{"id":658,"date":"2013-02-02T01:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-02-01T19:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/?p=658"},"modified":"2013-02-02T01:00:01","modified_gmt":"2013-02-01T19:30:01","slug":"kadal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/2013\/02\/02\/kadal\/","title":{"rendered":"Kadal"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve read my disclaimer<\/a> before, haven\u2019t you? Also, please look up at the headline of the blog before you continue reading. Thank you.<\/p>\n

Good v. Evil<\/strong><\/p>\n

Essentially in the film, there are a few good people (the Gods \u2013 like Father Sam) and a few evil people (the Satan – Bergmans). The film is about how good wins over evil (or not). In the middle of all this, there are some ignorant, drinking, sleeping-around, victimised, poor people all over the village. They are too pre-occupied between good and evil, so practically unimportant. The good v. evil thing is so over played that you\u2019ll see all the good people in white and Bergmans is in darker shades of grey. Then there is talk of one becoming utthaman<\/em>, about being Satan, so on and so forth.\u00a0Almost like in the 60s films, everyone is either good or evil. Or ignorant. There!<\/p>\n

In a very interesting beginning to the story, Bergmans is shown to have taken to religion to feed his family and Sam to find peace. Bergmans then becomes the Satan after being shown the door for having a s3xua| relationship with a co-worker, while Sam continues his service. What could have gone on to become a rich v. poor story falls apart there and becomes something else.<\/p>\n

Hop on hop off<\/strong><\/p>\n

While we are at good and evil, one must also note how easy it is go from good guy to bad guy and back. Wayward, angry, abuse-spouting boy becomes a beach-side dancing, responsibly fishing, boat driving youngster, who then becomes this vengeful, gun-wielding, murderous, sub-Satan who falls in love and becomes the good guy again \u2013 taking on the Satan himself to save the girl who changed him. No baggage whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Religion<\/strong><\/p>\n

Christian village, religious indifference, slowly gaining faith, then the loss of faith in the poli saamiyaar<\/em>, rebuilding Christ \u2013 the entire film is against the backdrop of religious philosophy. Perhaps one of the few films I\u2019ve watched that integrate religion into every little aspect of the film \u2013 which, for me, is appreciable. However, in the middle of all this, it seems as though religion is the root cause of all problems. Just along somewhere.<\/p>\n

The angel<\/strong><\/p>\n

Getting into the ladies zone: The story is about a boy (Thomas alias Tom) who changes his ways for the girl he loves. Before we get to how he does that, let\u2019s introduce her, ya? She is Beatrice. She is a nurse. \u00a0She always wears white (non-nurse like clothes), perhaps because she is from a convent (?), or because she is an angel. She smiles widely, jumps up and down when she wants people to hurry up, laughs all the time, is scared of Mother Superior, jumps over the gate late in the night to enter the convent and does not understand what paavam<\/em> is.<\/p>\n

She runs away from the hospital with her IV in tow. She hops on to a boat, goes a distance, returns and hops on to Thomas\u2019s boat, does a bicycle ride with him, argues and flirts all on the way to saving a woman in labour.<\/p>\n

When Thomas tells her that he is a murderer, she says \u201cadhellam okay. Inime pannaadhe, sariya<\/em>?\u201d She has no personality. She is just a glorified Hasini from Santhosh Subramaniam. I say glorified because there is a tangential story about her troubled childhood with the Satan for has father. Her over-enthusiasm and effervescence is attributed to that childhood and the loss of emotional growth or something to that effect.<\/p>\n

Worst of all, Thomas sees her, falls in love and changes his path to be with her (perhaps because he realises it\u2019s dangerous for her if he continued his evil ways). All credit is handed to her in a platter. If only all it took to change a man was fair skin, white clothes and a borderline imbecile.<\/p>\n

In the end though, while Thomas and Father Sam did all the fighting, Beatrice was emotionally affected and had to be treated. Thomas had to come and help her revive herself!<\/p>\n

The other women<\/strong><\/p>\n

While this one woman changes our hero, the other important (as claimed) female character is a pawn in the Satan\u2019s hand. She is carefully used to throw Father Sam into prison and duly eliminated by the Satan.\u00a0Mother Superior loves wordplay, Thomas\u2019s mother is an (alleged) prostitute, and such other women, I don\u2019t know why they are even there.<\/p>\n

In all, it\u2019s an ordinary film with a run-of-the-mill story, loosely written characters who have nothing interesting to say, leftover scenes from Mani Ratnam\u2019s old films enacted by younger\/ newer people.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not only disappointed. I feel cheated by Mani Ratnam (and Jeyamohan). I\u2019ll go back and watch Iruvar again to wipe off the sin!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve read my disclaimer before, haven\u2019t you? Also, please look up at the headline of the blog before you continue reading. Thank you. Good v. Evil Essentially in the film, there are a few good people (the Gods \u2013 like Father Sam) and a few evil people (the Satan – Bergmans). The film is about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[156,188,223,387],"class_list":["post-658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-the-love-of-cinema","tag-gautham-karthik","tag-kadal","tag-mani-ratnam","tag-thulasi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tharkuri.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}