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Vadachennai Blog: It Ends!

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Chapter 3

The three part blog where I’d discuss some of the plethora of aspects of why this movie is one of a kind and needs to be celebrated. Well be discussing on how the movie blends itself with the historical events and takes the script forward, the Easter eggs and some hidden details, and the use of this brilliant cinematic tool called the ‘non linear narrative’ which every filmmaker is aware of but few hone the skill to effectively use it.

If you haven’t read my first and the second blog, I highly recommend you to read that first. Because if not, you’ll feel the same way I felt after completing my engineering, clueless.

Historical events, and the Domino effect

How frequently do you come across a movie, where the historical events that happened in real life are so beautifully etched that you feel that events occurred in a particular fashion because the writer wanted to create a domino? ‘Vadachennai’ is one such kind, it is designed in a way thwarting it to be outdated withstanding the

There are two political references

  • Rajeev Gandhi’s assasination
  • MGR’s demise

There is some kind of synonyms between Rajan and Anbu’s character. One of the many parallels is the historical reference. Rajan’s character ends is the same time zone as that of MGR’s death and Anbu’s character begins with Rajeev Gandhi’s death. If that isn’t ironical for you wait and let me break the parallels that are so subtle as the the Howard the duck in Avengers: Endgame(2019). Not necessarily blink and miss but yes, they are nuanced and subtexted not exactly forced down your neck.

The events are so beautifully carved in the story that they just don’t exist as a mere prop to provide a sigh of relief or push down in the script just for the heck of it. But they are present in a way that changes the entire flow of the movie, as if you remove the events and the set of consecutive events that happen in the preceding changes and the the entire graph is collapsed.

[SPOILER ALERT] If you’ve gloriously surpassed the warning, you’re either of the two. a) You’ve watched the movie or b) You’re not planning to watch it, anytime soon. For former, let me break it down to you, for latter I’ll reduce the magnitude of the alert, I promise!

Rajeev Gandhi’s assassination happens in 2001, somewhere when Anbu is an teenager unknowing of the happenings of the venomous locality he stays in. Still seeing a huge mentor in Thambi and an aspiring carrom board player. Looking forward to win the national carrom board championship get a government job and disappear from the gangster town. Just after Rajeev Gandhi’s death, the whole of the area is in total chaos and that is when Anbu meets Padma. Padma then turns out to be the major reason why Anbu changes his track totally and falls into this pit.

In the consecutive scene where it’s complete havoc after Rajeev Gandhi’s death, after Anbu reluctantly stealing the sewing machine from the over greedy marwari electronics shopkeeper, he comes across a human, who he assumed to be a man, is curious to steal what he stole from the shop. Thanks to the broken button from her shirt he gets to know she’s a flamboyantly foul mouthed woman. I know, forgive the director who considers cleavage as the only distinct feature that women possess from men. Barring that mistake, he has a phenomenal story to tell.

So this is the set of sequence that happens after Padma steals the machine from Anbu, The shopkeeper threatens to Lodge a police complaint against Anbu. Anbu, fearing that he won’t be able to participate in the championship, goes to the shopkeeper, let’s him hit Anbu in return. This injury is the reason for his loss in one of the league matches in the championship and has to wait for one more year. And this wait has cost him a lot . At the best, introduced a girl in his life, who’s further going to indirectly tarnish his fortune. Because in a way Padma is responsible for Anbu’s downfall. If he hadn’t enraged by the fact that some roadside Romeo is Eve teasing her sweetheart and killed him and saved himself for a better future which he always dreamt of.

MGR’s death to Rajan is totally opposite to that Rajeev Gandhi’s death to Anbu. Rajeev Gandhi’s death brought Anbu to the world of crime but MGR’s death extinguished the reign of Rajan. When Rajan is out for MGR’s funeral, his boys sail to the sea with hopes to make some money, snuggling liquor to the town which the people desperately needed to mourn MGR’s death, while the boss is away. The boys were instructed by the cunning politician jealous of the amount of love Rajan has been getting due to his goodwill. The cunning politician also is the one who informs about the illegal snuggling that has been going on near the ports and gets some of the boys, not Rajan’s boys, arrested. This enrages Rajan, forcing him to hit his boys including his own brother and kick them out town. This humiliation boils down the boys’ blood and plan to kill Rajan. But then realize that he’s a good guy and is trying to get hold of the situation and drop the plan of kill Rajan. In the subsequent scene Rajan realize that the boys were planning to kill him and the boys in the heat of the moment freaking that Rajan would kill every one of them if they let him walk away from this trap.

