Arjun Reddy- Crafting characters through an Emotion.

   There is no doubt that Arjun Reddy is the path breaker of Telugu film industry. Even the film's commercial aspects entirely depended on toxic masculinity and bad attitude of the male lead, the movie has a strong critical approach to screenwriting. There are many elements to crafts the character. For example, most of the movies believe in dialogues and some of them depend on the behavior of the character. But Arjun Reddy has a scope in the emotion of the movie. Of course, the movie is about emotions and how it shapes the characters in the film. So this time we are gonna see the techniques that Sandeep vanga(director) handles to achieves the success of the story via emotions.

"I think Arjun Reddy is the character who has a strong belief in both the physical and emotional representation of other characters in the movie" 

 Let us take the opening scene of the movie, which starts with the monologue of his grandma. She told the story about mountains, saints, and other things. This story contains the entire theme of the movie. If we note this line, "One day when I woke up, in the morning, he has lost his doll and crying... I said, "I will get you another one". And his reply was "Grandma.. there are mountains and saints in the story..but not you and me, that's why I want my same doll". The first scene exactly shows about him which is the reflection of the entire movie. He wants the same doll, like a case of Preethi's (female lead) character, we see that there is a lot of women wants to have him, but he wants the same. He needs the same doll because he needs an emotion which is given by that doll. Of course, he didn't want the physical representation of the doll.

 We may say that how an excellent medical student, didn't have the awareness of protected sexual methods. He didn't want it. Remember the scene where he had a conversation with his brother. He says that sex is a something that comes, independently we shouldn't control it, it is the form of  love. That's why he didn't protect the child's birth. From those points, we see that Arjun has a strong sense of emotional elements.

When he approaches other women, like the heroine character. He says only,"Do you physically help to overcome my love failure..?". Yes, he only wants the physical representation here not an emotion. Because he didn't want to share the emotion with all, Only with Preethi. The starting scene represents it symbolically, that he only needs a raw physical content to overcome.

"Suffering is personal"

Another important character after Arjun Reddy is Preethi Shetty, a female lead. Of course, we only see the suffering of Arjun Reddy, but not Preethi's. But the final moments of the scene reflects the entire emotion of that character which is equal to the male lead's. That emotion purely helps the writer to craft that character. Yes, suffer, suffering is the one which helps to develop both characters. Another important character is his grandmother who is the only one to support him after his friend Shiva.  Remember they only share a few moments in the screen time, but we see the strong bond between them, that is the power of emotion writer achieve it.

Let us consider, his friend Shiva, and all of them. All are "emotional meter" of the male lead. They are the one who tells that which is right or wrong. And they are helping to show the limitation of the character. They are emotionless to show the emotion of the male lead. 

"Being born, being in love, and dying..there are just 10% of our life..the rest are reactions of that moments"

Grandma's dead is the final plot point of the movie. He tells his father that "Emotion is everything..".  He plays the song, to full fill the emotions for that moment. And when they carry her grandmother, someone told that "Body". He didn't like the physical representation here. Eventually Arjun Reddy is the example of how to develop your characters via feelings, beliefs, and sufferings. It is more deserved than treated.

I said, why are you crying so much?I told him I will get you another one.
Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=arjun-reddy

  

Ethics in Screenwriting- The Revenant

   Some stories critically deal with the morality of giving the correct justice to the characters. I think Revenant is one of them both ethically and visually. The movie literally tells the tale of a human who is struggling with nature and seeking revenge. But Innarito heavily focused on the poetic devices and literal moral with his beauty of filmmaking. There is so much amount of writing symbolism in the movie. So let us discuss what makes revenant literally beautiful and ethically strong.

 "Ethics in a movie can be described by the character's eventual state rather than a content of story"

  Let us takes the scene where Fitsgerald(Tom Hardy) makes an agreement with Glass(Dicaprio), that If Glass blink his eyes, he will be killed, Of course,  glass did it. But his son interrupts in that situation so Fitzgerald has no other option so he killed him. This scene makes more sense, that there is no wrong with Fitzgerald. They made a deal that's all. But the screenwriter of the movie writes to takes revenge on Fitzgerald. It didn't make sense to the point. Then what makes this story so great. Here we go.

