Aayirathil Oruvan, one of the most buzzed and expected works from writer-director Selvaraghavan, takes us for a "blind date" adventure along with its crew to a destination which owes its creation and its state of existence to Selva's fantasy. From the promos, my expectations were on the lines of Adventure meets "Period" through the medium of fantasy - I was looking forward to the trio of Karthi/Reema Sen/Andrea setting on an adventurous ride in which they'll stumble upon and/or be part of the times when the land of Tamils were ruled by the dynasty of Cholas and Pandias. Even with this idea, the date was still blind due to the room of uncertainty that the wings of imagination created - that even the idea of time travel was possibly in the scheme of things. Hence, more than anything else, I was excited and upbeat to check out where Selva's imagination had actually got to.
Selva doesn't waste any time and sets the ball rolling right in the opening scene. Seriously, it couldn't have been any better because right there apart from sowing the seed for what is to come later in the movie, it cries out loud for your attention to detail as well. The opening scene also serves the purpose of establishing an ironical situation towards the end of the movie.
The next hour and a half establishes the lead trio of Lavanya(Andrea), Anitha(Reema), Muthu(Karthi) - the military crew led by Ravi (Azhagam Perumal) and the helper crew lead by Muthu - who all team up on a mission to figure out the whereabouts of a senior Indian archaeologist gone missing, who was last involved in a project to track down the location to where the last known heir of Chola had eloped to. The Chola clan have apparently taken with them an idol of great significance to the Pandias and the subsequent search missions by Pandias had sowed enough clues for the Indian archaeologists' to lay their research on. While Muthu is blissfully unaware of all this, we get to know about the mission through the conversation between Anitha and Lavanya, with the opening scene only reaffirming things for us.
So, in essence, the first half of the movie gives us a little sneak peek into what has happened few year hundred years ago and tells us the tale of the adventures that the team encounter during their mission to uncover the intriguing secret of the Cholan clan. The writing has to be appreciated at various levels here - at one level are the adventure stories and at another level is the way in which information about the secret was revealed in bits during various stages of the movie.
For an adventure tale not relying on CG to provide the gimmicks required to sustain its audience, these sort of gradual spillovers of various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are very much needed to keep the viewer indulged. Wasn't it super cool writing to keep you guessing about the various obstacles that they encounter and reveal that they were indeed a set of preset traps during the fourth trap? To me, the timing was spot on. Just when Anitha, Muthu and more importantly the audience would have thought the obstacles are pretty random, this little secret from the Pandora Box is revealed by Lavanya. Not only does this provide meaning to the hurdles that they had come across, but by writing a few more yet to come obstacles, this also scares them and excites us to look forward to more adventures. The adventure stories were mostly good too, my pick of the lot being the "Paadhalam" trap and its solution. Apart from these traps, the interaction between the trio during their adventure was refreshing as well. All along, the information revealed in the opening shot stays in the back of our minds as well.
Writer Selva has succeeded to a great deal in this aspect as far as the adventure part of the movie is concerned. Now even with such a good platform, was the adventure ride truly adventurous, thrilling and engaging all along? I would say that it worked kind of On and Off to me. If the execution of the weird fish trap was a turn off, the screenplay losing momentum at many places wasn't helping the cause either. While "Adho Andha Paravai" is perfectly understandable and fun, the way "Oh Eesa" took off and the Vampirish picturization only served as an embarrassment. However, the reason for this half as such working for me was due to Karthi's histrionics and the way in which the characters of the lead trio were sketched, which when coupled with the intelligent writing (that I had talked about) provides the movie the much needed foundation for the second half to be built on.
The first few minutes of the second half remove the blindfold that you had been put on all along in the date, addresses all the open riddles and introduces you to a whole new set up in which, ironically, the inhabitants are secluded, blind and unaware of what is happening in the world external to them. There is a lot of irony and brilliant writing in this. For starters, the idea of the "medium" through which the adventure met Period was fantastic, for people were discussing stuff like reincarnation and/or time travel as the medium for the rendezvous. The USP of the movie was the guesswork to figure out what Selva's imagination had actually gotten to and the revelation showcased sheer innovation and creativity in thought. To add to this, now the scenario takes a complete U turn where, suddenly, we and the lead trio become cognizant of the situation at hand while the inhabitants of the secret that we were after all along are unaware to the least bit. Now we are looking at a totally new situation and the movie suddenly works well as two separate movies. "Out of the Box writing at its Brilliant BEST". I'll give it to you right here - Selva, you ROCK!
