Maniratnam – a victim of being overrated?
The inspiration for this post is not only due to the discussion going on about him in various blogs (especially, lazygeek) but also because he is my favorite director. The source of these discussions is ‘Nayagan’ being selected in the All-Time top 100 movies by Time’s movie critics. My perception is that he is being a victim of being overrated.
Right from ‘Mouna Ragam’, the one thing that I greatly admire about him is the way he portrays his characters. His characters are so close to real life people that you can actually relate to them. To name a few, the happy-go-lucky Karthik is ‘Mouna Ragam’, smuggler velu bhai Kamal in ‘Nayagan’, craving for his mother’s love Rajni in ‘Thalapathi’, mentally disabled kid Shamily in ‘Anjali’, innocent village girl Madhubala in ‘Roja’, the naïve married couple Madhavan & Shalini in ‘Alaipayuthey’…the list is never ending. Some people say that he starts with a good concept but compromises it a lot for commercial aspects. I totally accept it, but we have to realize that he is not an art film director. He makes commercial movies and his producers have to make some profit out of it. The other accusation is he repeats the same actors like Arvindsamy & Madhavan in his movies. Again, I have never seen them being a misfit for any of his characters. Arvindsamy as a computer geek in ‘Roja’ and Madhavan as a goonda in ‘Ayutha Ezhuthu’ definitely did justice to their roles. There are also others who say that most of his movies are inspired from many foreign language movies that are not so popular. Well, what is wrong if he wants to introduce a good classic taken in Spanish or French to an ordinary tamil movie lover?
My point is, though Maniratnam is not THE best director Indian cinema has ever seen, he is definitely one among the BESTS. He has a unique style of film making and he has definitely strived hard to attract attention towards Indian cinema. The main reason why he is always a target for accusations is because people overrate him and expect his movies to be flawless. So if we go to his movies without any preconceived notion then we would definitely be able to applaud his efforts. I personally feel that one day he’ll definitely take Indian cinema to unimaginable heights.
posted by Preethi at 5:37 PM
2 Comments:
Preethi,
There are many points on which I have to disagree with you.
"His characters are so close to real life people that you can actually relate to them." - For all those characters that you have mentioned, there are an equal number of completely unrealistic characters that he has etched out so far - you will not find kids like the ones we saw in Anjali/Uyire in real life or a conman who speaks Manirathnam-style one liners like the way Madhavan does in Aayitha Ezhuthu.
About him being a commerical director, I agree but then he can surely do away with songs like 'September maadham' or 'Nenjinile' which will drive the family crowd away from his movies.
expect his movies to be flawless - That is bound to happen when you give movies so rarely. He has given 16 movies in 20 years and his last 8 movies have taken him 15 years. Compare this against someone like Ram Gopal Verma who reels off movies so frequently and still manages to maintain the same quality.
Finally, originality is one thing I give utmost importance to in a creator. If copying & getting inspired from someone else is not that big a deal, then why don't we hold Deva in the same high esteem that we hold Ilaiyaraja in?
Filby,
I definitely accept ur point of view. Everybody's view are different. But I have to point out one thing. 'Copying' & 'Getting Inspired' are 2 extremely different words. And Maniratnam definitely doesn't fall under the first category. Let me take ur example, Deva comes under the 'copying' category and ARR under the 'getting inspired'. I would rather prefer to leave Ilaiyaraja out of comparisons.
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