"Revenge is in God's hand..not mine"

  We didn't satisfy our selves, that"He killed his son, so revenge is the right thing to do". Because Fitzgerald is genuine in his side, he killed him for his own safety. At the same time, we didn't accuse his son also, he didn't know about the deal. So let me take this point. Fitsgerald hates Pawnee people, that literally leads to that situation. In the ending, we see that Dicaprio realizes this point, he tells that "Revenge is in God's hand..not mine" he drags in the water, then the moral is done by the pawnee-people, and this is the correct payoff given to the character. This is a reason revenant looks ethically strong.

"You came all along the way for revenge.."

And the second thing comes to my mind that how Revenant handles symbolism to tell the morality. The example is that can with circular simple, which expresses the journey of Glass to kill Fitsgerald. It contextually tells that,"Your sins will reach finally even after rounding the earth".

The symbolism in the tree is very fascinating. Especially that lines...

"When there is a storm, and you stand in front of a tree, if you look at its branches, you swear it will fall, but if you watch the trunk, you will see it's stability".When Glass is damaged by a bear, he can just see the branches of the tree. Of course, he can't see the trunk, which shows his weakness and inability to act. The film heavily focussed on determination, strength, and revenge in human's behavior.

Tamizh Padam-Traditional Myth's Structure and Hero's Journey

 

    There are many ways to structure the plot in a movie. When it comes to 3 act structure or tragic hero stories we can feel it's fundamental phase. In 2011 Tamil Padam, directed by C.S.Amudhan (Yeah mine too..haha) released and contains much parody in it. Parody which came from traditional Tamil industry's plot.structure or over exhibited heroic qualities. Well, then the story is parody and intertextuality of Tamil movies, so what about its structure?. Eventually, we came to our argument, which is rolled up around 12 stage myth hero's journey and their characteristics. Of course, the film has a sense-less story but the structure matters.

"12 Stage method  is a very powerful way of showing the adventure plots, many epic movies like Star Wars, Inception, Avatar and Gladiator are written in this way, Tamil Padam is one of it"

Ordinary world:
    In the film ordinary world represented as a usual Tamil industry's standard place Chennai. It doesn't point place alone, a song, comedy and all in it. There is a lot of important parody in it, we can discuss later in another post.
Call to adventure:
   The adventure begins with when Siva tends to search for his parents to marry his girl. In stories, it usually begins with when there is a thread to his self-respect and his ordinary life-events. And it ultimately causes the disruptions to his existence. When he gets to the adventure, every hero need's supernatural aid, for us here is the chain in Siva's neck.

Mentor and Helper:
  His friend is his helper and the mentor is one village guy who later appears in the plot. A mentor is a such a powerful character who is the great healer of hero's flaw.  He is a one who gives wise advice and often self-confidence. This is a reason why he became the important character later in the movie.

Tests allies and Enemies:
    There are so many challenges in hero's journey in order to reach his destination. In this movie it appeared as "Migrated villagers", and "Village head's craziness" and so many. And this is the place where Hero's supernatural aid helps him. He finds his parents by the chain.

Transformation: The transformation occurs when audience know that Siva is a police officer who is in undercover.

Approach to the Inmost cave: Which means that where situation became worse in the plot. In the movie, it appears where Siva finds out the truth that his grandma is an actual villain in the movie. This concept must be difficult for the audience's belief on the story.

Return with elixir(Reward): Mentor who we seen before, is the one who helps our protagonist to solve his problems. In the story, Siva's reward is his job promotion.

 There is a lot of matter in the film like this. You may ask why "Refusal of the call" is missing...That is the point and parody, Tamil heroes are never refuse their heroic calls. I can compare the Deadpool's writing to this movie. Deadpool is the parody of comic and Tamil Padam is the parody of Tamil cinema. There are many valuable arguments in this movie. So even the story is an entertainer, but listen to the structure and theme, you may find it.

Memories of Murder-Thematic suspects

  2003 Bong's Memories of murder, of course, which starts my interest in watching Korean cinema after Oldboy. Recently watched Snowpiercer which is stunning more than any Hollywood films. Memories of murder contain a lot of matter in it. The genre is more promising to watch the film. Most of the writers deal with the theme in terms of character, they bind theme and concepts within their dialogues and character's expressions to reflect the main symbolism of the film. Surely it is not an easy job to do. For instance, let us takes Oldboy, all characters are bind with incest and love, it is a theme but the plot is previously built by the revenge. Majorly it is very rare to see the film, whose theme is constructed within the plot and not within the characters. Memories of Murder is one of it.

                 "It is not about the killer but the suspect still matters and the nature of impression".