What follows from now would eventually play a big part in how the movie would work as a whole to you. To me, it provided mixed vibes. One can see that Selva has suddenly shifted to the self indulgence mode in this half and the dialogs took a different dialect form. I had my ears open than ever and would say that deciphering those dialogs "contextually" wasn't an uphill task as it was made out to be. Still, I had eventually missed out on a few, which I think I can largely attribute to them being unclear and me being not used to them. Now, the presence of these dialogs poses a lot of challenge to the director - while their mere presence provides authenticity and makes some viewers indulge more, it also alienates a bunch of other viewers. Selva chose the tougher choice and here we are. The brilliance in writing has definitely spilled a lot to this half as well and you have those special moments. My pick of this half is the idea of the futuristic painting which is supposed to serve as a guideline to identify the prospective messenger. Again, that provided a nice little sub platform to build an interesting subplot on.
The key to success in self indulgent film making lies in the narration, which remains the lifeline to pull the viewer towards the film. The reason for me having mixed vibes about this half is that at various moments in this half, I, eventually, was external to the scheme of things and watched it roll. The film still worked fairly well during these times too yet the much needed flair and the pull-in was missing. I wouldn't agree with people saying that the first half was better. The second half involves unveiling the mystery and works on a more challenging set up too. I feel that Selva has not utilized the huge reach that his wings of fantasy have while writing the scheme of things in the period setup. At various moments in this segment, the narration lacks teeth. You can't attribute this to the lack of good thoughtprocess though as you can see scattered brilliance - apart from the Painting idea, I liked the Gladiator inspired game idea, the virginity test, the conversation between Anitha/Parthiban and the blood from the breast symbolism. We also had more information coming our way as Anitha gives a flash back on who she actually was. This half definitely had its share of brilliance in writing just that the narration of these lacked teeth and could have been better.
Towards the climax, we have this war set up between the clans of the two dynasties. While I acknowledge the great efforts put in here from the director side and the DOP side, the final Gun Vs Shield battle was humiliating and I was squirming in my seats until it was over and done with. One can attribute that to the lack of funds, but whats with the whole idea - what was it all about - I am perplexed! And I truly understand our budget limitations, but while executing such superior writing I only wish that our makers don't remind us of the inferior infrastructure that they work with. I am sure the minds which worked at astonishingly multi layered levels of brilliance can figure out ways to do away with such stuff.
The last few moments in the movie hit high points and pretty much sum up what the movie was all about. The climax is like a PERFECT stone on the crown of the writer. Awesome icing on the Cake. Just like the brilliantly placed opening scene, there can't be a better climax too. There is irony in the way that the clan is pushed back to square one and the pattern establishes itself, yet again. A truly fitting climax, indeed!
Throughout the movie, the director Selvaraghavan complements the writer in him well. The way in which the war sequences were picturized given the CG challenges speak volumes of the effort that has gone in to the making. The hard work of the director, cinematographer and the technical team is visible in every frame and the way in which they have visualized some of the unimaginable shots are truly commendable. The area where the entire team has been let down in the back ground score. While the BGM is appropriate in many places, there are so special scores at all. There are none of those which actually elevated the writer and director. There is a lot of talk doing the rounds that the depiction of Cholas/Pandias is "objectionable". Looking at things from every possible perspective, honestly, this doesn't make any sense to me. Just a little thought about the whole period set up, the secluded civilization, aloofness and the mere observation of the number of years gone by would help understand things a little more clear.
Karthi turns out to be the best performer of the lot while Reema Sen does her part well, only that her lip sync was bad in places.Parthiban and the rest of the cast have done a neat job.
The best part of Aayirathil Oruvan is the idea. I loved the writing more than the execution, for it was creativity at its innovative high. I bow my hat to the Writer on a job executed out of the box. The film looks poised for a sequel and I look forward to better narration next time around. And Selva, please, fire GVP!
