So enjoy.

 
The picturisation of these two songs are studies in contrast. Srinivasan moves the story through the song. You would be engrossed in the song. The second video , is from the movie Mazhavillu. Wish they had chosen an actress who would have done justice to the voice of KS Chitra.

M Jayachandran, who has made Shreya sing in various films, retorted that Gayathri should go and listen to Shreya’s songs and learn from it. Gayathri responded back saying she is a big fan of Shreya and there is no need for someone like M Jayachandran to tell her what to do.

So who is right and who is wrong?

Some people have to take a black and white position, but in our opinion this issue is much more complex. The main crux of Gayathri’s point is not if Shreya is talented or not talented. The question is of chance and renumeration. According to her people like Adnan Sami, whose Malayalam would want to make you listen to Achyutanandan speeches over and over again, are paid quite a lot of money while Malayalee singers are not paid that much.

So there are two questions here. Lets look at renumeration first. Someone is paid more than others. That is always the truth. In fact there is no point in complaining about it. Mohanlal gets paid more than Asif Ali, but Mohanlal gets paid less than Rajnikanth. There is always a value chain and you have to make yourselves so valuable to get highly paid. So if Shreya and Adnan Sami are getting more zeroes in their paycheck, there is nothing anyone can do about it .

Now, the second question is about what should a music director do. Should he promote local talent or get people who can’t pronounce Malayalam. On this matter we have made our position very clear. We are sickened by the Malayalee obsession with other languages. Note that the word we used is obsession which borders on fanaticism. Many people have said, we Malayalees have an open mind. We agree with that. But if you watch our reality shows and stage programs, it goes beyond an open mind. It is as if we are sad we don’t speak Tamil or Hindi daily in our lives.

In this context we don’t understand why we get Udit Narayan or Adnan Sami or Shreya Ghosal to sing Malayalam songs. Yes, before Chitra, most female singers were from Tamil Nadu or Andhra, but you don’t feel that in their singing. But that is not true with modern singers. If you have heard a Udit Narayan or Adnan Sami singing in Malayalam, you will feel like throwing up. It speaks of the lack of talent current music directors have or the less amount of effort they put in training those singers[Having said that, Shreya Ghoshal’s diction is an exception].

To give an example, here is a video of Vairamuthu explaining how he trained Chitra(See from 4:23). When she started singing in Tamil, she spoke Tamil with the obvious Malayalam accent. Slowly and slowly, he said, he worked to remove that and now Chitra’s Tamil is as good as a Tamilian. Instead of this we have parachute singers who come in, have no clue of the language, butcher it in their songs, get their lakhs of rupees paycheque and fly back. Compared to this we would rather hear the winners of Star Singer and Gandharva Sangeetham sing for us.

THE first thing that struck me about Santosh Sivan’s  Urumi is its simplicity.  Okay, so it reportedly cost around Rs 20 crore to make.  Sure,the frames are rich, the sets lavish and the canvas grand.  But Urumi is ,at its core, a simple tale of valor.   It speaks of wronged men and womenwho were desirous of revenge and justice and refused to go quietly though pitted against a powerful adversary (Vasco Da Gama, shown as a ruthless, mercenary invader as opposed to the celebrated explorer).  The dialogue is sharp and unabashedly patriotic: Aa kuttikalude kannukalil Vasco kandu…mola pottunna oru shathruvine…abhimaanam adiyaravu vekkatha orujanata ye (In the eyes of those children, Vasco saw a budding enemy, apeople unwilling to grovel).  There is no inessential glorification of the protagonist, Kelu Nayanar (Prithviraj). He is portrayed as a bold warrior out to avenge his father’s death, reacting to his circumstances and mobilising his people.

The characters are introduced quickly, without ceremony.  And before you know it, you’re drawn into the narrative.  I meant to watch the first 15 minutes or so before I stepped out for a coke. It was a full 50minutes before I reluctantly left my seat.  That said, the makers have over done the whole disclaimer bit at the very onset:  That this is ‘only a movie’ is repeated once too often.  Now, wouldn’t you rather be led to believe you’re *not *watching a film but seeing a slice of life unfold onscreen?  Oh well.  Can’t really blame them for wanting to avoid lawsuits.

Deepak Dev’s compositions are above average. Watch out for Prabhu Deva’s dance scene with the soulful Thelu thele playing in the background. It has a serene, trance-like quality.  Full marks to the creators for not allowing the viewer to think, “Oh, just because he’s a dancing sensation anda reputed choreographer!”

