Reco of the Month – Subramaniyapuram (2008)
Hell make that the year or even the last few years if you want and it still holds true!
If you are like me, confused about why the state which (add arguably here if u r keen on political correctness) boasts of the best brains, the best storytellers, the best technicians and the best musicians etc etc continually produce the most regressive, cliche cinema,
If you are like me waiting for that one movie which you can brag about to the world as your own and the BEST at that, boy are you in for a treat!!!!!!!
Believe me its not often that I can stand up and proclaim to the world (yep u read that write DA WORLD), that WE have a WINNER!! nor is it common place for me to put my hands up when someone asks for an answer to the best movie of the year and say yet again THIS and only THIS.
If we agree that the Cannes pick of this year is the best or at least amongst the best of it here, and if we can for a moment overlook the probability of a hidden gem from somewhere in Korea or Chile or somewhere else before the end of the year, which i have missed, i can say this without a second thought and out loud, we have the best here in Subramaniyapuram!!
Cinema is in its glorious self not when it tugs at your heart and pulls you in a direction which you determinedly pulled away from sometime in the past (a la Swades) or when it by way of a overdrawn emotional lecture attempts to lure you to proclaim the wrong of your ways and views (a la TZP), but when it has the audacity to show you something the way it is with no attempt whatsoever to reach into ur head and pulverise your sensorial capabilities to submission ( a la Paruthiveeran, Veyil, Tamil MA).
A lot of newsprint has been used to systematically point out the emotionally loud nature of the Tamilian and his films, even going so far as to paint the whole region as over the top. It would be wholly wrong to attribute this whole emotional onslaught, boisterousness and loud depiction on just the tamil practitioners of the craft or even to the actor we lost not too long ago who used to be called KamalHasan. The histrionics and melodrama are there in our lives (the plural usage in no way means im a fellow Tamilian but its something which fits well for the whole country, its just the shades that differ), but its one thing to show melodrama and be melodramic whislt showing it. Nothing captures this difference more than Subramaniyapuram.
That is, not to say that I can understand the Tamizh ethos in its minutest detail or the nuances of the language perfectly, I was all but adrift trying to understand the ’suttamaana Tamizh’ in Iruvar, but in this case as was then, the cinematic language is so potent and powerful that you cannot take your eyes off it. I was there when it was born i was there when it happened and I am here now to tell you how it all played out, period!!
A bit more about the experience to getting there.
For the chronology of it all, it started off when I overheard a conversation between our own Tamizh Tigers Vasan and Thanikachalam. It was but a mere enquiry as to the quality of the film. I had been a participant in similar conversations regarding Paruthiveeran, Veyil and Tamil MA before and frankly I went ‘oh must be one of those asking-your-acquiescence-bow-down-at-my-feet-gonna-run-u-over-with-overdrawn-melodrama flicks’ (like the ones mentioned below).
About a month after i heard the name, I came across the same during a chance tour of nostalgic searching for Thiruda Thiruda. Heeding to curiosity I had both in my hands after 20 mins. I added them to my playlist and promptly started to prep for dinner when an hereby unheard tune poked my interest again. I had literally pushed, pulled and fought my way to earn a berth for Thiruda Thiruda and remember missing the first 5 mins. So naturally, I presumed that this jingle which i was hearing now was that missing 5 mins. Went to check the visuals, with a WTF in my mind…
havent seen this before.. nice must way!!
then when the titles came up…
without the white with red underline title style which was the signature of Mani ratnam films those days it struck me,
yes Thiruda Thiruda had somehow been relegated to the bottom and Subramaniyapuram shuffled its way up to the top.
Needless to say, a considerate roomie took care of dinner and i savored the movie.
I talk about the title track here primarily because it started it all for me also since it sounded and felt different and out of place. Little did i know that as it marked the beginning, it literally marks the beginning of the end as well.
Without argument it is well written. But as someone said God is in the details, be it the fight scenes,the overlapping dialogues, the background noises which sets the ambiance, character sketches or easing us into the milieu, Sasikumar gets it right,effortlessly, to the T.
