So we all know what FRS is right? Good that would save us an introduction.
-10: Movie begins with hero being introduced dramatically with rain, hence raising our expectations that something is going to happen now types, but nothing really happens (is this Selva preparing us for the whole movie?)
-21: Kollywood hero is a farmer cliche, not just any farmer but an organic one at that
Accepted Occupations in the Kollywood-verse (in order of precedence)
Rank 1: Farmers (honest, humble, divine and innocent)
Rank 2: Honest Police officers (not humble, but has thimiru)
Rank 3: Auto drivers (mostly honest, but actually humble)
Rank 4: Aspiring actor/ aspiring movie director (includes all above attributes, add to that struggling)
There is also intermingling of these ranks in a film like Raatchasan where a Rank 4 becomes a Rank 2, in Vettaikaran Rank 3 wants to be Rank 2
Not accepted occupations in Kollywood-verse (no order)
Any occupation that involves getting monthly salary and wearing some kind of formals, sometimes even casuals. Basically Kollywood is against anyone who works for a organization which is registered as a private limited company and believes they are actually slaves.
-30: As expected, farmer hero thinks all office jobs are for slaves and asks rest of TN to wake up and smell the “mannvasanai”
+30: Sai Pallavi, wife of NGK loves the smell of “mannvasanai”, her sense of smell is important for the rest of the story
+56: Organic farming executed by NGK and his 500 friends is successful, although none of this is shown.
-56: But not successful enough for other farmers in the region to adopt the same practices, even when the whole project is headlined by the town’s most prominent son NGK
Also if you are a hero from a small town in TN, obviously you have to be prominent and rest of town is happily dancing with you in an opening song which hero asks people to be vigilant, etc
-90: An immediate scene after this involves NGK battling for the government jobs of few unfortunate girls whose fathers died while in duty, hero is not successful on his account but achieves it by calling help from a school friend who works for the local politician.
This scene is a set-up for NGK to understand that how much influential he might seem, the real power lies with politicians.
But this we feel is going against the character of NGK, he did not for even a moment tell the girls to give up their dreams of working for salary and take up farming!
Or does this mean that NGK is only against private enterprise?
-67: All politicians are villains and all villains are politicians, except the unsuccessful ones
-32: Hero being asked to join politics so that he only can change the system by at least one character in a political film, also in the background is MGR staring down on him types etc
-66: Early success of organic farming somehow adversely affects rest of the economy of the village and hence the entire money lender mafia is now out to kill NGK….can’t money lenders look for some other businesses or individuals to lend etc.
Why does kollywood keep selling this success of one means failure of the rest narrative, there is space for all us guys, there is lot to do.
-101: Every big conflict in this movie is resolved by means of just a phone call, this never ceased to shock us, although Rakul Preet doing a mini bio-pic of Prashant Kishor within this movie is even more shocking
-34: Movie after being humorless for an hour suddenly decides to become a satire
-10: Satire still is not funny, but by this time NGK slowly descends into madness and pulls the rest of the film with him
+134: This was perhaps the most interesting feature, most of the characters become mad over the course of this film, fascinating; but Selva doesn’t overtly go through with this.
Maybe this is a film by a bored Selva, who really didn’t want to make such a flat film(but had to?).
This is more of a taunt to the audience. More like Selva’s Neengal Kettavai, but Selva doesn’t want to give what the audience want. All those things happen in the background somewhere but he is reluctant to show all this. This is a subversion of show, don’t tell philosophy of film making- Tell, don’t show.
Maybe during the making of the film, the director understood it, as to how NGK reflects this very moment in the entertainment business or popular culture- the entertainer and the entertained are the same people. Every turn a story takes somehow has to be connected to the current, deliver a larger message, the movie actually ends in a public meeting which is more of a direct address to the audience (us) at large
There are no jokes in this movie, because we are the jokes?
There are no redeeming characters in this movie, because reality is such?
There can be no change in the system, because we don’t deserve a change?
And those who promise change are as bad (or even worse) those who we wish to change from?
Selva puts out all these existential questions, provides no answers, doesn’t even try and write stand-out scenes which results in a film that is completely consumed of the director’s boredom.
But the cumulative effect is that, we (the FRS) writers could feel this boredom seeping into our minds while writing this piece that we forgot to deduct points for narration that we usually and happily always do.
This is not a happy experience. But to Selva’s credit he actually made us ‘feel’ the film without actually making it.
Strange. Really strange.
All numbers are incidental and arbitrary, except the facts provided by our data analytics team
Subam
Team FRS
The Lowly Laureate 