REVIEW: Raavan, Raavanan (3)

A SOFT CORNER FOR BAD GUYS

'It's best I should let you go...If I let you go, she is mine to take... I should let go of your hand... But maybe I will save you for her.' The voices in Beera's head are racing wildly ahead of the action. Beera and Dev are hanging off a bridge that is burning on both ends (symbolic? I don't know). I like Beera more and more for this madness. And you see Dev with feet of clay. You see Ragini actually choose Beera over Dev. Most people don't like that. We want our heroes to be 'All Good', heroines as only damsels in distress, not someone who asks sanjeevani/hanuman 'why did he not come himself?'. We want our villains to be 'Pure evil'. 

But Mani Ratnam is making a political statement here. It's not difficult to understand. Beera is hailed as the messiah of the forest people (he's a sage, he's a fabulous drum player, he's a poet, he's many things to many people) but the cops want to see him only as the brigand. The song Beera and his gang sing (when they capture Hemanth) in the Tamil version is full of meaning which the Hindi (written by Gulzar!) fails to even touch ('Tod de khilli'). The Tamil song says something like: You build fences, we will tear them down... what can you take away from people who have grown up on hunger and thirst... we live in the forest... 

The eunuch (framed beautifully in the little window) explains Ragini's question with a matter of fact answer, 'You are paying the price of what happened to Vennilla'. Beera asks the SP, 'You brought 14 trucks loaded with ammunition into our forest to save one woman, where were you when your Hemanth took our girl to the police station from her wedding?' Alas, the finely tuned Tamil version of the dialog gets lost in translation.

When Beera kidnaps the SP's wife, he pushes the authorities to reacting and react they do. Blunder up the mountains, and into the forest but there's no sign of Beera, And no one will talk. The SP is also an encounter specialist (the Tamil version clearly says it and we understand why at Vennila's wedding he shoots Beera by hiding behind women (another symbol for the cowardly men in power). His relentless pursuit of Beera is better suited to Vikram than young Prithvi (who I must admit is quite fetching in the cream linen pants when Aishwarya dances around his cooking). The SP and his men savage villages that come in the way of the search and we see role reversal sneak up on us quite neatly. 

Ragini makes several attempts to escape and Beera's youngest brother (he's 'Plus two' educated, and so is allowed to put words to a truth he can see: You are our strength, Beera, and ever since she has come, I have seen your resolve weaken. First you said she will die within 14 hours, now it's almost 14 days and I am not sure you will shoot her even after 14 years...

Beera can only acknowledge that with a growl, but we see him falling in love, 'Mahua (yessss! the Hindi version has finally something more romantic sounding than the Tamil 'Kuruvamma' would you have stayed had you been unmarried?'

That scene is so romantic, one wanted to raise ones hand and say, 'if she says no, could I...'

Another unexpected flash of romance is when Beera is singing the Gilli/Khilli song. Both Abhishek and Vikram realise Ragini is watching them dance. And that she likes what she sees and is unable to tear her gaze away. The look that each man gives her, is worth my ticket money.

The Tamil song 'Usure Poguthe' has meaning that is so relevant to the scene and the tame 'behne de mujhe behne de'. It sings of strong teak forests being burnt to cinders by a matchstick that weighs nothing (and the camera shows Beera watching Ragini entangled in the branches before falling into the water as lightly as a matchstick). 

Yes, I was zapped by the sudden shifts in location: the mela scene and the wedding of the sister (brilliantly performed by Priyamani amid mustard fields, and the giveaway peaks of Malshejghat, the round boats of Karnataka, and the tall trees and mists (Kerala?) and the ever present waterfalls of Mani Ratnam films. But what took my breath away was the ensemble cast. The brother's wife, has no spoken dialog, but you notice her. The eunuch makes his/her mark in the one scene when returning with a ravaged Vennilla (Priyamani) at the back of the truck. The Hindi version has Govinda and Ravi Kissen and the latter turns out to be brilliant. The one unforgivable person in the movie is the choreographer Ganesh Acharya. His largeness just did not fit in with the thin, starved tribal folk...

Thankfully it's not the Aishwarya Rai we see in the awful cosmetic ad avatar, and she makes a lovely contrast to all that display of manly flesh streaked with dirt. And I wish the director had given her a sharp thing to hurt her husband in the last rescue scene when she asks him, 'Did you come back for me or for Beera?' and the husband yells out to the forest, 'Beeeeeeeraaaaaa!' She looks like she could kill hin, but Ragini calmly asks the husband, 'Let's go home.'

Abhishek Bachchan has the height to carry off a role which demands him to be standing silently, blanket flapping in the air looking like a lone ranger. He's fighting a system and the many voices in his own head. I fell headlong into the waters for this bad guy when he says, 'When I burn with this jealousy, there's nothing bigger than me. Everyone looking at me, me, me!' Oh yes, when Raavan burns every year, he really IS the biggest thing around, no matter which Ram Leela ground you are on. And everyone does look at him.

Santosh Sivan and Manikandan have done a stupendous job with their camera. And although the story falters and hiccups as the telling of the tale is lost in translation., we wonder about the beautiful locations and wonder if they were close enough for a weekend trip. For someone who may just see one or the other version of the tale, this film disappoints on many levels. But I've always had a soft spot for the bad boys, and that's why I saw both versions playing in this town. And I wish there has been a fourth version (the third is the Telegu 'Villain') which I came away with...

P.S. The 'chakchakchakchakchak' may have been borrowed from the Balinese monkey dance (which scared me out of my sandals, then), but it suited Abhishek's madness. The 'Dan-dana-dan' drumbeat given to Vikram in the Tamil version is not mad enough. Vikram's breadth as Beera is on display in the black vests he wears through the film. I loved both the bad guys. Ragini does too...

Comments

[augi]

I completely agre!! Much better than one found in TOI, IBN, HT etc.. Not to mention they all are just crap!

[Jerry Johnson]

Nice review. Thanks for the careful exposition of dialog, symbolisms, and comparisons between the two versions. I liked this movie a lot for the stunning visual beauty, the thoughtful reinterpretation, and the heavy use of symbolisms.

[Soham]

Now this is what is called a review. You proved that not everyone who can write become a reviewer just for the few bucks they get in result.

Nice one.