 The film's central concept asking many skeptical questions such as "Who is killer?'. But in terms of discussing it, let us see "Who is suspect?". As per the dictionary,"Having an idea or idea of impressions of the existence, presence or truth of(something) without any certain proof". The film deals with these above words. And those or ideas and proofs. Let us see the ideas and proofs of our major characters. And at the final, we are going to know how they failed in front of the theme.

  First, detective Park Doo-man whose idea is "Seeing raw witnesses" yes, of course, he believes what he sees, and what he believes. He believes that boy (Kwang-ho) is the killer by seeing the footprints and his monologues. Another example is his propose about the hairless men because he didn't seen any hairs of the murder. Shortly he sees collective ideas and proofs even it didn't make any sense or not. The character arc is brilliantly done by writing the other detective character  Seo-Tae-Yoon. Whose idea depends on collective documentation. He believes documents and his instincts. He often says "Documents never lie".He believes the collective idea of information more than witnesses.

If we dig deep the theme, it describes the nature of witnesses and impressions. And it shows the dynamic nature of suspect. From the above quotations about the suspect, the last words are "Without any certain proof". Of course the film itself, there are only suspects no any killers. In real world or in other films you may find real killer but this film is not about the killer it is about the suspects. That is why the killer is unknown in the movie.

Before the ending, we see both detectives are failures from their ideas. Documents are fooled Seo and "seeing raw witnesses", the eye contact of Park Doo-man also didn't help him. Which means suspects are always dynamic. And there are no static impressions on the killer. And like early cases in the film, that final suspect also moved from the inspection. Like I said the characters are failed, from their impressions. But what about the final moment? let me explain.

The film is melodic and more than any mystery and crime genre. Again the film's theme is constructed by plot, not from the characters. The theme should always win at the final. That is why the ending makes more sense. We see characters are failed, but the theme alone stands. In last frames that school girl said"Just a kind of plain". Yes of course, as per the theme the suspect is always without any certain proof and he is dynamic. Eventually, Bong staged thematic succession at the ending by failing the characters.

Magical Realism in Narcos

There are so many cinematic words and terms cannot be explained in words, like genre names. But the explanation for magical realism in narcos is almost exactly told in the starting frames." when a highly detailed realistic setting invaded by something too strange to believe".  Last few words are too important to notice. And that is "too strange to believe". Since Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novels described its terms and conditions to writing the magical realism, it is majorly noted by the dreams of the characters. Probably I am not book lover but after watching narcos I bought one book of Garcia which is One Hundred Years of  Solitude. Which is really contains many terms similar to narcos. Don't worry I won't talk about that book haha. We can illustrate many themes of magical realism from three scenes of narcos. And that 3 powerful scenes which are deeply detailed and too strange to believe.

The first one is when Pablo's president dream destroyed in the political system. Before he went to the building we are separated by two spaces. One is Pablo's walking to the building and another one is his monologue walking, while he smokes his cigarette and clouds are ready to rain. This scene is brilliantly captured by the camera. And it consists many metaphors in it. The monologue is written for that particular frame. When it sounds like "people are fly as high as Icarus". And when it comes to the next dialogue,"don't get too close to sun..your dreams may melt". And suddenly rain gets strong in another frame. In this place, the blacked clouds which contain water represents Pablo's dream. And it melts. Of course in the next scene, his dreams are melt away just like black clouds.

And there are no strange that dreams of the character represent the magical realism in art. After some hard life, Pablo dreams that he touch the plant which is vulnerable. It depicts his vulnerability on government and justice system. And the next level of a dream his wife was shot dead by major Carrillo. And is easy to remember that his wife was desired went off from that place before she was shot. This represents his thoughts about in safety of his family. Two dreams but combined for that reason.

And finally seeing dead people is ordinary in the terms of magical realism. I would like to mention one example from that book. There is one character(Brudensia) who is killed by our major character. But even after his death, he is visible sometimes for him(Brudensia) and his wife. But the interesting one is he also aging with respect to years. Same like Pablo's final conversation with Gustavo. He had white beards (aging)even after his death. Which shows the reality of nature same as the book.

This scene really breaks my heart with its sentimental terms. Which is mainly noticeable is the director tries to bring cinematic reality to this scene. Gustavo didn't suddenly leave in the light or with any superficial elements. He comes normally and leaves naturally with walking like any organic undead character. And this tells the purpose of word "realism" in "magical realism". There is a lot of another example for this scene.

