Director Mahendran & IR movies - mullum malarum

[app_engine]

I'm unfortunate to have missed out all the successful films of Mahendran - udhirippookkaL, muLLum malarum, nenjaththaikkiLLAdhe - I haven't seen these three I lovvvve each of the songs from these movies and one day I'll see the movies too, hopefully.

The first time I saw Johny was during my III semester exams, in the college auditorium. Enjoyed the movie while still having the exams in mind. Could really relish the movie only recently when I saw it on DVD...wow! Great songs / BGM and classic Sridevi combined with a Rajini much different from his other movies!

The other Mahendran films that I've seen so far are 'metti' & 'azhagiya kaNNE' and the baby Anju film was unimpressive (may be because I went with a lot of expectations based on the magazine reports wrongly stating that "Mahendran 'The oman' mAdhirippadam edukkiRAr". May like it if I view again now without any expectations. I don't remember much about 'metti' too (except Raja songs ofcourse). I think Radhika was in the cast. ("kalyANam ennai mudikka, avasthai unakku adhigam irukku", was it deliberate?)

poottAdha poottukkaL, naNdu, kai kodukkum kai were other Mahendran movies with Raja and all had great songs. (I think all were BO disasters). The only Mahendran directed film without IR was 'sAsanam' produced by NFDC and released recently with Aravindsamy in the lead...had good reviews but I don't think it did well at BO and may never get a chance to view this too.

Mahendran is also credited with writing screenplays and probably dialogs for some MGR-Sivaji movies, some of which I've watched during school days, without knowing anything about him (as it was all about only MGR / Sivaji those days and none else counted -not even heroines- in my world then).

I don't think any of the metro Detroit Indian stores has any Mahendran movies except Johny. Will keep searching for his (supposedly) best 3 till I get them someday.

[jaiganes]

Azhagiya Kannae
is another movie that had terrific BGMs.
This is a movie on rebirth and revenge (an unlikely theme for mahendran movie). Charuhasan is the villain and Sumalatha is the main character in the movie. Raja has scored brilliantly for this movie. The movie was a flop and was not popular. However thanks to Raj TV I watched the movie and got pleasantly surprised by this movie.

[app_engine]

Checked the wikipedia article and made a couple of movie name corrections in my post.

How come Kamal was never in a Mahendran project? That combo with Raja could have produced another classic. ( I remember watching the Mahendran interview in kumudam.com where he narrated about how Kamal helped him complete muLLum malarum)

[vramesh]

Dear app_engine,
Udhiri Pookal DVD is available for rent at www.italkies.com

The other 2 might also be there. If not they are there in www.techsatish.com :P

[vramesh]

Not related to J.Mahendran but his son John is a chip off the old block. His 2006 movie Aaniver about the Eelam movement was a hit was the expatriate tamils, with excellent acting with Nanda(Pollachi new face) and Madhumita(?). John is chitthapa to one of my friends who added that junior is currently working on a movie related to the tholseelai movement.

[crajkumar_be]

Not related to J.Mahendran but his son John is a chip off the old block. His 2006 movie Aaniver about the Eelam movement was a hit was the expatriate tamils, with excellent acting with Nanda(Pollachi new face) and Madhumita(?). John is chitthapa to one of my friends who added that junior is currently working on a movie related to the tholseelai movement.

Oh, surprising, considering this came from the man who made Sachein...

[equanimus]

Not related to J.Mahendran but his son John is a chip off the old block. His 2006 movie Aaniver about the Eelam movement was a hit was the expatriate tamils, with excellent acting with Nanda(Pollachi new face) and Madhumita(?). John is chitthapa to one of my friends who added that junior is currently working on a movie related to the tholseelai movement.

Oh, surprising, considering this came from the man who made Sachein...

Oh, true, Sachein sucked big time. If that was cool, then I'm Aravind Swamy of thaLapathi days.

On Mahendran, has anyone read Cinemavum nAnum? It's a very good read. Mahendran talks at length about his films and what he thinks of Tamil cinema.

[thilak4life]

crvenky,

True about Bach inspired piece. Bach has always been in Raaja's blood!

[equanimus]

Thilak,
That was a superb write-up on Raaja's work in Johnny. In that book I mentioned in the previous post, Mahendran writes how his films were among the first in Tamil cinema to use background score as an organic part of the film, so aptly fitting the mood of the scene. Mahendran was really the pioneer in *using* the background score as an integral part of the film for accentuating the mood.

But, all said, I think this usually happens with Raaja "by design." Some very ordinary scenes work so well just because of Raaja's score which sets the mood of the scene much more evocatively than what the writer and the director manage to do.

By the way, it's Sitar that Kanchana plays in the film. It's a divine little piece. Is it a standard piece of music, played as alaap or something, by Sitar players?

[jaiganes]

in the annoying side track of johnny comes "Aasaya kaathula". This one and "Meen kodi theril manmadha rajan", both have some similar arrangement of rhythms with "tribal" like percussion arranged in a "catchy" and imaginative manner. Again when you hear that, you are transported into a Bamboo jungle and the "tribal" tone is unmistakably real. If he could do that to an almost uninspiring section of the movie, no wonder he did those magical little things to almost every scene in movies by Mahendran and Balu mahendra.