Then there are the beautiful women. Nithya Menon looks bewitching in Chimmi Chimmi.  Genelia D’Souza is aptly cast as the fiesty Arrackal Ayesha, who can wield the urumi as effectively as the warrior hero. Tabu makes aspecial appearance (song) while Vidya Balan has a blink-and-miss part.

Prithviraj proves yet again that he can carry off roles that his contemporaries in Malayalam cinema would be laughed at in.  Amol Gupte is arevelation as the gullible,  good-at-heart but ill-advised king.  Not even ina single scene do you feel he’s out of place in a Malayalam mileau. Such talent!  A superb Jagathy Sreekumar (as the canny, conniving, polyglot minister, Cheni Cheri Kurup) gives a whole new definition to the epiphet veteran actor and there is a refreshing turn by Prabhu Deva (as the immensely likeable Vavvaali: Caring, witty, naive, ever mindful of  being righteous).

Never mind the historical inaccuracies,  they’re bound to be there! Those who whine cannot conclusively prove or disprove their theories. What are they going to do, go back in time?  And as Robert the Bruce narrates in Braveheart: “Historians will tell you I’m a liar. But history is written by those who have hanged heroes.”  The beautiful visuals, well-executed fight scenes and the vibrant performances make  Urumi a compelling watch. Two thumbs-up.

PS:  I don’t care much for the English title, though. The Coiled Sword has a nice ring to it, no?

For those of us used to seeing so called “Entertainers” like Twenty-Twenty or various mindless comedy movies, Urumi is a welcome change. It is a bold move from the producers to think of a big canvas movie, get a pan-Indian cast and film it as professionally as possible. The movie falls into a new category which can only be called fantasy-historical-fiction for it is not historical-fiction. In historical fiction, the writer tries to stay within the historical narrative and weave a tale without violating the space-time continuum. Brilliant writers like M.T even weave a new tale within the given parameters. But in this movie Shanker Ramakrishnan decided to throw the history out of the window. Instead what we have is a tale which takes place during Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India and that is pretty much the history part. Rest of the stuff is his imagination in overdrive mode and he makes it very clear in the begining of the movie when he writes all incidents have been changed for dramatic purposes.

But guess what. We don’t have any issue with it. A story is a story and the only question is if the dramatic purpose has been served. It a revenge saga of a boy who wanted to kill Gama because Gama killed his father. We can call this a Hero’s journey for it tries to follow a set pattern as the hero travels and goes through new lands and has new adventures. In this movie Kelu Nayanar’s calling is revenge. He knows Vasco da Gama is in town and wants to kill him. In fact at the begining of the movie itself the pre-history is given and Kelu has crossed the threshold and made a commitment.

So now that the motive has been given, what do you do for the next 2 hours 30 minutes? We see him travel along with his buddy Vavvali (Prabhu Deva) and during their travel they meet rest of the cast — Chirakkal Bala (Nithya Menon), her father (Amol Gupte), the king of Kolothunaadu and his scheming minister (Jagathi Sreekumar). They also meet Arakkal Ayesha (Genelia), Vavvali’s mother and also an Oracle (Vidya Balan). Finally, as expected, Kelu gets his revenge.

Imagine now that you are on a travel and you meet all these people and take their pictures. It is not really an interesting journey isn’t it. You need some twists in the plot. In fact there are some twists in the sub-plots, but none of them affect Kelu or his personality. The sub-plot concerns the way Kolothunadu is ruled and the succession battle there. There is another sub-plot concerning Arakkal Ayesha and her fight, but that too has nothing to do with Kelu, except for the fact that he is around. In such movies, what you want to see is the hero being put to test, completely pushed to the ground and how he survives that, rises and achieves his goal. Think Devasuram. Neelakantan is pushed to the ground and his machoism cannot save him. He has to rely on Revathi’s character to teach him some lessons about himself and life. As you empathize with him, there is a transformation in the viewer. The viewer who hated him till interval is now rooting for him.

In Urumi though, Kelu is never down. He is like Mayavi who appears in every troubled scene and saves the damsel. That is not really interesting. In Star Wars, when Luke is down, he has to go to a mentor, Yoda, who trains him and he returns back. Our heroes don’t need any training. They are experts in fighting and singing the moment they are born. There is no change in Kelu’s personality in the 150 minutes of the movie. He delivers dialogue in the same dead-pan mode and this makes him really an uninteresting person.

But there are three people who make the movie interesting: Jagathi, Amol Gupte and Nithya Menon. They get quite a number of scenes and it is a delight to watch them perform. These are well etched characters.

