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| Wednesday, 13 October 2004 |
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Film review Different treat by Karthiga Rukmanykanthan Kudaikul Malai (Rain beneath the umbrella) In the past few years Tamil cinema had been striving for some new stories. The only factor which had been making Tamil films different from one another were the difference in filming with the modern technological advances, screenplay, music and choreography but most of the story lines were filched from other movies. Kudaikul malai is truly a different treat in spite of its dragging pace. The movie has been shot in very few locations with lengthy emotional dialogues.
The protagonist is portrayed as a sensitive character. He is enticed by a girl and on her betrayal gets psychologically affected. The theme might sound familiar but the director has carried out the events of the film as just an illusion of the protagonist. The director plus hero of this film, Partheeban, should be appreciated for his innovative plot and screenplay. The movie begins with the normal Tamil cinema trend but ends perfectly clearing the doubts of the audience. Partheeban is introduced as an auto driver. The movie begins with a marriage proposal for Partheeban which eventually breaks down due to the girls's disinterest. After all these sorrowful incidents in his life another girl enters his life and falls in love with him. Later, he comes to know that he has been deceived by this girl for a television program. Partheeban's dreams are traumatized again for the second time in his life. He gets mentally affected and enters his dream world where he imagines of kidnapping the girl. More than half of the film is dragged showing his dream. The scenes which follow after the girl is kidnapped have a touch of the film "Gunaa" which portrayed Kamalhasan in a similar state of mind. The director has concentrated more on building up the emotions hence more time has been given for close-up shots. The director brings in another character to expose the other side or the negative side of the protagonist. He is introduced as the brother but he is wild and brutish. He represents the brutal guy within Partheeban who is later killed to show that Partheeban has not kidnapped the girl in any intention of torturing her. The frozen chicken in the freezer symbolizes the mental status of Partheeban. In addition to that the interior design of the house in which he lives in and the clothes he wears gives the audience a clue of his confused state of sanity. His dream ends sacrificing the girl for saving the lives of her parents. His real life ends with a disconnected telephone through which he shares his feelings with his friends. Partheeban loves producing diverse films and he approaches them differently bringing in some new and fresh plot. This film is no exception but the dragging pace and the focus of the camera only on two characters throughout the film makes the audience impatient. This time he has undoubtedly thought of a sophisticated plot but he could have reduced the dialogues and mixed some other interesting sequence of scenes. His performance as the auto-driver is touching but his imaginative character that is his brother from Singapore is noisy and exasperating which makes his performance look exaggerated. Madhumitha performing the role of his lover has made a perfect start to her career with a reasonably heavy role in this film. The cinematographer and the art director have got together and put in some creative work to bring out the correct moods according to the situation. The editor has joined the complicated scenes which have been just shot in a few locations without creating any perplexity. He makes sure that the audiences are not left with any doubts at the end. The music director Karthik Raja has been only given two sound tracks to work with. Both have fantastic tunes and are poignant. He has had a great chance to score in background music as well but he has not used up his opportunity well as none of them are memorable. He could have just used a few selected tunes rather than having used up all his best tunes incessantly. "Kudaikul Malai" is droning but should be esteemed for taking the risk to bind up such an innovative and intricate script. **** Back **** |
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