Just confirming, did you at any moment feel it’s possible to interlink all the stories in a movie and make it that super entertaining? *Vetrimaran raises his hand*. Coming back, So, MGR’s demise has in a way caused a tragic breakdown in Rajan’s life too. I don’t remember in the remotest of my memory any movie that has done this magic. Either people have made a historic movie or completely ignored history. No one has ever come close to our even might even thought of making at least a historic reference in a mainstream movie. My next sentence is going to be quote worthy, so I’m wondering should I quoting it out writing it. “In an era of cinematic stink, ‘Vadachennai’ is a breadth of freaking fresh air!”

Non linear narrative.

For those who don’t know what non linear narrative is, which I doubt, usually the flow of a movie is A-B-C-D-E-… Where each alphabet depicts a scene. Whereas in non linear narrative the scenes of a movie can be random, in any fashion, right from A-D-C-B-E to A-E-C-D-B to A-B-D-C-E. If that isn’t graceful, what is? Fooling the audience where the audience involuntarily submit the significant time of their lives and themselves to the giant white screen not expecting what to expect for the remainder of the validity of their ticket.

Some of the best movies in Tamil to explore linear narration includes Virumandi(2004), Aaytha Ezhuthu(2004) and now Vadachennai(2018), Super Deluxe(2019). I would talk about Super Deluxe probably in the next blog though. Hollywood has explored this tool time and again and gave us some mind boggling extravaganza like, Memento(2000), Pulp fiction( 1994), Inception(2010), and Eternal Sunshine of spotless mind(2004).

Barring the exception of Mr. Tarantino, in pulp fiction, no one has excelled the skill of creating a totally non linear screenplay without creating tension and changing the shades of the characters. Be it Memento or ‘Vadachennai’, the beauty of non linearity lies in the fact that the entire belief of the character should be tarnished which generates more curiosity and adds an extra edge.

The interval is where ‘Vadachennai’ takes a sharp diversion and thank God it took that road which others tremble travelling. Let’s assume an arbitrary character ‘A’ who is present in the movie, I won’t tell who it is as it would spoil it totally. A is the most trusted character A changes his sides with loyalty being the judging factor. Just when we think we know the character, we think we know just how the character is going to react in that given situation, A would behave. A takes an unapologetic 360 degree turn and the director is like, “I’ll justify why he did so“. If he had promised a money back guarantee if not convinced, the audience would have piled up his house to pay him extra.

If this movie had been linear, start to end in a regular fashion. It wouldn’t have gathered as many eyeballs that it’s gathering now. I wouldn’t say, it is the only standing feature that sets apart ‘Vadachennai’. But it definitely acts like an icing on this delicious cake.

Drawing parallels.

Before I draw parallels between Anbu and Rajan, I want to highlight this (there are many) foreshadowed detail many of us missed in the first viewing. In the opening scene where Rajan enters to the town, he gives a pair of binoculars to Hamid. Hamid is a friend of Anbu and in a scene where both set out to find the person who stole the sewing maching due to which, in a way, Anbu’s career is in a stake Hamid gives his binocular given to him by Rajan through which he sees Padma (Metaphorically meaning, Anbu is looking through Rajan’s eyes) and Padma is the reason why the roller coaster begin in Anbu’s life.

If the above detail stumbled you upon and you went on to see the clipping again, Let me begin with breaking down the parallels in Anbu and Rajan in ‘Vadachennai’. This is one of the mindbowing and subtle detail I observed in the movie, and that too in the third or fourth viewing probably. It’s how the story is interwoven drawing parallels storylines for both Rajan and Anbu. I would like to now break down all the scenes where the creator foreshadows the fact that Anbu is Indeed Rajan. Metaphorically, off course!

  • Players

Both Anbu and Rajan are great carrom board players.

  • The Leader

Both Anbu and Rajan, acts as the textbook definition of a hero in this respective scenes where both of them stand in the goodwill of the people in the town. Rajan takes a stand when a political person of the town tries to sell the town (in a way) to the government officials and Anbu takes a stand when the government tries to abandon them and build a road. In both the scenes Anbu and Rajan stand against Guna and Muthu respectively who are considered to be the most trustworthy guys of the town.

  • The Proposal

The scene where Anbu goes to Padma’s house for preparing for marriage we encounter her reluctant father who doesn’t want her daughter to marry this Romeo. A similar scene is found when Rajan goes to Chandra’s house to propose for marriage, a reluctant father. Also, In both the scenes, we could see the stubborn girls having their lover’s back. While Chandra explicitly mentions it that she wants to stay with Rajan, Padma prefers silent support.

  • The Killings

Finer detail. Rajan is killed in an infamous restaurant in the town unexpectedly where his 4 trusted boys reluctantly get their hands dirty, to save themselves. Senthil stabs Rajan in the shoulder and Pazhani stabs him on his back and says something which translates to, “If I didn’t stab you, you would’ve killed us”.