I have seen it all in real and now as much strikingly in celluloid. Frankly speaking, conceptually Subramaniyapuram has shades of Paruthiveeran seeping into it, but it is to the credit of Sasikumar and his crew that those remain just that – shades which percolates in only to reinforce the period and context.
I dont want to kill your experience by going farther into the details of the movie, that’s a debate, im sure, which will play out in the comments section by people who have seen it and those who want to see it, so I leave you with a synopsis of the plot ‘as is’ on the movies new site and other tidbits. Like I said if you have been waiting for that movie which you can brag about to the world THIS is it!!
the film delves into the possibilities and realities of how some unpleasant events of yesteryears even after the long passage of time and regular attempts made to bury the past in its graves sometimes and more often prove to be near to impossible to escape and often emerges back to hit at an emotional spot in our minds where it hurts the most trasporting us into the past lanes of our youth which has long become history and s left for us to rewind, rethink and still leaves us with no option than to just be a mute spectator to the actions of our own heritage that has undoubtedly conceived and sculpted the nature of our present day life.
Director M.Sasikumar
After being an assistant to Bala in ‘Sethu’, and Ameer in ‘Maunam Pesiyathe’ & ‘Raam” he makes his debut with Subramaniyapuram
Cinematographer S.R. Kathir
Debut with Katrathu tamil after assisting Cinematographer Ramji in films like Mounam Pesiyathe, Dum etc
Music James Vasanthan
Debut
Art Director Rembon
Debut
Editor Rajamohammed
Debut with Nala Damayanthi. Also has Paruthiveeran and Raam under his kitty.
Action Rajasekar
Paruthiveeran and Santhosh Subramaniyam
Cast
Jai
Sasikumar
Swathi
Kanja Karupu
Samutharakini
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
DPac, you’ve kept your promise. very energizing to see your enthusisasm about a film that never dreamed to make it in Australia :-)
these brothers have been crafting gems, very consistently, ignoring the art/commercial divides. Tamil mainstream cinema has come up triumphs, am speculating, because of a lack of an Art Cinema movement EVER. hence, no compulsion to either pump-up inaccessibility or dumb-down passion. The market is the same, & the very same ticket-buyer of Rajni’s ‘Shivaji’ buys tickets for the Subramaniyapuram friday night, ‘coz it’s the passion that does the talking.
loved the film. a much-required reiteration in the triumph of personal filmmaking.
DPac, a round of drinks in your name for this post. and the toast goes to…
Subramaniyapuram, Subramaniyapuram, Subramaniyapuram!
“no attempt whatsoever to reach into ur head and pulverise your sensorial capabilities to submission”
WoW.
@thani,
why australia thani? havent seen anything remotely close to this, this year from anywhere.
i can see the collections for the film is picking up. they didnt have a website when we talked about this 2 weeks back, now they do and a lot of people are singing praises
@deep blue lotus
maaan… with that 3 alphabets u did the impossible!!
embarrass me… thnx
WOW bhai… haven’t read u in a while, impressive.
Now I will find this – i trust KK only so much!
Keep writing, Dude!
Read this. Browsed the site of the film. Read the Synopsis of the film. Just saw the song in the video section – it looks so much like the heroes and the background group trying to be so “in” and so “yo”. Typical over the top Tamil film, I’d say. Nothing great at all.
Even though I have read what you’ve written (and its good) its quite tough me to actually accept that this film is any “different” (ive started to dislike this much abused word).
Honestly, Im not able to say – yes! Im gonna see this film soon. I just feel that at times no matter how good the film is its very tough to break the initial barrier and sit down to watch it.
Just one sentence of this write-up stayed with me – “…tamil practitioners of the craft or even to the actor we lost not too long ago who used to be called KamalHasan…” . No clue why the film ‘Guna’ just cropped up.And the song “Kanmani anbe…”. A beautiful song and a film not be missed. There is no one like KH indeed.
Btw why is Tamil written as Tamizh?
thanks DPAC……dying to see this film KK has promised he will get this for me…..waiting…..still waiting…..
