Comments on: Unnaipol Oruvan: Need of the hour

By: donnie

donnie — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 09:02:59 +0000

dude..one word answer..who rocked better..kamal hassan or mohanlal ?

By: sudhishkamath

sudhishkamath — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:30:16 +0000

Rocky Saab,
Didn’t have the time before to respond and I wanted to address some of the points you raised during your phone call and this comment in detail and hence the delay.
With all due respect, when two films are made out of the same screenplay (in this case, Neeraj Pandey is credited as screenwriter for Unnaipol Oruvan too), I would think it’s not exactly an assumption to call it a remake.
And yes, this is not a social sciences review for an academic journal and enough has been written and discussed about A Wednesday’s glorification about the vigilante.
Slamming films against vigilante justice is like slamming Selvaraghavan’s films or most Tamil films because they glorify stalking women.
It’s all good to discuss from an academic social sciences perspective but of little interest to anyone who just wants to know if he should watch the movie or not.
Art is becoming politically incorrect world over and I think film theorists should be open minded to understand that it is just an expression of angst and not take it more seriously than it deserves.
Unnaipol is fantasy in the garb of realism because you are made to believe it takes only four weeks of planning to equip yourself with SIM routing expertise, score RDX and plant a bomb in a police station. Ordinary people cannot do this easily and even if they are tempted to do so, the film shows that it’s a matter of time before anyone doing this is traced to the exact location.
A film like Nishikant Kamat’s Dombivli Fast could do with a social sciences review given how real it is… the common man just takes a bat and goes hitting people. Anybody can do that… compared to the fantasy-level flawless orchestration of panic by the common man.
The fact that you have taken the film seriously from a social sciences perspective is the biggest compliment to the filmmaking because you are not examining the film as a fantasy anymore but assuming that it contains realistic solution to a social issue.
Looking for solutions in a filmmaker’s fantasy made as catharsis for a mass audience is like looking for logic in a David Dhawan film.
Mumbai Meri Jaan wasn’t a fantasy… it was about a bunch of people reacting and coping with the aftermath of the bomb blasts.
Aamir was a journey into the psyche of the Muslim mind and the dark places fundamentalists try to lead it to…
If A Wednesday is fantasy, Mumbai Meri Jaan is a macro-level understanding of terrorism and how people cope with it in the modern world in the realistic mould (where the troublemaker Irrfan makes a crank call from a PCO – contrast this with the hi-tech SIM routing, RDX bomb-making unreal routine in A Wednesday), Aamir is a personal journey, a psychological, metaphorical surreal trip set in a bustling metropolis.
Though A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan and Aamir are all about terrorism, they are entirely different from each other in terms of genre, intent and content.
What would be an assumption is to club them under one head and give points for which is a better film or which is a more responsible film. They are as different as chalk, cheese and chocolate.
In my humble opinion, Unnaipol Oruvan is as faithful as a remake gets, it even ends with a literal translation of the same lines when the Commissioner sums up: “I don’t know if what happened was right or wrong. But whatever had to happen, happened.”

By: rakesh s katarey

rakesh s katarey — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:22:56 +0000

I don’t think this is one of Sudhish’s better reviews. For one, there are too many grand assumptions which is uncharacteristic of well-grounded criticism. I guess he knows it. For instance, Sudhish is aware that the whole world is intertextual, a pastiche, wherein it is difficult to tell the original from the ‘remake’. We could easily call ‘Wednesday’ itself a ‘remake’ of ‘Indian’! And how different is ‘Anniyan’ in its essence from ‘Indian’ or ‘UPO’? Which is why all renowned film theorists refuse to use the term ‘remake’ citing the word ‘adaptation’ instead!
Of course, much depends on the nature, the medium, the audience and their expectations Sudhish writes for. I ‘ve always looked forward to his next review though! Eversince he wrote for the student newspaper in Manipal, when he wrote his best!

By: scudie

scudie — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:05:23 +0000

sorry sudhish saar, have to disagree with you on this one.. A Wednesday is far far a better package both technically and in terms of how the subject was handled, than UPO. And I am a Kamal fan. Funnily I liked the songs better than the movie! Kurudhi Punal was a better remake, dont you think?

By: Pusee-Ganesan

Pusee-Ganesan — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:36:50 +0000

Did you see Susi’s Candid interview on indiaglitz? Boy, does he love Gnani and Sudhish or what!!

By: A

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 01:09:57 +0000

Interesting…has he switched from his usual fake-British accent to fake-American accent?
You cannot usually have the natural accent of a native-born speaker (not even necessary in this movie I’m presuming); and besides the educated Indian accent is closer to RP (if at all you need a standard) than a typical American accent. I’m guessing RP’s what he’s striving for, but falls desperately short, and it ends up looking affected and foolish.
Of course, that’s before watching this movie. I need to watch his version (I have seen the Hindi original though).

By: sudhishkamath

sudhishkamath — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:11:56 +0000

Yes, I did. It helped that I watched with subtitles and in complete awe. And then I watched it again to figure out if I had really figured it out. Once you know they are all manifestations of the same person… it’s such a simple story actually that’s a commentary on the state of affairs. Aspiring actress comes to Hollywood, falls in love and gets seduced by the glam image, forgets who she was that she cannot recognise herself (hence the same person played by different actor) and ultimately dies (figuratively of course) so that the star can emerge. At least that’s what I took home from that film. I found Vanilla Sky and the Spanish original Abre Los Ojos more difficult to read but once I cracked it, I saw why the critics hated it… I think those who hated Vanilla Sky didn’t really get the film.

By: Anand

Anand — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:29:57 +0000

Sorry sudhish I thought of asking u the question on Kanthasamy s blog when u were referring to mulholland drive. I saw that u have stopped answering questions on that post!! So I m doing it here..

So Sudhish i heard u talking abt lynch’s mulholland drive.. How was it? And did u really get it the first time u watched it!!

By: Praveen

Praveen — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 01:46:16 +0000

He was also in Virumbukiren as Prashanth’s brother

By: Sri

Sri — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:48:41 +0000

Just check out the latest Neeya Nana episode about English usage where several participants noted how English gets used when people wanted others to take them serious.

http://www.techsatish.net/2009/09/20/vijay-tv-neeya-naana-20-09-09/

This could be one of the reasons why English was used – just to establish the credibility of the threat and the caller is not any kuppan suppan.