Tamil film with a difference in the 1960s
K S Sivakumaran
In the early Tamil cinema the name Sridhar was a household word among
cinegoers. They might remember films like Kalyanap Patisu, Kaathalika
Netamillai, Theane Nilavu, Sumai Thaangi and a few others.
 One of his remarkable films then was Nenjil ore Aalayam (A Shrine in
the Heart. It deviated on from the run of the mill ‘masalas’ (a cocktail
of hackneyed ingredients). It was shot in one set in 28 days. This was a
redeeming feature because it was tightly edited to create an atmosphere
and a kind of realism in the film that moved away from some
idiosyncrasies. The film portrays cinematically the emotional anguish of
three characters. The story itself takes place within 14 days. The theme
itself was novel at that time spun within the eternal triangle formula.
But the presentation was appreciable.
The storyline could be summed up as follows:
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A scene from Nenjil ore Aalayam |
The story revolves around a cancer specialist who dies prematurely, a
patient with acute cancer in the lungs, a woman torn between the love
for one and the duty consciousness for the other. We observe that the
doctor suffers from conflicting emotional turbulence. The fact was that
the doctor’s former girl friend happened to be the patient’s wife. The
wife inevitably has occasions to interact with her former lover. What
the scriptwriter Sridhar was trying to show in his meticulously directed
film maybe understood like this---
The heart is like a shrine and in it only one God could remain and
for a Tamil woman her husband is the only God, even though her husband
is not her lover. This is a hackneyed theme and no more is this idea of
a Tamil woman’s chastity is considered a virtue judging by the stupid
teledramas (they call it serials in Tamilnadu) aired from Chennai and
beamed in local Tamil TV channels. The film also suggests that once
married to another man she should remove her memories of him entirely
and avoid relationship whatsoever with her former lover. I wonder
whether this is possible now. The world has changed a lot since the
1960s.
The patient coming to know that he may die soon and is also aware of
his wife’s earlier relationship with the doctor asks his wife to remarry
the doctor once he dies. This is straightaway declined by the wife. She
says that once married her husband is her God. The doctor in the
meantime insists that the married couple should live happily and soon
dies of his acute cancer disease. So the film ends in a tragic-comedy.
Even if the film sounds implausible, it was a story with a twist
considering the values believed to be true half a century ago. What
helps to give artistic touch to the film is not merely the acting which
was good; the other features were also contributory.
The camera, the acting, the dialogue which was crisp and coherent,
but one snag: too many words and less moving images. One had to follow
the nuances in the dialogue than watching the dramatic movements in the
film.
Devika as the helpless woman played the role with restraint. Kalyan
Kumar as the Doctor was convincing His mannerisms especially were true
to the behaviour of a doctor, although his facial expressions were a
little artificial. Mutthuraman, a fine actor on the Tamil screen, was at
ease as the woman’s husband and a patient. He easily scores better than
the other players. The cinematography of Vincent was functional and
befitting to the scenes pictured.
Music had a touch western touch in a dish of oriental tunes by
Visvanathan-Ramamurthi duo to the meaningful lyrics of Kannadasan. The
songs were rendered by P.B. Srinivas and P.Suhila. I liked the film
then, but I am not sure whether I would like to see it again.
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