 In the movie Gravity, she sees her dead father naturally and realistically. And the interesting one is both(Narcos and Gravity) are from South American creators. I think it is the reason why narcos monologues,"There is a reason that magical realism was born in Columbia". Finally, I love the series and it inspired in many ways with its plot. And deeply forces to love the Columbian dreams and their works.

Building A Perfect Plot twist

  It is the very important thing that we should keep the secrets and suspense as a screenwriter to make uncompromisable scripts. Sometimes it works well otherwise didn't. Plot twists are majorly used traditional ending for the most stories. It will makes satisfied audiences. But only when your twist successfully staged for viewers. So today I am going to dissect some iconical twists and their nature of writings within it. We are not going to see mysteries or other suspense. Because I am not talking about talking about it.In my opinion plot twists are defined as,

"unexpected turning in plots which are made to rethink the entire plot"
"I am not thinking mysteries are twists, because mysteries come at the end but twists are no need to always come at the climax"

                                                       -Author

                            
1.Control of information-Shawshank redemption

    We see many kinds of narrators in movies. I am not talking about unreliable narrators or first-person narration. Let us see the narrative structure of the film Shawshank Redemption. Which is actually contains the third person's perspective in the entire plot. We see our main protagonist from Red's point of view.

    He is a third person and that's why the twist works. Because when audiences are in third person's perspective, the screenwriter has a lot of comfortable space to work within secrets or pieces of information. We are positioned very separately from that protagonist then finally we know that he is actually trying to escape from jail for years. Shawshank redemption perfectly worked in creating the control to its information so we see the perfect twist.

2.Empathic script- Memento 

  Above points are told how we are separated from the characters and hiding from the details. But this case is entirely different. Christopher Nolan breaks the convention by telling, there is no need to always hide the information to make a twist. So how the twist worked in memento?. The point is we are over closed with our protagonist.We see how he see the world. we believe his narration, and the screenplay also creates the empathy for him. He didn't know what happened just now same like as! the film moving reversely and we also don't know what happened.

 The thing is we believe Leonard's story. We didn't expect the twist because we trust the protagonist, we are actually waiting for his revenge on the killer. That's why the film is brilliant by its structure.Also, this is a reason why the scenes arranged non-linearly.(Nolan didn't want to confuse the audience in his any movies he only wants to create the subjective world to create empathy)

3.Nature and originality- Fight club

 Before we are going to dissect this, just tell, how you accept the twist?. If you see any action movies, then this twist come how do you feel?. It will seem like non-sensible. Because you have to create the mood for your twist. 

 If it is psychological, the mood should be psychological. And that is called foreshadowing. When we are seeing the fight club from starting, we are introduced the world of magical realism. Dreaming narrator, talking penguins and lot of surrealism in it. And this mood generates the plot twist very natural. Because we always feel that there is something magical or strange thing in that movie. Finally, the writer staged his work on the twist.

Agni Natchathiram- Analyzing the symmetric screenplay and unique structure

I like the way usually maniratnam introduce his characters in the movie. Strong visual motifs make the metaphor for the character in his films. P.C.shree ram's creative cinematography plays a major role in his movies. In one of my previous posts, I explain those framing elements of the scene from the Guru. Like that interpretations,  Agni Natchathiram also used powerful cinematography for creating a Symmetric structure to the plot. Both characters are introduced with the sun and star(literally by lamb). Like the film title itself. One stands for heat and energetic and another one cold and punishing.

 To create this structure Maniratnam shows the lack of control in both characters in their intro scenes.We see Shankar attacks his higher authority(interviewer), and also Gautham, but he didn't want to behave like that. Of course, Gautham's free will can't allow that but it works for Shankar. Gautham is a form of the law of control. So his characterization didn't allow that. It is very clear at the end Shankar freely enters the antagonist house and warn him harshly, but Gautham didn't.

Let us get into the story, the plot point is when Shankar attacks Gautam's house. And then the cat and mouse screenplay takes the story forward. We can separate every meeting moments of both characters. It can be achieved by analyzing "Who won the scene..?!". Let us look at the story map of the movie.From this map, it is well structured with respect to the timeline of the movie. Both characters have equal priority in their characterization. They have equally 3 winning moments in the film. And eventually, both are losers and winners. In this way, symmetrization is done its duty.

When we talk about characterization, it is clear that both characters find their pairs with respect to their morality. Shankar finds the girl who is same as him. And Gautham chooses from his moral point.In the ending momentsShankarar represented with matchsticks and in the whole film, Gautham showed as a star with his glittering suits. Also, