The difference is perhaps in the
grammar of your clichés, perhaps even in the style of the clichés. With his
latest offering Mani Ratnam makes clear that his genre is style A Mukul, S
Anand with a repute!! While many film makers navigate their film towards a conflict,
here conflict is the premise of the narration. Unfortunately this time it is
too message soaked to be an entertainer and too entertainment sucked to be a
message film. Unapologetically from the pulpit Mani Ratnam pushes the envelope
too aggressively for comfort.
It reflects the conflict dealt with hitherto by Hermann Hesse in Narcissus and
Goldmun or go even further to the Nietzsche’s Apollonian Versus Dionysian. Here
too the conflict through a brief epilogue starts in a seminary but the lines
are sharply divided between the good represented by Sam Fernandez (Arvind
Swamy) and evil exemplified by Bergman (Arjun). Bergman is given marching
orders from the seminary and he vows to get even with Fernandez. Years later
Fernandez is a Father at a church in a fishing coast where the local have more
than just abandoned the church. In the village is a young boy (Gautham Karthik)
who is the illegitimate son of a local fisherman Kitti (Ponvanan). The kid
aching for legitimacy is finally accepted in the church and christened Thomas.
The conflict grows with time, circumstance, script and narration. Thomas is
gradually attracted towards Beatrice (Thulasi Nair). After a successful attempt
by Father Sam to get Thomas into the mainstream and to a moral code, circumstances
push him towards the successful pic of evil Bergman. The conflict between good
and evil brews at one level between Sam and Berman and at another in an
internalised format in Thomas.
Apart from what has been pointed out earlier, the script is loosely written and
the characters improperly etched. Yet the film is engaging. Mani gives you some
cinematic moments to cherish: the scenes showing the craving for social
acceptance by a person (Thomas) with the baggage of being an illegitimate
child; his craving for acceptation by his father; his lone spirit in the boat
swinging when his father is dead; the moment when he makes the cross over to
evil…..
The protagonist has a Jonathan Livingston Seagull like flight and is drawn
towards his love ever with hesitation but always with eagerness. The debut
making couple Gautham Karthik and Thulasi Nair are raw but endearing. Neither
are conventionally promising stars but chosen by the director with the halo,
they deliver with sincerity roles poorly etched but wonderfully canned.
Just when you hope that conflict resolve moment is epiphanic it gets
apocalyptic. Two other factors recommend the film. AR Rehman gives the film
just the music fit for the backdrop and the content and there is dream
cinematography from Rajiv Menon. His cinematography is a cinema in itself and
he handles the camera not like a technician but like a true artist. Brilliant
is the word.
Watch the film and you are reminded qua the central character, assuming you
perceive Thomas to be the fulcrum, of what Hesse said: scattered and infertile,
the scenes of his life stretched out behind him, rich in magnificent images but
broken in so many pieces, so poor in values so poor in value. To take recourse
to the very same source, it sums up this Mani Ratnam exercise, “The basic image
of a good work of art is not a real living figure, although it may inspire it.
The basic image is not flesh and blood, it is mind. It is an image that has its
home it in the artist’s soul”. It is here that the artist somewhere deceives to
impress but fails to convince.
L. Ravichander.