VM: I think your phone just beeped.
SR: Must be another message from a broker trying to sell me an apartment “just ten minutes from Anna Nagar”.
VM: I thought you figured out how to apply for the DND option. What’s been bugging me is a totally different kind of “message”.
SR: What are you talking about?
VM : I was overhearing a conversation in the theatre between two middle-aged people about how they loved Samuthirakani’s Appa . They couldn’t get over the film’s beautiful “message”. Didn’t you watch it too?
SR: Hmm… I thought it made a lot of valid points about responsible parenting, but I came out feeling like I’d just watched a public service announcement. Especially the five minutes when Sasikumar bombards you with advice, looking straight into the camera.
VM: And if you were to argue about this to people who liked it, they tell us that we won’t understand a film like Appa because we’re not parents yet.
SR: Whatever you may feel about Appa , I know for a fact that it worked big time with teachers. From what they say, it is the kind of film every student and parent ought to watch. Surely, a large section of the audience — the ones the film intended to target — aren’t complaining. It even ran for 100 days!
VM: By that logic, is filmmaking just about targeting a large-enough demographic and catering to their needs? That’s how you market soap, not art. Don’t forget that you’re referring to a group of people that watches just two to three films a year. As people who take cinema very seriously, shouldn’t we be looking for more in terms of the making too? For me, the second half of Appa unfurled like a sermon.
SR: The point is to get the message across in an entertaining way. Take Aandavan Kattalai , which we both liked. It was a pucca message film, but it was conveyed beautifully. Remember that line just before Yogi Babu enters the Chennai airport – paathu po, glass vizhapordhu . That was a nice smart jibe at the authorities.
VM:Aandavan … was neither preachy nor did it claim to be “higher” art just because of its socially-relevant approach. Either ways, it’s up to the audience to take it for what it is… I’m sure there were people who looked at it as just a comedy. Just like Kaaka Muttai, director Manikandan’s earlier film. Even if you don’t read too much into the whole globalisation angle, it’s still a thoroughly enjoyable film.
SR: I guess it all comes down to how well you balance entertainment and the message. Even our biggest directors have managed to do so. Just that it is carefully concealed beneath the grandeur of songs and action sequences. Shankar, for instance, has tackled the malaise of corruption in Indian, Sivaji, Gentleman, Mudhalvan …
VM: Even Murugadoss, his heir apparent, has gone the same way. Kaththi was about water shortage and the farmer’s crisis beneath the gloss. If K. Balachander put forth social issues as questions to the audience, Shankar and Murugadoss offer solutions, even if it’s through vigilantism.
SR: A powerful dialogue here and a clever quip there are fine with me. But a lot of directors go overboard. Take Joker … the climax scene has the old man preaching directly to the audience.
VM: That’s another example of a movie that could have played down its message. And if we were to ask the director why they don’t resort to subtlety, they blame the audience. Srini, tell me one thing, aren’t politics and propaganda a part of mainstream Tamil cinema since the days of Parasakthi ? Aren’t current-day messages in films a result of that cinematic heritage?
SR: I guess. But it could also be due to the lack of a robust art/parallel cinema environment, like it is in the Bengali film industry. A strong documentary film movement, too, could have helped filmmakers showcase their inner angst about issues.
VM: Such a movement could have spared us a few films that were more classroom lessons than cinema.
SR: Da, if you ever want to make a message padam , which issue would you tackle?
VM: No thathuvam for me. I’m too Hari for all that. What about you?
SR: I would like my artistic endeavour to apprise our filmmakers of the staggering paucity of fresh scripts in Kollywood and advocate to them the need to pump more lucre into the actual content of their stories rather than bloating their stars’ egos and salaries.
VM: Bro, can you repeat that so the B and C centres get it?