In the same way, Senthil and Pazhani are stabbed by Anbu in the same position where they stabbed Rajan, shoulder and back. With the knife in Pazhani’s back, Anbu says the same words which Pazhani says which I mentioned in the previous paragraph.

  • The Love Triangle

There are two legit couples in ‘Vadachennai’, Anbu- Padma and Rajan- Chandra, But, also there is also this third man in both the timelines who provide the extra entertainment whose desperately wishing that the couple breaks off (One side lover exists everywhere). It’s Muthu for Anbu’s romance and Guna for Rajan’s.

PS: Guna even mentions in a scene, “The food is very good. If I get someone so good at making food, won’t I get married?”

  • Cop Agony

Both Anbu and Rajan fight with the cops when they have the town’s back.

National awards.

I have a problem with awards. They are, what’s is Starbucks in the food industry, unworthy and hyped. But for me, National awards had some amount of credibility. They have never failed to appreciated the unsung talents in Indian cine industry. Thyagaraja Kumara Raja won’t have known, if he hadn’t got that national award 9 years back. The inglorious succession of Rahman over Ilayaraja after garnering the final national award for Kaatru Veliyidai after which he became the most national awarded cinema personality, with 6 in his name.

National award is an esteem for Indians, No matter he/she wins an academy, but winning a national award is an different feeling altogether. To give an analogy, No matter how much compliments your ‘Good friend’ (Though I don’t believe in the concept of segregating friends in terms of seniority) gives you, but that one friend whose constantly abusing us for a long time but then one moment, that one brief moment that guy will praise us for a good deed we did without any intention of grabbing the eyeballs long ago.

‘Vadachennai’ didn’t get a national award, neither for direction, nor for cinematography. neither for actor, nor for supporting actor. That was what was the root reason why I felt like writing a blog for ‘Vadachennai’. I don’t have any problems with the winners this year. But I could’t take the fact that it wasn’t given the cake they were baking for the past two years.

SO,
Hi National awards jury,
If you don’t appreciate the good cinema of the ample archives of pure fine piece of art that the country makes, we won’t be getting the quality we are expecting. Do something to make at least a set of movies shine and make them visible.


Thanks and regards
An ardent cinema fan

National awards jury: No

People: Oh, even we don’t care either!

Also if you are a cinema enthusiast and like to share an article or write something about any good cinema, You can ping me on Instagram, I would be joyous to collaborate.

Tamil films, Thriller

Vadachennai Blog: The discussion continues!

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Chapter 2

In the previous blog we’ve discussed the various key elements that separates Vadachennai from other political gangster dramas we’ve discussed about the brilliantly cut trailer and the unique album the creators have created acting as feathers to this cap sitting on this flamboyant film. But the markers didn’t want only feathers in their cap they needed pearls too, because, why not? This film had broken all the South Cinema cliches, so why not an old English saying?

So the two pearls they added to their cap and which is going to be discussing in the chapter 2 of the blood are namely Acting(I’ll write about how this is one of the pearls), and direction.

Acting

The first obvious question that arrives on the readers mind is how can acting be a flaunting feature for the movie. Everyone acts. What’s so special about it? So you see here’s where we get to the role of the intricate screenplay for a good film, the amount of panache it adds to a character and eventually the acting. It is so fascinating to see how each actors transcend us to their world, the range of emotions they get to potray is every actor’s dream. Also since it’s in a non linear fashion, the preceding emotion of the character can be totally opposite to what the character was feeling minutes earlier. Let’s take Anbu (Dhanush) for example. I’ll tell you the plethora of emotions he gets to potray from the first scene to the last.

Anbu’s emotional meter.

Fear – childish/passionate – excited – horny – reluctant/ angry/ anxious/ fearful – Smart/ loyalty – Sad/ guilt – Happy- loyal – confusion – brave – angry – matured

That’s the rollercoaster, Vetrimaaran wanted Anbu to take. That’s too new for Indian cinema offlate and that’s what made me add acting as one of the key feature of the movie. So this is for Anbu’s character. We also have Thambi, Guna, Senthil, Pazhani, Chandra, Kanna, Rajan, Padma, Velu, Siva. And everyone had a character arc providing a huge cannas for acting. In a generation where hyped up characters fell victim of improper writing and disappearing to voidness, seeing none of the characters getting wasted was in a way that we feel the eagerness to know the huge backstory each character has went through, was damn refreshing and reviving hope for Good Cinema.

It’s only when the script is weak, we notice the nuanced cinematic tools like, cinematography, acting, music etc. It’s not something that the human brain does on purpose, but rather it’s designed that way to look good in anything we admire. But a good script can fool this default brain behavior. That’s what Vadachennai does. Keep you so much entangled and engrossed in it’s screenplay that you fail to notice the brilliant performances of the most underrated actors in Tamil Cinema.

