Tamil Movie Review – Yuddham Sei

This was one of the most waited movies in my list for 2011!

(One of the best scenes in the movie – Cheran facing off the criminals with just a small knife on a bridge. One to one and almost immediate – no stupid scenes like one hero flying or punching 20 guys at one go.  Image source: Indiaglitz)

Sometimes, we can determine a good movie upfront by seeing who is the director of the movie – throw some names like Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron and in Tamil movie scene, Shankar (although he screwed up his last movie), Mani Ratnam, Gautham Menon and many more up into the air and you can be assured that you going to see a movie that is not only entertaining but well made and with the right storyline.

One such director that have been consistently been churning out “must watch” Tamil movies in recent times is Mysskin. In the last 5 years, he only made 4 movies – Chithiram Pesuthadi in 2006 (still remember the “fish” song?), then one of the best, Anjathey in 2008 and did one personal movie for himself titled Nandhalala in 2010 and now we have Yuddham Sei in 2011.

There is a good reason why Yuddham Sei is also known as Anjathey 2 – quality and well-directed storyline continue to ooze from Mysskin’s magical hands.

The synopsis

From Wikipedia:-

The film starts with a brooding CB-CID officer J.K. who is worried about his missing sister. His senior officer promises J.K. that he can take up his sister’s case after he solves another one, so J.K. agrees. Amputated male arms are packed in cartons and left in public places. J.K. suspects that they are done so deliberately, as a message to the police. Based on identification from families of missing persons, they find that the arms belong to Raja Manikam, Moorthy et cetera. By triangulating the co-ordinates they find a lead in this case.

Durai Pandi is a leading textile shop owner who was beaten and insulted in public and handed over to the police after it was found that he had used a peephole to look into the dressing room for women. He is caught by the victim Suja’s family, who are totally shattered by this incident. The inspector in-charge of this case is Isakki Muthu. Later, Durai Pandi’s manager surrenders to the police accepting the charge of the crime, and thus clearing Durai Pandi’s name.

Later, Suja’s father Dr. Purushothaman was arrested on charges of bribery, and later released. A sex affair complaint was lodged against Dr. Purushothaman’s wife. These events shatter the family, and they suicide by setting themselves on fire. But Suja is still missing, so J.K. decides to reopen Dr. Purushothaman’s case.

Read further here

(There is “dirt” in this police station – Cheran facing off a dirty cop who is part of the criminal gang involved in the kidnapping of young girls. Image source: Indiaglitz)

The storyline

Very similar with Anjathey with a little twist here and there but the ending was something that was not expected. Many slammed Mysskin for using similar plot with Anjathey for this movie. Yes, admittedly it is indeed similar but what is more important is how it is presented to the audience – in the past, we have seen remakes of older movies but not all turned out to be well). In that sense, Mysskin maintains his grip on quality and good story-telling to be better or in par with Anjathey.

So, what we have in Yuddham Sei? In this movie, there are 4 groups of characters with 4 subplots twisted together as one big plot in this movie and it was well presented by Mysskin:-

1. There is the story of a brother looking for his missing sister – JK, the main character well played by Cheran is a police detective who had to content with investigating gruesome murders in the city whilst investigating the disappearance of his sister (In Anjathey, Sathyanathan investigates the kidnapping of young girls whilst had to content with his good friend turning to the “dark side” of life)

2. There is the story of the police who seems to be at loss with finding of human parts in a box, left in the public areas around the city. Mysskin was careful to show the details of the police investigations, the frustrations and the pressure from the police chief and politicians and the public to get the people who been cutting up the victims (Same thing in Anjathey – one of the best scenes there was when Sathyanathan asks the IGP to investigate when he was asked to get out from the room. In Yuddham Sei, IGP is a much cooler head than in Anjathey but no less, keeps up the pressure on his men to solve the case fast)

3. There is the story of a criminal gang who kidnaps young women for sexual purposes and portrays the act to a group of old wealthy men who pay good money (Similar in Anjathey where young girls get kidnapped for ransom)

And then

4. There is the dark story of revenge – something that is not noticed until it is explained in the second part of the story. Revenge is indeed sweet.

