Super film.... Review on Virumandi Movie

Virumandi is the recent Tamil block buster acted and directed by Kamal Hassan. To discuss this movie one should watch this movie. The story is about a guy who falls prey for the ill acts of the village head and is in deep trouble and gets covicted for 18 murders and a rape case and is punished with capital punishment.

This movie excells in all the departments be screenplay ,cinematography,action or direction.Music Maestro supported the film with a good music that adds to the mood of the film.

The bull fight that was picturised on Kamal and other artists is splendid and mind blowing.I think it is one of the most risky scenes that was ever picturised for an Indian film.

This film serves as a good example of good film.As the legendray SP Balasubramnyam stated in one of his interviews this film can be considered as a text book on filmmaking.

But at this juncture I would like to discuss more about the Tamil films comparing with other Indian films as I think that makes a real diffrence.

Our films - Their films.

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The legendary Indian film maker Satyajit Ray once wrote a book titled 'Our Films and Their Films'. Here I am not reviewing that book. But to throw a little light on that book it's book that compares our Indian Films with the Foriegn Films mainly of Europe.

As I have already informed you that this review is not about that book, here in this review 'Our Films -Their Films' I weill be discussing about Tamil Films and other Indian Films.

First things first. I am a South Indian but not a Tamilian.I can neither read nor write tamil. Also I can neither speak not understand Tamil. So this should make you clear that I donot have any favouratism for Tamil films or hatred against other Indian Films.

In the recent decade Indian has caught up in a big crisis of flops due to stereotypic routine formula movies.When it come to Hindi films its very sad to to see the state of affairs being so bad. In the last two years alone Hindi film industry has lost 100s of crores of rupees. The only biggest hit being Munnabhai MBBS.(Just to tell you ...This movie too is masala mix of two great English movies ''One flew over Cuckko's nest and 'Patch adams').

When we consider our own Telugu Film Industry it has lost 200 crores of rupees in this year alone. Considering the poor quality of fils the Kannada Industry produces there is not much to discuss about. Leaving the losses faced by film industries when we look at the quality of films that are being produced every year the situation is patheric.

At this point when we look at the scenario of Tamil FIlm industry its a lesson to be learnt by all the other Indian film makes. I do agree that not every Tamil film is master piece or a block buster, but when we closely follow the Tamil film industry we can see that its evolving day by day in terms of good quality scripts and film making techniques.

To discuss few such films ....the first one that come to mind is Kannathil Muthamittal by Maniratnam which deals with the Srilankan tamil refugees in tamil nadu and the LTTE issue. The movie that brought the national award for best child actress for Keerthana and the story revolves around this young girl named Amudha, who is separated from her Sri Lankan parents by the war and raised by a young Indian couple (Madhavan and Simran).

The next film is the recent 'Virumandi' which was directed and acted by Kamal Hasan. The story is not an extraordinary one but the screnplay is extraordinary when compared to many of the contemporary Indian films.Many a times one might be wondering what actually a screenplay means and how is it different from a story or a script. Watch this movie and you will really know the meaning of a good screenplay. Its the same story told twice in different perspectives of the two lead characters.

Simlilarly when we look at 'Pithmagan' by Bala which brought Vikram the National Best actor award,is the story of a guy who is orpahaned at birth and who grows up on the premises of a graveyard burning dead bodies. When circumstances bring him out of his own world in to the civilized world, some one who has spent all his life with the dead will he be able to cop up with the human emotions and bondings that links the civilzed world ? is a question that is answered in this movie. Bala has also directed two other movies Sethu( Which was remade in to Hindi) and Nanda.

When I am discussing about these films please donot mistake them for art films. All the films that I have mentioned above were blockbusters. There are other films that were block busteres and different too.Consider the fast paced cop thriller 'Khaka khaka' by Goutam or the psycho thriller ''kadak kondein' directed by selva raghavan, or the semi autobiographical 'Autograph' by Cheran..all these movies are wholesome entertainers but at the same time they are novel.

Sadly Telugu Film industry relies mostly on remaking of recent tamil hits and this year all the films that were remade from Tamil bombed at the box office. Ironically the films were remade with the same story ,same technique,even the same costumes some times. But the directors have failed to capture the soul of the original scrips and the result is the faliure of all the Tamil remakes in Telugu.

Similarly when we look at the Hidin films of recent times I amy not ahve to enlighten you about the sorry state.The ''K'' films, The item numbers, the skin show and many other gimmicks would never resolve this issue of bad quality films unless there is innovation.

(I wonder why all the recent Hindi films are set in the backdrop of some foreign country.What are these film makers conveying?Is love some thing that is only accessible to rich people who can go abroad?) These are some personal doubts I had and I know the answers will never be known as long as ShahRukh Khan keeps loving Kajol, Rani and recently Preeti on screen. That's more of a personal statement.Sorry for the interruption. Please proceed...

Truly speaking it shows a kind of inherent quality in our Indian culture.In the days of globalisation when we are trying to boats our films like 'Kal HoNa Ho' or ''koi Mil gaya' or ''kabhi Kushi Kabhi gam' as the representatives of Indian films and considering them as master pieces and feeling good that they have won international acclaim aren't we fooling our seleves. Do they stand anywhere when compared to the cinemas of other Asian countries like Hongkong,Japan,Iran etc...

Is there really an international audience for our Indian films. My feeling is that A big NO. If these movies are making money overseas its only beause of our NRI audience other than that crowd there isn't really a international audience for Indian movies. These so called Internationally acclaimed Indian films are fed only to our indian audience. I really donot think that there are any serious international audience for Indian movies.Its not because they hate Indian films or some thing like that. I think it is just because of our poor quality of films.

Its like the only silver medal won by our Ratore and we are so proud of it.But when our neighbouring has won more than 50 such medals in olympics is n't it a shame for us.

If you think that our films are great watch films from Brazil(City of god), Cuba(Bitter sugar), Iran(apple), and many other films from countries so small but see what name they are making for themselves in the International scenario. Then we would never even watch our movies.When asian film makers like Ang lee,Wangkar wai are bringing laurels for their country what are we doing here/

Watching cricket?

Watching KKusum?(Watch for the extra K).

In these days of these mediocre films it's sig