Ayirathil Oruvan

Today I watched the Tamil movie "Ayirathil Oruvan" thanks to a generous treat by one of my friends. Tentatively named after the yesteryear movie of the same name, which starred the first superstar of Kollywood, the great M.G.R; this movie is an earnest attempt to unfold a grand spectacle in the Tamil film industry. If grapevine is to be believed, this movie has been in the making for the past 2 and half years, something very uncommon.

I categorise this movie under fantasy, historical, adventure drama category(Uh!). In the beginning the movie resembled Indiana jones' and mummy. In a shadow chasing scene its resemblance to such sequence in "Mackennas gold" is unmistakable. When you come to know that there is a covert population in a secret location that's being chased by another civilisation for the purpose of recovering a lost treasure and that too generations down the line, I somehow could see the plot line of "Davinci code". The sequence in the amphi-theatre is a straight lift off from "Gladiator". The make up and the mannerisms reminded me the "Lord of the rings" and lastly the music composition during battle sequences with sudden quietness for a short duration reminded me of the battle sequence in "The chronicles of Narnia 1st part". It seems that Selvaragavan the director was caught in between two strong factors, "Inspiration" and "Creation". By the time his inspiration ends the creation begins, the entire 3 hours and few odd minutes come to an end and curtains go down. This is true because in the end, you can see a hint about a possible sequel that would hopefully cover the balance portion that's left unfinished.

Having criticised it, I have to confess that this is one of the genuine endeavours to expand the horizons of the tamil movies. Even if there are some loose ends, it unfailingly proceeds to unfold a story instead of sticking to the same formula that's very typical of kollywood. Here there are no introduction hero worshipping song, no punch dialogues to splinter your ear drums, no over the top melodrama. Instead you get to see two strong female leads which is a rarity. They are delightfully beautiful and look ravishing, a hero who is very good with his role, nice picturisation and reasonable visual effects given the budget and technological limitations.

In my opinion, the director started drawing a human picture, but in the process he got so engrossed in the details that he consumed the entire canvas to draw just the face.

Epilogue: I appreciate it for its bold attempt but makes me want more with its execution.