Navarasa – Myth meets Santosh Sivan
Navarasa(Tamil) directed by Santosh Sivan
Quoting imdb
“Swetha, 13, discovers that her uncle Gautham dresses as a woman once night has fallen. Intrigued, she asks him about him, and he confesses her that his dream would be to escape to Koovagam, a little city in the South of India, where transvestites gather to perpetuate the myth of Aravan. Once he disappears, Swetha goes after him, without warning her parents… ”
and quoting the man himself
“The myth goes like this: Aravan is the son of Arjuna and Nagakanniga. When he is chosen as a sacrifice for the Goddess Kali during the Kurukshetra War, he expresses his desire to marry. But no woman is willing to be a widow by marrying him. Then, Lord Krishna assumes the form of Mohini and marries him. When she becomes a widow, she dresses up in white, breaks her bangles and cries, which is the scene recreated at the festival. This is why the Arvanis call themselves incarnations of Lord Krishna”
Aravani – people(read men) who feel like a woman trapped in a man’s body.
Swetha herself has just entered puberty.She is the only child and stays in a upper middle class house with her ever annoying mother and the “I’m always into newspapers” – father. Sweha’s uncle Gautham stays with them and Swetha is fond of him. Swetha’s father however is not too approving of his brother Gautham.
Swetha’s uncle Gautham (he calls himself as Gauthami) runs away to attend the festival. Swetha goes in search of her uncle, with whom she is rather attached, first to the village Villupuram, where Aravanis gather and participate in a ‘Beauty Contest’. She doesn’t find him there, but manages to glance into their lives. She is aided in her search by Bobby Darling (yeah u heard that right) who also goes to participate in the festival.
There is a documentary film maker who interviews each and every Aravani participating in the beauty contest. Foreign photographers snapping pictures of the Aravanis and the rituals.
The film starts in a typical Manirathnam-ish manner. The girl is enamored with the local superstar (R Madhavan), free like a bird, brash and yet responsible, having a bespectacled geeky young child-neighbour for company…who is all the time fascinated with love stories without understanding them. A laidback Coffee drinking-father, the mother who runs to buy sarees from the nearest Saree sale shop.
Although on second thoughts, a carefreee girl going in search of someone does remind you of Manirathnam’s masterpiece Kannathil muthamittal, still Navarasa manages to hold on its own ground.
Once Swetha’s journey begins, the film almost takes a documentarish feel sometimes… thanks to some great camera work and real life like feel of the festival/contest. At times, it also looks like a fantasy. Arguably the film was shot on a shoe string budget and even the shots of the festival were perhaps taken without recreating it. It seems perhaps the festival was the starting point of the film and the story was woven around it. And yes, it has been woven around pretty well.
The film does not ridicule them, nor is it like a sad boring depressing tale of the hardships they face/social ostracism they face. Yes there are one or two scenes thrown here and there .. but it doesnt look like the director is saying “Look at them and feel bad for them !!!”. Although there is an almost mandatory (and perhaps slightly cliched)’rape attempt in a shady area’ scene, short melodramatic speech by an Aravani, and Bobby Darling facing social ridicule (Adam or Eve teasing – call it what u want)… but we will forgive Santosh Sivan for these shortcomings.
Swetha eventually meets her uncle Gautham who is all dressed up as a woman and has celebrated his/her wedding with Lord Aravan’s deity (as is the practise for Aravanis). Then the following day, once the statue of Aravan is beheaded (very much like the Ravan-Dussehra festival), Gautham wears white saree and mourns the death of his/her ‘husband’ , as is the local practise.
Swetha urges her uncle and takes him back home with the promise that “some doctor will cure you”. What happens when the parents get to know of this truth is what forms the climax of the film.
Haunting background score doesn’t leave u even after the film is over. And the film forces you to think about the sorry plights of those who are not normal, their feelings/emotions/desires.
Pretty neat film to watch. The film apparently did go to quite a few festivals and was well appreciated.
I’m looking forward to seeing The Terrorist.
P.S : Just bumped into the official Santosh Sivan website. Seems like a wonderful reservoir of knowledge on cinematography.
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
Very nice post…Very nice…
nice post kk.. a documentary based on the same topic has also been making the festival rounds in the past year or so.. “the celestial brides” directed by parthiban shanmugam..
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0823716/
thanks for reminding me about “the terrorist”.. need to rent that..
Almost an year ago, I went to see this movie on big screen; expecting some brilliant cinematography(something on the lines of his terrorist). The documentary-style images of the festivities in second half were repulsive- too depressing- probably something the director was trying to achieve…I walked out after that tacky rape episode . It’s Santosh Sivan’s weakest work till date IMHO.
Compared to this Terrorist is a masterpiece – good story, decent narration, excellent camera-work.
Wanted to see this for quite sometime now…will do it soon…Terrorist…from what i remember wasnt any great…yes Ayesha Dharkar was mindblowing..but, it had the same old cliched story line….two things to watch is Ayesha and cinematogrphy..other things i dont remember now..maybe need another viewing when i am sober
Oh do watch The Terrorist, Kartik…It’s a good movie…except the story line which falters to some extent…it’s to some extent similar to the story of the lady who assassinated Rajiv Gandhi…But if not for anything else, just watch it for the brilliant cinematography and Ayesha Dharkar…
And yes, also check this out…an article by John Malkovich who is a ‘patron’ of this film…
http://allstarz.hollywood.com/~malkovich/nytimes2.html
sahi re…good one.
wanted to c the film for a long time….still havent managed to do it.have seen some bits of it…some very nice camerawork…u can gurantee that anyway…if its santosh sivan.looks intersting.have to catch it.