Anotehr Holy Trinity in the making…..BALA/AMEER/SASI
@Arthi,
u gotta trust me on this. this aint over the top. ‘in’ and ‘yo’ for a film set in the 80’s?? nooo
u are way off mark here. they have successfully made cynics out of us in one way or the other. but try to go watch it without any presumptions.
and :-) Guna is one of the better flms in that Kamal’s histrionics were justified.
Because it is Tamizh
@vasan,
i thought u already saw this. maybe it was kk
@ravp
that made my day.. thnx
Wow! i was expecting for a long time for someone to post a topic on Subramanyapuram . i enjoyed the movie. Especially “Kangal Irandal…” song. Watching a class movie after a long time in tamil after Paruthiveeran
Kudos to the Madurai trinity BALA/AMEER/SASI we could smell the tamil soil (manvaasanai)
lol.. have to say something about the synopsis though.. my own experience of attempting synopsis for a friend’s film was accused by the dear friend, of being too long & made up of too many commas; she has to read Subramaniyapuram’s :-)
pity the official site’s synopsis gives very little idea of the film.
. it’s a film set in 1980 Subramaniyapuram in Madurai.
. of a group of 4 friends, coming-of-age of sorts.
. small-town aspirations, of all hues.
. an authentic vision of a geography’s inherent violence.
an assured cinematic crafting, a joy to behold, a ‘La Haine’ for Madurai.
Subramaniyapuram, Subramaniyapuram, Subramaniyapuram!
It is so unfair to compare this film to Paruthiveeran.. PV was well written..unfortunately Subramanyapuram fails in writing. We have a supremely talented Sasikumar who extracts wonderful efforts from his cast and crew, and because of the direction, the movie works.
But as a concept, it is nothing but nothing but survival of the fittest in gangwars – Anurag Kashyap and Saurabh Shukla created a gem of a script with Satya with the same concept. Here the story does not even move in the first half.It is actually boring. The director tries his best to cover the shortcomings of the script, with the setting, with the realistic performances and by utilising the brand value of Rajnikanth – but comeone man, you need to have some interesting scenes written in your script.
I liked your post Dpac, because your passion shows in the post, but unfortunately the same cannot be said about Sasikumar’s script.
@ anand – you are right .. the story didnt progress in the first half at all! But , overall the movie scores way above its contemporaries!
the holy trinity of bala/ameer/sasi , tats fine ,but where is RAM of KATTRADHU TAMIZH ??
i think he is gonna make real big strides with his forthcoming ventures! It was an absolutely fantastic movie!
one of the better movies of 08 following anjathey.as some one has pointed out the first half just passes but second half is better copmared to 1st.over all a decent fare compared to the kind of tamil movies relesed so far.
@Prasanna,
i should have mentioned the music i guess. needless to say its good and adds to the narrative (in a way the best of the malayalam directors have utilised them) rather than disrupt the flow.
I loved Shanker mahadevan’s kadhal Siluvayil :-)
@ thani,
lol my thgts exactly
i had to type the whole text in..
the website is all images and flash cant even copy paste the text
@anand,
au contraire, S’puram is better written. and i dont believe any comparison is valid and have not made any.
and this was no passionate response anand. there is joy at seeing something like this but thats about it. i can vouch for the rest of what i have written word by word.
Paruthiveeran, has its set pieces and cliches in place with the detailing going overboard at times. but that was the directors prerogative and i fully accept that.
But Do elaborate on the ’shortcomings’ of the script as you see it.
@pramod and kishore,
what do u mean the story didnt progress in the first half? didnt get that at all unless you were expecting a more conventional narrative with a hook in the middle and a twist in the end scenario.
‘anjathey’ was a wank fest by the director!
agreed it was better than the mainstream fare but still no comparison to S’puram
@DPac, Main shortcoming of the script to me was lack of narrative progression. Had there been some interesting characters a la Pithamagan, we would not have noticed it(In any case, Pithamagan’s lack of narrative progression was by design so as to emphasise the characters and their relationship).
