Films of Mani Ratnam

[equanimus]

But if you are in the mood to deride any of his films, there are plenty of LOL-worthy lines / scenes, like the one you qouted.

I disagree, I think Mani Ratnam generally gets such dynamics right. Artificial dialogue ellAm vERa debate. (I think that charge itself is quite dubious.) Watching the film as a kid, I was in awe of the film (though the Kamal fanboy in me insisted on placing it just below Guna ) just as I was with any Mani Ratnam film, but upon revisiting, the one-dimensional melodrama of this film did seem to me like an 'aberration' of sorts for a Mani Ratnam film. I mean, he's this filmmaker who's particularly acclaimed for his portrayal of individual relationships (now the most cliched assessment of MR but it's true nevertheless). Here, the relationships appear fairly one-dimensional. Think of lines like "unna mAdhiri oru aNNan enakku irundhirundhA, en ammA unna eppavO vitteRinjuruppAnga." Such in-your-face lines in a Mani Ratnam film, are they usual?

[equanimus]

But yeah, I make this as a criticism on what is otherwise a very compelling film. It works superbly as a (signature MR) subdued masala film and Rajini (and the way his hero is 'fashioned') is tops, no two ways about it. It's just that I think Mani is not on the top of his game. Even within the early films, I prefer agni natchaththiram to this film.

[SoftSword]

Think of lines like "unna mAdhiri oru aNNan enakku irundhirundhA, en ammA unna eppavO vitteRinjuruppAnga." Such in-your-face lines in a Mani Ratnam film, are they usual?

enna ipdi kaettutteenga...
pidikkila... neenga thottaa kambilipoochi oorrura maadhiri irukku - said to a husband on his face...
but in thalapathys case, its a collector uttering the dialogue to a local rowdy whom he thinks as the enemy of the state..

[equanimus]

dhairiyaththukku (adhAvadhu indha character eppadi andha character kitta ippadiyellAm pEsum-nu ellAm) sollallainga, I mean the contrived nature of such an exchange of lines between the two (Arjun saying exactly what his mother actually did). To be fair, I think such an 'implausible' dialogue could be used to have a great dramatic effect, but then as k-g says, the problem is perhaps that Mani Ratnam is neither here nor there.

[SoftSword]

i understand the context of that line with respect to surya and can very well understand how that thunderbold would have struck in surya's heart which actually mutes hiim for a brief moment..
naanum dhairiyatthukku ellaam sollalai... just brought that in defence to answer ur question if in-your-face lines in a Mani Ratnam films are usual.

[kid-glove]

That mute works for a brief while and RK at his best, in deed. But you have to accept that 'in-your-face'-ness of Swamy's dialogue is on another level entirely, compared to Revathy dialOk, considering the context of the whole plot and the film.

[SoftSword]

accepted.

[Nerd]

Equa, akkini-layE paarunga. Karthik-Nirosha. Now what the hell was that? And he got away with that did not he? Agree thats not as central to the film as Surya-Deva is, but you get the point. And even the Ashok-Gautham confrontation scenes (the dialogue, which I can't recall now just before the famous errest him is in-your-face too, I mean using *that* as a weapon) are laborious. And the less said about the comedy track / climOx the better, very poor packaging and he actually loses control over the proceedings towards the end.

[kid-glove]

In Agni, there's a stiltedness when either of the sons go to the 'other' family. This stiltedness was missing, no? It is what that makes Agni so naturalistic. Even the confrontations. The sons from being at each other's throat to saving their father from deep end, it was all well realized only, no?

Take that Arrest sequence, the 'lowness' on elite son's part, makes it interesting. Arjun has no chinks in his armour, hence the 1-dimensional stick to beat him with.

[Nerd]

Similar moments in T: Rajini looking for collector saar runs into Shobana / Mammootty asking Rajini to kill collector saar. In Akkini Gautham saving Ashok's sis from the villain gang, that train scene, the tension between them, soober.