But yes, acting is something we can vouch for in the movie, you have a national award winning actor, on board where the actor has won it for his previous collaboration with the same director, and what Dhanush does with his face is truly astounding to watch. What he has portrayed, has to be counted in as history as one of the finest acting pieces of all time. Moreover he does not have to produce a film where he gets kicked on his back(literally), told to clean the toilet, underplayed by literally every person in the movie, given the fact that he is one of the top notches in the industry.

Direction

I don’t know when will people understand that it is the director that needs to be celebrated. No matter the actor writes the script, the actors perform in it, the producer shed in the moolah. The director is the one who provides the soul to the story, he’s the one to be present on field handling everything from banging the clapboard, the one extra peck of a smile conveying different emotion what the cinematographer is capturing, is the string pressed by the composer invoking the intended feeling, managing the expenses in a desired budget in a convinient fashion without going overboard and making the film LOOK rich as well.

This is where he shines bright as a director and how! Vetrimaran’s filmography includes Pollathavan(2007)(Which he stated he regrets making), Aadukalam(2011), Visaranai(2015), and Vadachennai, Of which Visarnai was the official entry for oscars for that year, and Aadukalam was one of the most eyeball grabber that year with 5 national film award including best actor and best director. So, when a person of his caliber is onboard we can expect nothing but proficiency. I would like to discuss some of the scenes from ‘Vadachennai’, layered in a nuanced subtext you’d hardly notice.

The tracking shot, Timestamp- 49:22

This scene occurs when Dhanush enters Senthil’s cell in the jail. The tracking shot that tracks down Dhanush from the behind where one of the Senthil’s henchman is taking Anbu to introduce him to Senthil. A continuous shot of 38 seconds, which gives us the entire, almost exact glimpse of the cell, metaphorically meaning that Anbu had now entered Senthil’s world is cunning.

The Aim, Timestamp- 1:59:26

Rajan being shot in a way like he’s a target.

This scene struck me later in the time after continuously watching the movie, I saw that the Rajan is shot in a way that looks similar like he’s been aimed at like a gunshot with four notches of the aim pointing at him, Metaphorically meaning that he’s been aimed and will be killed by 4 of his so-called-brothers. The voiceovers that are spoken at the time of the shot is also about killing Rajan. The same way, Anbu is shot when Rajan is dead and in his funeral bed, depicting that he is the next aim in the precedings.

In this blog we’ve discussed about the acting and direction of Vadachennai. In the preceding blogs, We’ll be discussing about various cinematic tools used in the films.

Also if you are a cinema enthusiast and like to share an article or write something about any good cinema, You can ping me on Instagram, or twitter I would be joyous to collaborate.

Suspense, Telugu films, Thriller

Game Over, But the details aren’t!

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Alright so this section of the blog, I would like to share a quick note that I jot down or noticed while watching the movie. This would be a quick, short blog and nothing like the weekly routine blog. I’ll be discussing 5 metaphors in Game Over, and it’s going to be full of spoilers so, in case you haven’t seen the movie, make sure you stop right there and continue after watching it.

Everything is connected, everything has a reason to exist in the movie. The director does a great job in connecting the dots. Example, You see the initial scenes of the movie, where the killer beheads the victim, kicks it off the goal post and burns the body. Cut to Swapna’s(Tapsee) first death, in that scene we as audience know how’s she going to die. We were enraged by the opening scene of the movie and we know, it’s going to be repeated. An classic example of setup and payback.

The scene where Swapna tries to commit suicide and survives due to the power cut.
  • In the preceding scenes where the generator is not working, hence the frequent current cuts, hence power going off during one of the suicide attempts, hence she panics and survives.
Metaphor that the girl is suffering from trauma and recovering from it.
  • One of the picture in the tattoo studio where the girl is inside the band aid, depicting the entire essence of the movie that the girl is recovering from trauma and agony, which Swapna is recovering from.
  • The studio is named immortal, that’s what Amudha/Amrutha exaggerated as, even dead, she’s alive in the form of the tattoos.
The Phoenix candle.
  • The candle next Swapna’s bed shows a Phoenix, a Phoenix is a bird that’s genes with the title, “restriction from the ashes”, So similar to Phoenix Swapna too is rising from the fear of the serial killers and fighting it, so her personality is again depicted in a symbolic way.
  • This metaphor can be totally bizarre and could pave the way for my next blog on Game Over, I feel that the entire movie or atleast some, depending on your interpretation, can be a total dream. If you need me to explain why and how, ping in our Instagram page linked below. So that I’ll write an entire blog on why the entire second half is fictional.

So this was my quick take on the details and metaphors in Game Over. For feedbacks, you can ping me in Instagram and Twitter.

Also if you are a cinema enthusiast and like to share an article or write something about any good cinema, You can ping me on Instagram, I would be joyous to collaborate.