As Malayalam movie makers turn out crass movies in the assembly line, there are some lessons we can re-learn for box-office success. The secret is embedded in the following two news items.
From a review of Jaane Tu Yaa Jaane Naa
A slick, youthful entertainer(produced by Aamir Khan) that once again proves the adage that ’screenplay is everything’ by taking a familiar story of friends-turned-lovers and packaging it as a fun and fresh film. The construction of the screenplay as conversations among friends bookending flashback segments works fantastically by making chronological jumps seem less abrupt, allowing for minor narratives that serve as good breaks and announcing the intermission in a very clever way.
Sasi Kumar, the director of Subramaniyapuram
As the director, to what do you attribute the real success of the film?
First and foremost, the story, which was real — viewers want to see realistic and novel ideas and not only masala films. I think filmgoers are fed up with the routine masala stuff.
When did you realise that there was a change in the taste of the Tamil audience?
No change has taken place in the taste of the audience. They always encouraged good films and they look forward to watching realistic films. What do you attribute the success of Sethu, Pitamagan, Veyil, Kadhal, Paruthiveeran to? Audience yearn for such films but we don’t give it to them.
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August 20th, 2008 at 8:59 am
A few years back everybody looked down upon the Tamil industry. Us Malayalis looked down on them, gave them the nomenclature of ‘paandi padam’ and overjoyed in our own creative achievements. Things change. Now we are making so-called ‘pandi padams’ and they? If you still believe that Tamilians still make bad films, I would recommend you to watch Paruthiveeran, Veyyil, Anjathyey, and Subramaniyapuram. Our new not-so talented directors and our old once-was-talented directors and script writers still caught up in ‘double-M’ trap. No new stories, no guts to experiment, still stand in awe at M&M (who are no longer truly interested in acting). And Malayalam has a almost non-existential group of newcomers. If you look closely at the Hindi industry they also have started experimenting with good directors like Rajat Kapoor, Sriram Raghavan, just to name a couple.
Now, to say ‘Good Malayalam cinema’ will be oxymoronic.