The camera angle

Similarly in Anjathey, camera angle of the various scenes remains perfectly executed. Sathya handled the camera but you can feel Mysskin’s artistry all over the place. Scenes like the back shot of JK as he is pondering his next move as he in a vehicle traveling towards for a police operation, the fight scene at the over head bridge – one of the fights is shown upside with the criminal shown running in the background, the dead girl lying on the dining table surrounded by her family members and of course, the classic  trademark ground level shots.

Creative camera shots making story telling even more compelling – coupled with well timed background music and that gives a whole new meaning to thrillers.

(I love the camera angles in this movie – Cheran sitting down at the spot where his sister was kidnapped, contemplating on how to find her. Image source: Indiaglitz)

The acting

The key person in this story is Cheran – we all have seen his fine acting (and direction) in Autograph and Thavamai Thavamirundhu but this is first time, we are seeing him in the role of a policeman, out to solve 2 cases at the same time. Acting is fine but perhaps we are seeing Cheran in a totally new role, initially we are unable to erase Cheran from his other roles that he had played in the past but as the movie picks up pace, we start to believe that Cheran is one tough cop and he is just one of us when faced with tough calls.

Another twist in the line of actors in this movie is YG. Mahendra – the actor from the often played funny roles in movies in 1980s and lately involved in TV serials. Lakshmi Ramakrishnan who plays his wife in this movie excels as well in her role.

The music

Background music in Yuddham Sei picks where Anjathey had left off – not much song scenes but plenty of heart-stopping background music for the tense moments in the movie. Mysskin seems to favor violin based music – we found it in Anjathey and  we loved it alot and now we can find it in abundant in Yuddham Sei. I managed to get hold of Yuddham Sei’s soundtrack – the music alone is worth listening on its own.

Final say

The plus points: The direction (It’s Mysskin man, what else you need?), camera work, music and acting (Cheran did one fine work here)

The negative points: The storyline (Damn! It looks identical to Anjathey but it highly, highly acceptable)

WW2 Movies

(The last major war around the world at the same time – World War 2. Image source: http://www.buchanan.org)

World War 2 was the last major conflict that we have faced and we all dread the start of World War 3 (which could mean end of mankind or worse, the planet earth).

I like history and I have collection of books and magazines on the subject at home but nothing portrays the event better than seeing them on movies. Over the years, we have been “bombarded” with many types of war movies and mini-series ranging from ancient wars (like “300” and “Braveheart”), World Wars (both 1 & 2), Vietnam Wars (still remember “Platoon”, “Full Metal Jacket” or “Apocalypse Now”?) and all the way to galactic war in a galaxy, far, far away (my favorite – “Star Wars”)

If you are looking for World War 2 movies for your collection, I strongly recommend these (in no particular order):-

1. Saving Private Ryan (1998)

It is a must have in anyone’s collection for a simple reason – the first 10 minutes of slaughter on the Omaha Beach. Steven Spielberg managed to capture the reality of the slaughter of the Allied forces by the German defenses on the beach head with pin point accuracy.

(The start of the slaughter – even before the Marines steps on the beach – highly riveting and a pure adrenaline rush)

And if you watched the “The Making of Saving Private Ryan”, you will appreciate the movie makers’ painstaking effort to make a movie that is more documentary-alike than a normal colorful movie. The boots that the actors wore in the movie is made by the same company that made the boots for the US soldiers during World War 2.

This movie also spurred the 2 excellent HBO mini-series – “Band of Brothers” (the war against the Germans) and “The Pacific” (the war against the Japanese) – another must have in your collection.

Must watch scene: The landing on the Omaha Beach and if you have the right “hardware”, listen to the best sound recording ever made (bullets literally flies from right to the left). The movie won 2 Oscars for sound alone.

2. Flags of Our Fathers (2006)

If you feel that you have not enough of the slaughter of the Americans on the Omaha Beach in “Saving Private Ryan”, then this is the movie for you. Clint Eastwood directed this movie of the Americans landing on Japanese controlled Iwo Jima and the slaughter here is more dramatic than of “Saving Private Ryan”.

(The landscape coupled with the intense fighting & slaughter of the Americans makes this movie one notch up against Saving Private Ryan’s Omaha Beach battle scene )

The Americans are more exposed here and despite massive firepower from the supporting naval ships (impressively shown), the Japanese defenders had the upper hand.

