completey agree with you on many things, especially with regards to Girls acting and performance… She is I think ‘SUPERB’… Even Maddy and Simran were extremely convincing… especially the small litttle moments where The Girl refuses to accept her as her mother and Simrans reactions to what and how she feels about it was Picturised so well that it will always stay in my mind forever… as i strongly feel and always feel that ’small little things like these make for good cinema’. Now you know why is Mani Sir such a great filmmaker???
Steve,
Thanks. And I have beaten you, I have beaten you!
I saw it on the cinema! He he.
Yes, the cinematography is highly impressive.
MK,
I am surprised to know that it didn
Hi Monica,
It also had beautifully written songs by Vairamuthu who javed akhtar and gulzar respects. I dont understand tamil but one of my friends translated it for me. I think the title song has the most amazing lyrics ever written. My request is just try to see if you can get one friend to translate it for u.am sure…it will move you.
Kannathil Muthamittaal fared OK for the kind of film it was. It didn’t set the theatres on fire as it was expected to. The combination was huge, but the comeuppance was little. Reasons not hard to fathom.
1. The use of eelam backdrop was not done properly.
2. Too much of sensitivity to the child’s emotions and too much importance to that was also atypical of a thamizh middleclass family. Who the heck has got that much money and stupidity to walk into war torn lanka? The actions of the lead couple are more closer to that of an American couple than a middle class indian one.
3. Even if the audience were able to digest the previous two points, they waited for a hellluva emotional climax (In Thamizh Nadu there have been ordinary movies that became super hits, just because the climax was great and vice versa). But what was offered to them was something of a bland pasta!!
Though I personally dont expect a 400KV final scene in every movie, I felt that this movie could have had one.
I dont know what a 9 year old could understand if the biological mother told her that she intentionally left her for an ideology’s sake.
With such concept flaws, Mani’s Readers Digest view couldn’t cook much in local climate. Offcourse he won more laurels in circuits which knew nothing abt the backdrop he was trying to set the movie against.
The only refreshing ‘thing’ in the movie which was Prakash Raj! He is a thing coz he is so special as an actor and brought much needed fire and enthu into the dull and dragging movie where everyone were acting as if they were woken up from a decade long coma.
As far as wastage of acting talent goes, soon to be famous Pasupathi was wasted in an inconsequential cameo. Thanks to Kamal hassan and Vasantha Balan (not Vasan of PFC), Pasupathi was properly catapaulted into his rightful position due to his roles in Virumaandi and Veyyil.
Final point from me is that a little bit of melodrama is not a bad thing for a subject like this.
one of the best scenes in the movie is the war scene between the LTTE and Lankan army in the park.. great camera work.
Jaiganesh, I personally felt the climax summed the whole movie up perfectly…
Throughout the whole film I kept thinking why was it called ‘Kannathil Muthamitaal’, but that last scene when Amrudha hugs Simran and plants that tight kiss on her cheek, it all made sense…
To me, the film was firstly, and essentially about human relationships….everything else was secondary.
It felt very real to me…
I guess you can pick flaws with any film, but this film is simple…..and simply beautiful.
The technical aspects were superb too.
Love this movie!!
I’ve forgot to put down my reasons!!!
The kiss expressed so many things.
It showed that all Simrun efforts were appreciated by the Amrudha…
She realised that her foster mother has a such a big heart that she is willing to go to such lenghths for her daughter…
It was so poetic…and its an impactful scene.
So much was said without the usage of dialogues…brilliant!
Saji,
Now, that is a challenge, getting a friend to translate Tamil for me! ;)
Jaiganesh,
I am not quite sure what a 9 year-old-girl could understand if the biological mother told her that she intentionally left her for an ideologyUN:F [1.7.5_995]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
I want mounaragam film song line