We already have written about the music, so lets mention a few things about cinemotography. It is by Santosh Sivan and there is nothing more we need to say. The visuals cannot get better than this. But just watching brilliant visuals without a strong story does not make a memorable movie. But then Santosh Sivan has some staple shots which are repeated in most of his movies. There is a scene in Asoka where SRK and Kareena take bath in slow motion under a waterfall. There is an exactly similar shot in this movie. Another obesession of his is eyeballs and closeups of eyeballs. From Terrorist to this movie, you see the same shot. In one song all the characters jump up and down on an invisible trampoline. You can call these shots his signature, but these repetitive shots pull you away from the immersive experience.

While the songs are terrfic, another let down is the BGM. Look at the scene where Chirakkal Bala is attacked and the music that goes in that scene. It is a fight scene and the music is the most inappropriate one. We know why it was done. Each person has a particular theme and that music is blindly dumped when the character appears. Similarly there is a piece when Ayesha appears and she is asked to sit on the lap of Chirakkal king’s lap. There is a scene where Prithviraj comes to resceue Ayesha and guess what music plays in the fight scene?

The next terrible thing in the movie is the visualization of songs. We simply loved hearing those songs, but when we saw them, some were not interesting. Aarane Aarane was done very well and so was Chimmi Chimmi. But look at the visuals for Aaro Nee Aaro. It is like a rock video songs with all the extras and Prithvi jumping up and down. It looks as if people from the 15th century suddenly time traveled to the 21st century MTV studio. Also the Oracle song called Chalanam Chalanam was simply terrible.

The movie brings up an important issue that none of us know about our history and care about it. Thus when the movie starts we see this guy called Krishnadas who is selling his ancestral property and then after hearing about Vasco’s story, changes his mind. The movie also paints the true picture of Vasco da Gama who was one blood thirsty trader. While the visuals are stunning, there is nothing great about the story. It is not the stuff of classic movies. While the creators have made a decent entertainer, they have missed an opportunity to create a Gladiator. We had great expectations from Shankar-Ramakrishnan-Santosh Sivan combo and maybe that is why we are disappointed.

Our Condolences.

When it comes to period films, you have to be careful about the music. You cannot transport heavily orchestrated music from the 21st century into the 15th. It is anachronistic. When you look at Santosh Sivan’s Asoka, it had absoutely terrible music from this point of view. It also had the usual Mahive-Soniye dance steps by SRK making you wonder if people from Asoka’s period had actually time traveled to present day.

So what about the music of Urumi? Deepak Dev is a guy who loves electronic music. In between he had deviated far from the magic he created via music of Symphony.

In fact Deepak Dev has done a great job with this album. The first song Aarane Aranne is a perfect Prabhu Deva song. Job Kurian’s  folklorish voice is perfect for Prabhu Deva while Reeta’s voice does not match Tabu in any sort of way. The percussion beats form the backdrop and Deepak Dev does not use any modern instruments in an overpowering way. Instead he uses the chorus for great sound effects.

It is those percussions which lead us into the next song Alakadal sung by Yesudas and Swetha. You have to pay close attention to the rendering to appreciate the manodharmam used by both singers. Each line is carefully sung with feeling and the percussion moves to the background for effect. But the BGM of this song leaves the 15th century and moves into modern territory giving an anachronistic feeling, but still the music, especially the humming is haunting.

Another haunting song is Appa sung by Reshmi Satish. The new voice had a raw earthly feel to it. For this, Deepak Dev stays in the background and it reminds us of his songs in Symphony. The same can be said of Thelu Thele sung by KR Renji. Renji’s voice has so much pathos in it, something we have not heard in a long time.

Chimmi Chimmi song is not really extraoridinary for someone of Manjari’s talent. It is a straight forward singing. But if you see the visuals, you would see that it suits Nithya Menon’s presence. What is interesting are the lyrics and the Malayalam words of a bygone era. You see this style of Malayalam in the next song Vadakku Vadakku sung by Guru Kiran and Shaan Rahman in a casual way. Once again Deepak brings the percussion back as a dominant part of the BGM.

Chalanam Chalanam again uses heavy percussions and a kind of husky chorus to create an amazing feeling. But this is not our favorite for listening. Maybe it makes sense in the movie.

The surprise of the album is the Vadakku Vadakku remix sung by Prithviraj. We don’t know how many takes it took, but he sings well. In fact he sings much better than the superstars and the mimicry stars. The orchestration for this song is pure Deepak Dev. The rap, the guitar, the drums and rock music style remix – we really dig it.

The highlights of the album are the new voices which are quite nice. They give the album a freshness which is required for a period album. Kudos to Deepak Dev for breaking out the heavy orchestration and experimenting in a new style. After listening to his recent albums like Puthiyamukham and Tournament, we were thinking that he was stuck to one groove, but he surprises us once again.