Besides the story of the Americans fighting to take over Iwo Jima, there is another story in this movie – about the second flag planted on Iwo Jima (and went on to be more famous than the first flag) and the American soldiers who went on a freak roadshow once they reached America. They felt betrayed and humiliated.

Must watch scene: The movie has 2 parts in it – the soldier’s battle against the Japanese on Iwo Jima and another “battle” against the “many who did not understand” in America. The part on the actual battle on Iwo Jima is a must watch – it is so real and perfect.

Watch out for part early in the movie when the men on the ships start cheering for the passing fighter planes and one of them falls down into the water. The men on ship are then told that no ship will stop to pick that man up.

3. The Pianist (2002)

If you are Jew, earmarked for extermination by the German in Warsaw, Poland, you need to watch this Oscar winning, based on true story movie on how the famous Polish Jewish pianist, Władysław Szpilman (Adrien Brody won an Oscar for this role) who went from a famous musician to an on-the-run Jew and made it alive till the end of the war.

(One of the best scenes in the movie, a cold and hungry Władysław Szpilman facing a German officer in an abandoned building)

The movie, directed by Roman Polanski (who won an Oscar for Best Director) revolves on Jews in Poland, how they were forced to move to German controlled Jewish settlement away from the rest of the citizens and then systematically executed.

There is one scene where Szpilman together with fellow Jewish workers get ready to go to work when they are stopped by a German officer. The officer picks several men randomly, asks them to lie down on the road and proceed to shoot them on the head. He runs of bullet when he reached the last man – he stops, takes his time to reload and shoots the last man on the head.

Must watch scene: Władysław Szpilman cold and hungry, decides to take his chances and go out to look for food and find a can of food in an abandoned building. And when he was about pry it open, the can falls down, rolls down the floor and stops at the feet of a German officer who surprisingly instead of shooting Szpilman on the spot, asked Szpilman to play the piano. After listening to Szpilman playing, the officer leaves and Szpilman immediately breaks down and cry.

4. Schindler’s List (1993)

The movie that was not shown in the cinemas in Malaysia after our local censorship board decided that there were too much nudity and wanted to cut down the scenes – something Steven Spielberg did not agree. How sad – the movie is a master piece – it went on to win 7 Oscars including Best Picture.

(The children in the Jewish camp being taken away by the truckloads with their parents crying by the side helplessly)

This movie looked at the darker side of the World War 2 where Nazi Germany executed the Jews without a care for the fellow human being and how a German businessman who first desired by money and greed, changes his mind and decides to help to save thousands of them into safety.

The movie was shot entirely in black and white and that creates a unique “aura” watching this movie.

Must watch scene: The Jews in the concentration camp is stripped naked and is rounded up for the final extermination as trucks carried away the children in the camp – the agony of the parents who being held on the other end of the camp is unspeakable.

Watch out for the ending when the real survivors of Oskar Schindler are shown side by side with the actors who portrayed them in the movie (with John Williams’ background music).

5. Patton (1970)

The opening scene of the movie when General George S Patton (acted superbly by George C Scott) gives one of the best motivating speech is a must watch.

(This image is now iconic and the monologue delivered is one of the classics)

The movie portrays the famed Third Army US General who went head to head with British’s Field Marshall Montgomery on who made the most advance in the war torn Europe. Francis Ford Coppola co-wrote the screenplay for this movie.

The movie is about the man, not the war so it does gives an interesting perceptive on one of the finest tank commander in the US Army during World War 2. He was the soldier’s soldier and who gave no heed on politicians and soft diplomacy. That is where he got into trouble and often taken out from the limelight of war by his commanders.

The movie won 7 Oscars which included Best Actor award for George C Scott (which he refused – first actor to do so).

Must watch scene: Other than the opening scene, memorable scenes includes the part where General Patton visits a medical camp and confronts a soldier who been admitted because he was scared. Patton (who earlier overwhelmed by seriously injured soldier) gets so furious with this “yellow bastard” that he pulls his revolver to shoot him but was stopped by the doctors in time.

