Shankar-Eshan-Loy – The Lowly Laureate

So you all know what an FRS is right? Right?

[As all the FRS writers begin to arrive at the writer’s room atop the 55th floor of an undisclosed chennai high rise building…]

Lool, what chennai high-rise building? You really thought we will give away our location? Nice try.

-5: Narration, since this is a trilingual we will multiply points by 3 whenever wherever. ( you can do the mental math on this )

-10: Usual cinema overdose of gangsters, here of course they run an entire city called Waaji

Maybe their official city song is Waaji Waaji Waaji En Jeevan Sivaji, although no such thing is implied.

Also also, this movie joins the list of movies which just say people are gangsters without explaining how or what made them turn into gangsters- no explanation of the process- these are important for FRS writers, we believe in detail.

+15: The contribution of gangsters to Waaji’s economy seems immense, they have a modern city functioning with the best security systems, banks, expressways and what not; maybe someone can do a paper about the economic benefits of letting gangsters run Indian cities, we mean…legitimately.

+21: The gangster congregation is more like those “Royal Stag- Have I Made It Large” type ad set up and of course we see that the Roy family is going back to India, to take over the country etc

+88.97: Hero is here to save another gangster (yes you cannot keep count) from a housing society, he has to reach the top floor within 5 cooker whistles, going from one floor to another but every floor has a different type of monstrous thugs + wild animals he has to overcome.

Holy mackerel! That’s a full movie right there, like Raid: Redemption meets the Cabin in the Woods.

Actually this can be a full movie. Should we cut points for director not going further with this idea?

+30: Hero is neither clean shaven or bearded, this intermediate state of facial hair is possibly to satisfy the expectations of both kinds of die hard fans of our hero.

-23: Clueless Mumbai Police is clueless or like we say in the office “Mumbai Police is not going to like this film”

+65.21: Although they will be very happy to have Shraddha Kapoor as a special agent <insert appropropriate yet respectable smileys here>

+5.52: Shraddha here is a special agent because she is special to our hero <wink wink>

+17: Whenever Bombay police is going to take up a special investigation, they will first set up secret headquarters which has fun start-up office feel, it has foosball, basketball ring, beer cafe, video game parlour and of course graffiti splashed walls (obvious) and before I forget, a shooting range.

I guess this is done so that the special agents really feel special <wink wink >

Good initiative by Mumbai Police

-7.3: One person in the special unit’s only job is to pan and scan CCTV footage, we believe that such a limited role will not help in future career paths #wecare

-45: Whenever Shraddha Kapoor meets hero, there will melodious music and slow breeze that will gently animate her hair cliche.

-20: Mumbai Police still use a random method to allot cases to their policemen.

-51.8: Everytime we cut back to Waaji City, there is a new set of gangster families and their heads that we need to place within the context of the story, since all of them wear suits and have cheroots in their mouth this memory game became a little difficult.

The FRS team as usual were innovative to brand everyone with above characteristics as villain and we went ahead with the viewing.

-8.10: Mega Mafioso death will trigger a succession war and no one in Waaji City knows how to get hold of the wealth cliche

-18.3: Mafioso uncles will have chief economic advisor (their words not mine) but will not have proper succession plan. It’s like one legal document would have prevented this whole film

+41: Mandira Bedi is styled to look like someone from a Gautham Menon film, this we believe is a teaser for next week’s hopeful release.

-23: Indian Music director still using BWAAANG music for any major moment in the movie without realizing that even Hollywood has moved past BWAANG!

-95: Waaji, a city infested with gangsters will also have the best in class police tech in the world including jet based police vehicles.

+23: Imaginative world building: director never gives the audience the time to guess the geographical locations in the movie- one second we are in a Dubai type desert city, next second rainforest, then snowy mountains.

Buy the ticket. See the world.

+4: Hero steals time bound tech device which everyone is after and then takes vacation with heroine all over the world.

Because of course why not.

+11: Vacation is photographed in great detail for future romance things, this we believe will give a boost to a sub segment in the photography economy called “couple vacation photography”

Become a vacation photographer. See the world (with a couple). Wink Wink!