And Dpac, I called your response passionate as a compliment. Of course you have enjoyed watching the film and the sheer joy that you have experienced shows in your post. It is just that the movie did not work for me.
@anand,
:-)
I know u meant it as a compliment, thnk u for tht but i was trying to set the story right.
and Sure, if it didnt work for u fair enough, but ‘lack of narrative progression’ was such a general statement, I still dont get it.
Do you mean to say you would have prefered more interesting characters and incidents pre interval to pique ur interest?
i havent seen Pithamagan so cant understand the comparison.
This movie worked for me big time!!! I didnt understand a word spoken in the film. Yet it had an hammerstrong impact on me. Some gr8 scenes:
– Rajanikant movie celebration, especially inside the theatre
– The handicapped guy takes out his lungi, wraps the bottles, throws it to the other guys, and the guys bash the rival gang with it.. Awesome!!
– The ‘gangster’ twist in the end. Recently Jannat also had this twist. But in this film it was elevated to an altogether different level by the agony shown by the actress. First rate!!!
@ DPac – all that 1st half did was just establish the point that the guy(hero) was looking at the gal(heroine) and vice-versa along with a bunch of jobless guys who are hovering around the cycle shop! and yeah , there were scenes exclusively alloted for some comedy Quotient!this is what i perceived from the 1st half.
PS:‘anjathey’ was a wank fest by the director!TOTALLY AGREE with u …i was fed up with the movie …
@Gaurang(22),
talking of scenes,
nothing in recent memory compares to the bit where the camera follows the Kanja Karupu to the car to get his ill earned money. Flashes of ‘Election’ came to my mind!!
if anyone needs a lesson in choreographying fight scenes this is iT!! all of them are so well done!!
@Pramod(23),
one of the points established is as u said the Swathi-Jai infatuation angle so also the happenings in and around S’Puram including some ‘comedy quotient’ scenes as you put it.
To say such scenes are ‘alotted’ for a movie, is in effect comparing it to a normal entertainer or pot boiler where u have such scenes and characters put in as a ’selling point’ like say a ‘comedy track’ in for eg paruthiveeran which appears and feels contrived.
In this particular case, the first halt establishes and documents the going ons in the life of those 4 ruffians not as a compulsion for the marketaility of the movie but AS IS.. and when it is required..
i cant think of any scene which does not contribute to the movie and establishing points as a whole..
DPac… awesome write-up. If it wasnt for Baradwaj Rangan’s similar shout-out of this movie yours would have been THE one.
Regarding the non-progression of the first half, it establishes the character. It shows to what extent violence is inherent in the lead characters.
SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
You see that though Ganja Karuppu is part of the gang, he shares some reservations. He has his ego and he is a little money minded and always wants to save his ass. You also see the friendship of Azhagan and Paraman are really deep and true. The period is established, the dynamics of the relation between Thulasi’s family and these jobless guys are also established without any specific plot points. Maybe, just maybe, it is the subtlety in which characters are established through events rather than plot points that you thought there was nothing really happening in the first half.
When Thulasi’s Uncle finally asks the guys to kill the politician for him, you are not really taken aback at their acceptance.
The inherent violence is also underlined beautifully. These guys beat people up. Sometimes for absolutely no reason. Thats the violence established in the first half that is seen in the second half as major events.
You see the handicapped guy is never arrested, even though he is always part of the action. You see the thirst for power in the older guys. Lots in the first half to observe; really.
If it wasn’t for so many events in the first half, you would have raised a lot of questions in the second.
I would suggest everyone to have a look at Baradwaj Rangan’s “review” of the movie. I am not as adept as him in analysis. I watched the movie twice to completely understand the progression of the movie. And it is beautiful.
www.desipundit.com/baradwajrangan/2008/07/26/between-reviews-a-bloody-good-show/
Now, for the sake of nit picking, I didn’t like the slo-mo romantic angle. A scene too many of those.
And the Subramaniyapuram title song plays out very much like Dol Dol from Yuva (Aayitha Ezhuthu); the way its shot and the way its composed.
