Ramayan lost in Cinematography. Review on Raavan

After much thought whether I should write a review on this or let it be for this one time for Mani Ratnam, I still couldn’t hold myself off. Although I had to give it some thought as post watching the film I went blank for a while.

Anyway the film shows an adaptation of Sita Haran(abduction) from Ramayana in modern times. Unlike Raajneeti here the characters are multi dimensional, an aspect most of the directors miss out to portray in the characterizations.

Dev Pratap Singh(Vikram) is a cop who is chasing Beera(Abhishek Bachan), a vigilante who had abducted his wife Raghini(Ashwairya Rai). The movie is based on the cut and chase to find Beera and rescue his conventional wife in distress. While Beera’s character has a Robin Hood trait who seems to be the patriarchal ruler and has his own governance supported by his brothers Mangal(Ravi Kishan) and Hari(Ajay Gehi), Dev’s character is not as virtuous as depicted in mythology. The film does not attempt in answering the forsaken question, why was Sita asked to prove her chastity? Here too Dev confronts his wife of infidelity. Hence we should not have the thought implicate our perception towards the film. Here Dev manipulates her be-reaved mind in dilemma leading him to Beera.

In this film, Mani Ratnam also attempts to bring in other angle of anarchical police all most running a parallel government of their own and their atrocities while juxtaposing Beera’s Sister Jamuni’s plight and her subsequent suicide giving more twists to the existing plot.

The first half of the movie hardly has any revelations; one could however get mesmerized by the captivating locations of Tumkur Karnataka where most of the scenes were shot. The second half however puts the loose ends together and moves the story to its predicted conclusion. The film’s overall projection of the Antagonist and the archetype hero is dark and demonic and hence it fails at points to capture the audience’ preconceived mind. However the film scores with its camerawork and innumerable twists and random violence. The poignant moment is the climax and the final confrontation between the two. One does not need to add more words to AR Rahman’s compositions. And Govinda’s character as Sanjeevani Kumar(adaptation of Hanuman) does not give him much frames to comment on his performance. Hats off to Santosh Sivan and V Manikandan for brilliant cinematography. Peter Hein was commendable again in choreographing the action scenes like in Ghajini.

Fact is if you go to watch the movie without the epic in your mind, you might enjoy it. One can never treat this film based on Ramayana as they will only face disappointment. However if we watch it with no bias this could be visual treat from Mani Ratnam.