-85: That reminds us, where did the comedian Kodandam go? Missing Mumbai police is missing. #MissingInAction

+21: Hero makes punchline based on cricket so that whole of India can react to it. Masterclass.

-50: Just when you thought you didn’t understand the complexity of the storylines, character will start to recite shloka in sanskrit. #truestory

+200: Director’s noble intention to show many movies in one single movie, I think this is a uniquely telugu director school of thought.

Multiple storylines. Multiple characters. Multiple twists and turns. But singular focus on hero.

Made us question if this movie is for real or like made up?

There too director stumped us by keeping a great song in the proceedings called “unmai ethu? Poi ethu? Sollidu Anbe

( you see we didn’t do the usual “all songs whenever wherever”, wink wink )

These directors are anticipatory genius.

A simple feeling of watching at least 23 movies and TV shows for the price of a single ticket.

A humbling yet exhilarating and uniquely tiring experience.

All numbers are incidental and arbitrary, except the facts provided by our data analytics team

Subam

Team FRS

It is quite evident now that I am quite obsessed with the song; the repeat count alone going into a few hundreds, so I ask you not to trust me on this endeavor. I am probably up to no good.

Songs in Tamil films occupy a curious position, having had it all along, it looks colorless without it and having too much of it only hinders the movement of story.

In a recent discussion on television, a director professed that he is ashamed to show his films abroad because that would involve explaining on why do the characters break into the song and dance, it seemed so bizarre to the audience there.

Most Indians are brought up by film songs, with a near absent independent music scene and when classical music seems too far to touch, it is this goddess of film music which reaches its hands to the fallen Indian, quenching thirst and adding music to life.

Quite unusual for a spy thriller, but quite usual for the Indian film, Vishwaroopam begins with flamboyant song and dance and it is a song that has had my attention ever since I heard Kamal announce it one afternoon on TV, obviously it is a trick.

Trick because you can argue quite well on both sides, whether there is a song because he is a kathak dancer or because there is a song he (Kamal) played the dancer; but the simplest answer is because Kamal loves to sing and dance and if cinema is culmination of all arts, might as well.

But it is to the nearest perfect lyrics that I want to draw attention; Kamal has been much ignored as a lyricist; for who would have imagined that a black-shirt- wearing- Periyar-rational-thought speaker wrote the lyrics for this fantastical devotional song. Kamal of course chooses to call this just a love song.

Like all moving love songs, this is a song of longing and disappointment; it is the careful use of sadness which brings out the happiness in the song set to tune for dancing legs of course; it is a song that has made me sit in wonder for many nights at stretch.

Kamal manages to summon the steadfast waiting of the Alwars, complete with Nayika Bhavam (when the Alwar transforms into the wailing lady in waiting, for Krishna)

In longing, all is not what it seems;

Not even the daily sky is permanent, nor do the warm dreams give me comfort

The Alwars were lyrical madmen(and woman) so immersed in Bhakti, that which gives them their collective name; constantly failing to differentiate between here and there, real and unreal and sometimes rejecting both in favor of disappointment through which they finally hope to get some kind of temporary respite. In effect, it is the longing for the lord which provides them with smallish ecstasy.

But the fact that this sadness that longing will ever remain plunges them into more sorrow.

It is a brilliant line, something I fail to understand how Kamal’s rational mind penned down.

The song uses many such uneven dualities like the Krishna who removed the sleep from the sleepless eyes (!) or the man who swallowed the world, French kissed me (possibly alluding also to Kamal’s notorious past image of being the original onscreen kisser).

Maybe it is unfair to make comparisons to the Alwars of yore, but he isn’t asking for comparisons; it is an imitation and maybe answers my question how a rational mind can come through with this. Miming and imitations are of course the favourite tools of actors.

Our smart readers will note that Kamal Haasan somehow manages to reside in a Madras locality curiously called Alwarpet and is a bearer of the alliterative title: Alwarpet Aandavar

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