Other memorable mention includes “The Great Escape”, “The Bridge on River Kwai”, “The Longest Day”, “Das Boots” and “Life is Beautiful”.

Any other suggestions?

Movie Review: Lawrence of Arabia

“There may be honour among thieves, but there’s none in politicians” T.E. Lawrence in Lawrence of Arabia

Image via Wikipedia

(Poster source: http://www.wikipedia.com)

I have doing a lot of movie “collecting” in the last few months. I have watched a lot of movies since then but not all has been reviewed in this blog. One of the reasons for that is I don’t have much time to sit down and write down the review. Other times, some of the movies do not need special reviews – they are simply too good and too classic.

For example, in my collection, I have David Lean’s two greatest masterpieces namely “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago” and I am planning to add his other movies into my collection, “A Passage to India” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai” as soon as it is possible. The movie “Lawrence of Arabia” came before “Doctor Zhivago” and has been touted as:-

“…one of the greatest and most influential films in the history of cinema”

The movie “Lawrence of Arabia” was nominated for 10 Oscars and won 7 Oscars for the following categories:-

• Academy Award for Best Picture
• Academy Award for Best Director
• Academy Award for Best Art Direction
• Academy Award for Best Cinematography
• Academy Award for Original Music Score
• Academy Award for Film Editing
• Academy Award for Sound

The movie is rumoured to be Steven Spielberg’s favourite all time and going through the movie, one sees why. I have been watching the 3 plus hour movie on a daily basis – sometimes watching the actual scenes and sometimes listening to the background theme.

(There is plenty of contrast between the characters and the landscape in this David Lean’s masterpiece)

The Plot

David Lean’s movie runs for almost 216 minutes that is divided into 2 Acts and includes the opening and ending musics and intermission. The fact was it took almost 2 years to complete the movie as reported here:-

What was supposed to be a 150-day shoot turned into two years and three months of production history, and over those years untold chaos could have derailed this project at any time.

Instead, Lawrence became one of the greatest movies of the 20th century, and one of the weirdest, most counter-intuitive epics ever committed to film.

Read the details of the plot in Wikipedia.

The movie is basically is about Colonel T.E. Lawrence who was a British Army office who was posted to the Middle East in the 1916s and how he played a crucial role is uniting the Arabs to fight against the Turks. There has been substantial commentary on the plot in the movie and the one that actually took place.

From Wikipedia:-

The historical accuracy of the film, and particularly its portrayal of Lawrence himself, has been called into question by numerous scholars. Most of the film’s characters are either real or based on real characters to varying degrees. The events depicted in the film are largely based on accepted historical fact and Lawrence’s own writing about events, though they have various degrees of romanticisation.

Some scenes — such as the attack on Aqaba — were heavily fictionalised, while those dealing with the Arab Council were inaccurate, inasmuch as the council remained more or less in power in Syria until France deposed Faisal in 1920.

Many more criticism was mounted on the projection of T.E. Lawrence in the movie and even to extent of comparing the physical differences between the real T.E. Lawrence and Peter O’Tootle.

(The opening scene of the desert adventure – the morning sunrise over the horizon is simply spectacular!)

Directorship

Sunrise – it was said that in the movie “The Bridge on the River Kwai”, Sir David Lean specifically travelled 150 miles to capture it.

Once again, seeing the “Lawrence of Arabia”, we cannot ignore the genius of Sir David Lane in capturing the story of the Arabic Revolt against the Turks and how that transformed Lawrence into an almost mystical character. The opening scene in the desert starts with a sunrise in the horizon.

David Lean is able to match the 3 main elements of the movie (acting, music and cinematography) into one balanced display of art and craft. David Lean won his second Oscar for Best Director for this movie (he won the same for “The Bridge on the River Kwai”)

David Lean on the other hand was inspired by John Ford’s style of using the vast background against the character. John Ford was a 4 times Oscar winning director who was famous for directing most of the John Wayne’s western movies.

(Peter O’Tootle as the maverick Colonel T.E. Lawrence)

Acting

There are several main characters in the movie and all has been executed with surgical precision.