My favourite part: the use of the “main” Subramaniyapuram theme (unfortunately I didnt find it in the album). The one that plays over the titles. Haunting melody put to marvellous use, with a lot of variations. First, its informative, setting the mood. Second, its transitional, but uplifting, showing hope in these dark actions. Third it is again slightly uplifting, when they get bail out of prison. Fourth, its almost unidentifiable, gelling with the protagonist’s mind which screams revenge and nothing else. Last, its the end of the spiral; everything washed down with it.
Just read BR’s post..thanks Gopi.
I remember what RGV said in his blog a couple of weeks back..he was mentioning the levels of connect each of the audience experience with a film..It is so true.
After reading BR’s post, I thought about the film and whatever he has written made sense to me and I can understand how and why this film has connected to so many people..but the fact remains that it still did not connect with me.
Talking about RGV, I think the man has such a great analytical capability and is so articulate, he can quit filmmaking and become a professor in some film appreciation course :-)
@Anand.
No matter how much you respect the man, dont you just wish he took that job if ever he was offered one. He would still live on forever for his movies of yore.
Also, try a second viewing. ;-)
I find the discussions on lack of progression in narration a little too misguided – that too after having seen the same discussions in forums after forums.
This is what the thamizh audience of 80’s were fed by the films of that time:
first 10 mins lead character introduction humorous if it is a K.Bhagyaraj film, sad if it is a Bharathiraaja film, curious if it is a Balachander film.
next 20 mins Heroine/supporting cast introduction+ chief antagonist introduction + one song
next 20 minutes – clashes between characters
next 10 minutes first plot twist
Interval
post interval first plot twist solved – 15 minutes
second set of songs – one pathos atleast
second plot twist
one flashback sequence – reestablishing lead character’s motives 20 mins loong
30 minute climax scenes
15 minutes of comedy scenes in between
Everything is hunky dory!!
Occasional tragedies in Thamizh cinema would be Malayalam remakes – otherwise it is the same pattern of narrative progression that we have been seeing for awfully too long periods through 80s and nineties.
The new crop of film makers in thamizh – go to the character more these days more than these plot formulas because of the change in demographics of people watching movies – Gone are the days when an entire family will go and watch a Sakalakala vallavan closing the eyes of the kids when “naethu raathiri yamma” plays or a Bhagyaraj movies mandatory first night song plays on the screen. Today – it is more younger crop who watch the movies in theatres and they are willing to see more movies that offer characters that are readily ‘relatable’ and the revolution began with ‘Sethu’. Character is the king and the moment the filmmakers let go of the narrative element – more honest films have started coming out. In my humble opinion – that should be the norm as narratives that do not add to our understanding of the character are just pure amusement and no substance thereof. So if a filmmaker gives a damn to narrative progression and focusses more on how to present a character in its most interesting best – he should be applauded and his cinema heralded.
and a good post DpaC
Gopi, Definitely..I am going to watch it a second time…possibly in a better theatre(I saw it in Roopam). It is very likely that I did not get the nuances while watching it the first time.
To give an example, I saw the entire Rajnikanth episode as a cheap gimmick to exploit the brand value if the star(the movie actually did this quite well..even better than what the star himself managed to do in Kuselan :-) )…And therefore the significance of the violence that followed escaped me…
Must watch it a second time. Things could be different then.
@gopi,
thanks for the words.
and yeah i was surprised to find Rangan saab too on the rooftop
@Anand,
has there been movies which you didnt like but you still consider them great? (it works vice versa as well)
@jaiganesh,
ehehe love the split up.. and
thanks
@DPac, Thevar Magan did not work for me in the first viewing(the second half – I loved the first half). I watched it again after a month and got what I missed. Subsequently I have watched the film many times and now think that it is one of Kamal’s best.
But this has been an exception, either a movie works for me in the first viewing or not.
With reference to Subramaniyapuram, the impression I got was the direction was consistently fantastic, but the writing in the first half wasn’t OK. But as I said, I’ll watch the film once again this weekend.