The year 2003 has seen a drastic change in Tamil cinema with lot of new talents in all fields emerging successfully especially the new actors and the many top heroes and directors could not make an impression with their usual masalas .Let me come to the field of Performance by actors, the flop of the usual masala movies have been a lesson to many heroes who are monotonous in choosing the roles and acting and who never try anything different.
I categorize the nominees for best perfromance as
Best actor in a leading role (Male) - Kamal, Vikram, Surya, Madhavan, Danush, Srikanth
Best actress in a leading role (Female) - Shena, Simran, Saritha, Laila, Jyothika
Best Performance by a Newcomer (Male) Boys, Ravi, Nanda, Venkat prabhu
Best Performance by a Newcomer (Female) - Soniagarwaal, Rekha, Sadha, Chayasingh, Geetu mohandas
Best Performance in a Supporting role (Male) - Manoj k.jayan, Prakashraj, Daniel balaji
Best Performance in a supporting role (Female) - Devadarshini, Malavika avinash, Sangeetha
Best performance in a negative role (Male/Female)-Jeevan, kotasreenivasarao, telangana sakuntala
Best performance in a comedy role (Male/female) - Vivek, Vadivel
And the winning performances are
Best performance in a leading role
1. Kamal haasan (Anbe sivam)
He has not acted but just reacted for the situation and he is so natural in this movie. He always takes too much care on his make-up in all his films and obviously in this film too. His make-up with stitches in his face to look like a face of a man after a bus accident is perfect. The dialogue delivery, the voice modulation, the mannerisms and his body language everything is different and worth wondering. And undoubtedly this is the best performance of the year.
2. Vikram (Pithamagan)
Vikram’s performance in Pithamagan is incredible with lot of homework. You hardly find the actor vikram in Chittan character. Even though it is an exaggerated character his performance makes everything believable and even stunning at some places and especially when he cries in the climax. He has lost some 10 kilos for this movie and the looks are shabby like a Graveyard undertaker as the character demands it. He has conveyed everything through his eyes and his body and doesn’t utter a single piece of dialogue in the film except the song that he sings before the dead bodies and the dialogue”Sakthi venum” in the climax. No doubt he is the next kamal in Tamil film industry.
3. Surya (Pithamagan)
He is not far behind Vikram in choosing different roles and this character is just opposite to his personal character. He has played such a freak out talkative fraud in this movie. He looks, costumes are perfect and hilarious. He scores a lot in comedy and his way of delivering dialogues, his voice modulation are close to perfection .Especially he has well acted in scenes and too childish where he speaks unconsciously due to over dosage of liquor. Even he dominates Vikram at some places in this movie. Yet another unforgettable performance of lifetime.
4. Surya (Kaaka Kaaka)
Again Surya played a usual role in an unusual manner as a cop in the film kaaka kaaka. In pithamagan he was a 420 fraud and in this movie he is genuine cop. A versatile performance in the year 2003. This film is a breakthrough in his career. His physique, mustache, and his subtle performance attracted me a lot. I saw this movie twice just because of Surya.Particularly in the scene where he sees jyothika shot dead and his reaction ,his dialogue delivery with tears in his eyes makes the scene emotional and makes a great impact on the audience. We have got yet another versatile actor in Tamil cinema.
5. Danush (Kadhal Konden)
The most underestimated hero of tamil cinema.He has done excellent job in this film.
His face and his physique suits the character well. But arrogance inside such a calm and childish face is stunning and surprising.His firstday in the classroom,scene where he is between aathi and sonia before the intreval block,the canteen scene,the climax scene where he asks sonia to love him,and the cimax when falls from mountain with a smile in his face looking at sonia are the scenes where his expressions and his acting are excellent.his dance is also good espacially in ’’thottu thottu’’ song.
6. Madhavan (Nalathamayanthi)
Madhavan’s performance in this Nalathamayanthi is all about an innocent Brahmin guy who goes is search of job to Australia and unfortunately loses his passport in Australia and his survival in Australia and how he returns back to India. Madhavan’s choco baby face suits this character very much. He has tried his best to speak in Palghat Tamil. The movie is hilarious with his timely dialogues and his actions and he carries the movie all over with ease. Timing is very important for comedy and he has managed well to deliver the dialogues with proper timing.
Best actress in a leading role
1. Saritha (July ganapathy)
There is no need of a versatile actress Saritha who has been in this industry for past 20 years. This is a kind of role that cannot be replaced by any other actress. She plays the a role a halfminded,unpredictable lady who is crazy about a writer and falls love on him and arrests him to make him love her. Her eyes speak more than anything. She has an expressive face and her stout body and her costumes add life to the character. Especially I liked her performance when she proposes to the writer.
2. Jyothika (Kaaka Kaaka)
She is the most promising actress of recent times. She acts well and there is a complaint that she overacts sometimes and I think that is a great honor. She has expressive face and eyes. Her performance in this movie is very different in the sense she doesn’t react much and so natural and looks live and it is completely different from those roles that she has played so far.
3. Sneha (Parthiban kanavu)
She is the only good looking promising Tamil speaking Tamil cinema actress now. She was doing same of college girl roles but in this movie she has improved and matured as a good character artist. She plays a dual role in this film and the both the characters are entirely different one as a homely wife and another as a freak out modern girl. She scores in both the roles and has put efforts to show a good difference between the two characters.
4. Laila (Pithamagan)
She has been called as the unlucky actress in Tamil cinema because all her movies flopped but her performance in this movie completely changed her career. She is as natural as a polytechnic student and a village girl she looks more beautiful than ever. She makes us to laugh with her arrogant performance in initial comedy scenes with surya and us to cry in the climax scenes. It was a surprise seeing laila performing so well than ever before. It is necessary to mention about “Savitha” who dubbed for laila in this movie she has done a good job.