T.E. Lawrence acted by Peter O’ Tootle. Peter was not the first choice to play Lawrence in this movie but he nonetheless excelled to portraying Lawrence of Arabia. The way that Peter looks at Omar Sharif after he had saved a strayed man from the desert looks real. Peter does an excellent job of portraying someone who is very tired but did not show it in front of Omar Sharif.

Sheriff Ali acted by Omar Sharif. The way David Lean ‘introduces’ Omar Sharif in this movie is now a well known classic. The chemistry between Omar Sharif who dislike the British selective meddling in what he perceives to be an Arab Revolt and Peter O’Tootle who found some strange admiration for the desert going Arabs is so natural and convincing.

(Anthony Quinn or the real Auda Abu Tayi?)

Auda Abu Tayi acted by Anthony Quinn. It was said that Anthony Quinn got very much into his role – he spent hours applying his own make-up and used a photograph of the real Auda to make himself look as much like him as he could. Anthony was to act as Bedouin leader again in the movie “Lion of the Desert”.

Prince Faisal acted by Alec Guinness (the orginal Obi Wan Kenobi). Alec Guiness was said to have clashed with David Lean many times but this is the interesting part. Despite the often clash with the director, Alec Guinness has been wiling to act for David Lean’s other movies namely “A Passage to India”, “Doctor Zhivago” and “The Bridge on the River Kwai”

(The iconic scene where Omar Sharif is ‘formally’ introduced. David Lean had people to paint part of the desert with black paint so that the focus will be solely on Omar Sharif)

Cinematography

No one has captured the beauty of the unforgiving dessert like Freddie Young often takes long and near shots of the desert. Once again, utilising a lot of different angles to tell the story, Freddie Young was brilliant.

It also mentioned that:-

To film Omar Sharif’s entrance through a mirage, Freddie Young used a special 482mm lens from Panavision. Panavision still has this lens, and it is known among cinematographers as the “David Lean lens”. It was created specifically for this shot and has not been used since.

(Maurice Jarre’s theme blends well with the cinematic shots of the desert)

Music

David Lean has special place for Maurice Jarre in his movies as one would realised that in both “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Doctor Zhivago”, the opening of the movie is especially dedicated for Maurice Jarre’s theme music. Maurice Jarre won 3 Oscars for Best Music and all 3 was won for David Lean’s movies.

It was reported:-

Musically, Maurice Jarre was hired to write the dramatic score, Aram Khachaturyan was handling the eastern themes and Benjamin Britten was to provide the British imperial music. Neither Khatchaturian nor Britten was able to properly get involved so Sam Spiegel hired Richard Rodgers to fill in the musical gaps.

When Spiegel and Lean heard Rodgers’ compositions, they were hugely disappointed, so they turned to Jarre to see what he had done. The minute Lean heard Jarre’s now-classic theme, he knew they had the right composer. Jarre was given the job of scoring the whole film – in a mere six weeks.

(Lawrence after rescuing Gasim – he looks at Sheriff Ali and says “nothing is written”)

DVD Copy

The copy that I have here is the restored versions which have restored almost the same as the original version. From what I read it was not easy for the restoration. The original ran for 222 minutes, and then it was cut to 202 minutes and then further to 187 minutes. Thankfully the DVD version was restored to 217 minutes although some of the scenes from the original was indeed could not be restored.

Restorer Robert Harris and editor Anne V. Coates went through 450 rusted old film cans for the 1989 restoration.

(For a movie that was made in 1962 – the restoration did justice and brought back the rich colour of the scenes)

User Comments

This user’s comment at IMDB seems to say it all:-

Ignore David Lean’s painterly technique, the way he fills the screen like a canvas. Ignore Freddie Young’s stunning cinematography in fulfilment of Lean’s vision. Ignore the fabulous score by Maurice Jarre. Ignore the stupendous cast. Ignore the top notch script.

What we have, beyond all this, is an absolutely gripping and psychologically perplexing character study of a uniquely enigmatic individual that keeps us on the edge of our seats for the full length of the movie. “Lawrence”, at over 200 minutes, goes by faster than many a movie of half its length, due to Lean’s brilliant pacing and direction, and superb acting all around. To make a comparison in the world of music, this movie, like Mahler’s 8th symphony, is a universe contained within itself.

Final say

The plus points: Almost everything

The negative points: The movie is not long enough