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| Wednesday, 17 March 2004 |
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Thendral : Absorbing story by Karthiga Rukmanykanthan Thendral (Breeze) A teenage girl called Thamarai Selvi falls in love with a writer called Nalan Killi. The story starts with an infatuation and ends in true love. In this movie, the director Thankar Bachan has again tried to give the same touch as his first movie 'Azhagi' that he directed. This movie moves faster than his previous two makes, which were seriously criticised for its dawdling speed, but some scenes have not been stressed to give more flavour to the story and cast. The music by Vidyasagar is not at all appreciable in this movie, except for two songs all the rest are irritation to the ears. Nevertheless, with some excellent cast, and gripping story the director has touched the hearts of the audience.
Parthiban as usual has easily shown the expressions of a short-tempered but sensitive writer. Uma who had acted in some of the award winning movies before has beautifully exposed her talent as a mother who is struggling to tell the name of her husband to her son. The highlight of the movie is the authentic acting given out my master Aravind who makes the audience's stomach ache with laughter in every scene that he appears in the beginning. The director has also fixed in some propaganda in few areas to give his views about some burning issues. Thamarai Selvi who grows up in Chennai is a neighbour of the famous writer Nalan Killi and she enjoys reading his books. This enjoyment slowly makes her like his taste such as music. She too starts to gather peacock feathers like the writer, which is a good idea to indicate the love of a teenage girl. Nalan Killi is an alcoholic and a bachelor preferring to live a life without family burdens and he has a bad habit of sleeping with women. These are his weak points, which bring him disgrace from the public. Suddenly the widowed mother of Thamarai dies in a fire accident. The helpless Thamarai goes to live with her relatives who force her to marry their son but not being able to forget Nalan Killi she runs away from her house. When she stands helpless on the streets of Thirichinapalli, a man takes her as a call girl to a house without her knowledge. When the voice of Nalan Killi is heard in that place, it takes Thamarai with shock and surprise. Not only does it take Thamarai with surprise but also the audience. The director has handled the situation profoundly well to give a twist without foreshadowing. There she loses herself to Nalan Killi her beloved writer believing his temporary affection and without knowing that he has slept with several other women before. A beautiful song sung by Aandal (a devotee of Lord Krishna) is played as the background music to give a gentle touch to the romantic scenes and to compare the heroine to Aandal who lived a life praying her much-loved Lord Krishna. She only understands everything when he stretches some money. This is the place where the heroine shows some highlighting expressions being not able to suffer the pain of disappointment. Soon after she leaves that place, she finds a friend who had also faced similar problems like her. She plans to live a life in the memories of her husband. She gives birth to a boy and the child grows without knowing his father's name but fate directs him to his father and the child groups up with his father without knowing that it is his father. This is the place where some of the usual cinematic trends have been used. A little bit of humour has been added in these scenes between the father and the son to make the audience laugh after an array of gripping scenes. The scenes where the father changes his attitude after being humiliated by a young boy could have contained more clarity. The rest of the movie moves on with the unification of the family after some usual cinematic trends. Parthiban suits the role of the cranky writer but does not make a good pair with the young Uma. He is well experienced in this role and a good debater. As he is a writer in his real life itself, it has made his job easy to perform in the real life. Uma is far better than the leading heroines of today in Tamil cinema who needs layers of make-up to shine. Uma has made use of her sharp features to communicate with the audience. She has proved that any talented actress can act without make-up. Junior Bachan, Aravind, has shown some authentic expressions and his work needs to be applauded. Out of the masala movies that carry meaning less plots, Thendral is surely a change for the audience who were longing for an emotive story. The movie moves on without the usual cinematic trends at the start but to make the movie interesting, at the end, the director makes use of those trends. Yet, Thendral has jointly touched the audience with its absorbing story. **** Back **** |
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