Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Filmmaking 101

A hilarious review of Anniyan in Raman's blog. Check it out here. Absolutely spot on, especially the analogy to Onion.

There was a time, when I used to like such movies. I wonder why I ever grew up hence. Life was so simple with poor taste.

It confirms my longheld belief that all Shankar knows is two genres of filmmaking- Love and the supposed "Socially-Relevant" cinema- which he happily alternates between. And hopes that we being the brainless twits that we are, don't notice that it is the same story again and again. And again.

I wouldn't blame him for thinking that though, given our track record with the kind of movies that we help become Super/Mega/Ultra Hits.

Coming to think of it, there is a specific formula that we all readily fall for.

1) ALL socially relevant Shankar films will have a flashback. No questions asked. The flashback will involve one relative of the protagonist dying due to some government servant/politician's neglect. Usually this will be followed by some scenes of extraordinary hamming.

2) There will also be a "makkal" scene- where various sections of society will voice support for the hero- for example, college gals will drool, "Hey paar ya! Indian thatha style! Kewl!!", or old ladies will scream, "Pugalendhi dhaanungo!"

3) There will definitely be a Matrix style stunt scene. People will scale buildings with the ease of a Zhang Ziyi in Crouching Tiger. Motorcycles will jump 20 feet up and then decide to explode. Sometimes cars will jump over trains, and coconut trees will uproot automatically and soar into the heavens. Sometimes, when the hero breaks the villain's hand, there will be a zoom-in to an X-ray shot where we get visual confirmation of the fracture, in case we had feared that it was a mere sprain.
(Although, to be really fair, this technique has been borrowed from Sarath Kumar's follow-up to Lion King, Deewan.)

4) All songs will have graphics which will be stupid, kitschy, or both. Hero and heroine will jump into the air, the frame will freeze and the screen colour will suddenly become dull, the world will revolve around them, and then after a few seconds of suspended animation where we are supposed to hold our breath, the lovers will resume normal movement and fall gleefully into each others' arms. There will also be a man-to-animal transformation. Like Kamal Hassan will morph into an Iguana, lion, etc. or Manivannan and Vadivelu will reveal a snaky aspect to their character hitherto unknown to mankind.

5) Shankar's films will depict "cool" people by having them spout Thanglish in ludicrous westernized accents. Funnily enough, many people seem to share his opinon.

Thalaivar Rajnikanth has a few formulae as well. Will probably dedicate a post for that on one of those long, rainy afternoons.

And yes, in Sun TV Lion Dates Top 10 Movies fashion: Anniyan, Saniyan.

Irrelevant Film Fact of the Day: Did you know that there is a Telugu actor who actually goes by the sobriquet, "Challenging Star"? I wonder what they intended.

18 Comments:

Blogger ioiio said...

My Kandu roomie pronounces anniyan as onion despite my polambals abt it..

Top 10 movie style:

Anniyan-e veliyeru!!

12:03 AM  
Blogger Venkat said...

ioiio,
I wouldn't blame your roomie, but neenga yen polambareenga?

Not that kandus should have too much to laugh about- Ask them about this guy called Ambareesh and that should do the trick :).

6:56 AM  
Blogger sushil said...

hey venkat,

this is sushil from ntu. just came across your blog. was trying to call you after the asians but i was told that you were in bangalore.

2:33 PM  
Blogger Venkat said...

hey sushil,
Wassup?!
Yeah, I moved to bangalore sometime last month. And far far away from the debating scene these days. So how was the asians?

2:55 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Haa Haa. Great review Venk@ and thanks for linking up to my post.

Deewan's stunt scenes were really gory. No wonder the movie was given an A rating for graphical stunt scenes! I didn't know anyone else watched that movie other than me, glad to see another movie freak, if I may call you that ;-) Another similarity between Deewan and Anniyan is the importance given to belly button in the songs. In one song in Deewan, Kiran has whole dedicated focus. Luckily though, Sadha has lesser Sadhai than Kiran!

I thought that the Boys' freeze frame scene during Ele Ele was unnecessary for the movie, but many of my friends thought it was just cool. Glad to see that you concur with me on that.

And excellent catch about the Makkal scene, I hadn't noticed that! Amazing analysis. Mothathil Ungal view kalakkal!

4:50 PM  
Blogger Venkat said...

Raman,
I saw Deewan. That makes me a freak first and foremost, don't you think? That you generously decided to call me a movie-freak instead, softens the blow of that realization somewhat.

All your talk of belly-buttons brings back gory memories of a much-hype-but-real-tripe movie called Citizen. I think it went Pookkaari, or something equally inane. Throughout the song, there was intense rivalry between Ajith and Vasundhara- I think they were competing for whose belly would jiggle the most.

Such unintended humour makes my day. But then, I do think I'm a masochist:).

7:09 PM  
Blogger sushil said...

Hey Venkat

Asians was awesome. We (NTU -B) were runners up. I'm also going to be debating instead of judging at the australs because of asians performance. So i was hoping you could watch us debate and help us out with australs prep. oh well.
here are the full results of the asians in case you've got the time

http://www.ntu.edu.sg/debates2005

9:38 AM  
Blogger Venkat said...

Hey Sushil
Wonderful news!! I wish I was there to see it:-). After a gap of what, 7 years is it, we are finalists at the Asians again! It was only a matter of time. Congratulations bro!

[The NTU-B sentiment seems to work again :-)]

Too bad, I can't make it for the Australs prep. But, you guys have the grand-uncle of debating, RK, out there!Dun think you'll need anyone else anyway!

I'll be interested to know how you guys fare in the Australs, so pls keep me informed. And yes, Good Luck !
Cheers,

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