In some ways this can skew an objective analysis of whatever it is that happened, but then, who are we kidding? What is objective analysis? It is always one man's viewpoint about something. Always colored. Anyway, critical analysis of this concept is not the idea here. It doesn't matter either, for the only thing that matters is the amount of joy that one one can derive from the specific event. The aforesaid is just meant to reiterate a truism of our lives.
On a regular basis, this truism is perceptible in the activity of movie watching. Watching one after reading/listening to the ranting and raving of a critic/friend almost always has disastrous consequences. It is mighty hard for any movie, even a good one, to live up to sky high expectations. As a result, it might leave the audience feeling flat, while even an average movie can seem very enjoyable simply due to the lack of expectation. It is also a well known fact that sequels suffer at the box office due to excessive expectation from the audience (it is another story that these movies thrive on the very same expectation and manage to rake up the box-office collections during the first weekend itself).
On this note, Chennai 600028 came quite unannounced into my life. I was in India, watching some television, when I chanced upon the bit from the movie, where Gopi is forced to give up his beloved bat to a bunch of schoolboys. People tell me that the background score is from Naayakan, while I firmly maintain that it is from Aboorva Sagodarargal. Whatever it is, that, and the sight of Gopi inconsolably sobbing, got me roaring in laughter. Since the movie was ready to be viewed at home, I promptly did.
To reiterate, the expectation versus quality debate is not what I am going to indulge in, here. Instead, "objectively" looking at it, I believe that the movie is genuine in quality and deserves all the praise that has come its way. A movie with cricket at its heart is a definite variant to the ones churned out by our cine industry. However, themes can do only so much. In fact, they raise expectation. The vital ingredients of a movie needs to be in place for it to be good.
The cast for Chennai 600028 is fresh faced. So is the director, I hear. This movie follows a group of boys belonging to the middle class strata of the Tamil society, through a year of cricket, friendship, romance and the usual. Having decided to focus on their everyday lives, it was important for the acts to be realistic but at the same time interesting. This is a pretty hard challenge to overcome, and not too many films manage to do so. Notably, Shankar's Boys miserably failed in this regard, with its very many over the top excesses and unrealistic scenarios. This one though, has only a few excesses, which are actually injected quite well into the screenplay.
For the portrayal of an everyday situation to work, the script and the screenplay are vital ingredients. The cast too has to do the needful. At their various gatherings in the movie, the primary subjects do a great job of conveying reality to the audience. Further, the ones in the background pleasantly surprised me by delivering some memorable lines and reactions. This appears to have been really well thought out. And the way it has been done is by establishing an identity for each one of the boys. They are not there just to make up the numbers.
The movie centers around Raghu, Arvind, Karthik and Palani. Seenu gets a fair bit of air time. But the others too have their moments. Notable acts of the 'others' include Ezhumalai's belated career related realization, Gopi's affair with his bat and Imran's propensity to initiate fights, which is stated right at the beginning and depicted throughout. Just thinking of those incidents makes me laugh now.
It might be because they are fresh faced, thus devoid of any baggage from the past, or because they are just so darn good, but the cast's on screen chemistry makes the acts of camaraderie, bantering and fist fights really work. Arvind regaling his mates with details of his initial meeting and initial 'contact' with his love interest, Shwetha, are two of my twenty odd favorite scenes from the movie.
The cricket action sequences and the humor are two of the obvious positives. Unlike most Tamil movies, the humor is interwoven with the main screenplay. This lends a nice balance to the various events in the the movie. The minor plots pervading the movie, the language, the gestures, the dialogues and the timely digs, cohesively establish the movie's authentic portrayal. This was the key.
As should be obvious to anyone who has viewed this movie already, the mood is fairly light through the entire duration. Amidst this scenario, the two acts featuring the angry and the apologetic confrontations between Palani and Karthick stand out for the way they have been depicted. Instead of indulging in excessive melodrama that is typical for a tamil movie, the two protagonists let it all out in a very honest manner, with the rest of the group getting into the act with timely actions and comments. In the end, their reconciliation is handled in keeping with the theme of the movie. Well done!
Notice the sheer joy in the above picture? What else but cricket can make a bunch of guys revel in this manner? Must have been an India - Pakistan encounter....
The year was 2004 and India was touring Pakistan for the first time in 15 years. This was the first contest between the two sides since the Kargil war. It is always a great occassion when there is excitement and tension in the air. So it was then. And almost as if scripted, the ODI series went down to the fifth game with the score tied 2-2. Thanks to Laxman, we scored 293, thus setting Pak a fairly difficult chase under the lights. It is worth noting though, that India had chased down the very same target in the previous match at the very same venue. This game though, we had them in early trouble at 58/4. They were behind on the run rate too.
We were around 25 of us, graduate students at the University of Cincinnati., gathered in our living room, way past midnight, eyes glued to the TV. We knew that India was in the driver's seat, but at that point, no one felt the release of tension as yet. All of us bore the scars inflicted by various Inzi and Razzaq and Moin Khan led match winning recovery acts. Here, Inzi was in the center with Razzaq and Moin still to come. So, we just stayed put and kept silent.
Murali Kartik, the man of the moment now, was in the thick of action then. He was bowling a good spell, giving the ball a fair bit of air and gaining some turn as a result. This though made him susceptible to Inzi jumping out of the crease and planting one over the boundary. To be fair, not too many spinners aren't susceptible to that. Anyway, there he was, bowling to Inzi, who had already scored a few boundaries, and worse, looked like he was having a hit in the nets while doing so. To one Kartik delivery, Inzi stepped out and went hard at it.
Eyes strained to follow the arc of the ball. Television cameras always follow the ball's trajectory, but they do not offer the viewer any insight into its position with respect to the playing field (due to camera position and the altitude of the traveling ball). What this does, is to leave the viewer in the dark about the destination of the ball. One can see the ball go high up into the air, seemingly traveling for eternity and then coming down into the hands of a fielder who is well inside the boundary line. Perspective of distance traveled is lost amidst the blue background of the sky.
So, as the ball was flying towards the boundary, we did not know what the result would be. Surely, it did not seem like he hit it perfectly, but this was Inzi, and it seemed like the ball might have the legs to fly over the boundary. Just before it almost did, Sachin Tendulkar, running along the boundary rope, grabbed it at full stretch and set off in celebration towards the rest.
The match wasn't won. We weren't even sure if Sachin had stepped on the boundary line during this piece of action. But we just couldn't hold it anymore. Each one erupted with very original convulsions of arm, leg and body. The roar of relief and joy was quite uniform though. I just wish that someone had taken a picture of us right then. It would have had striking similarities to the one above.
No comments:
Post a Comment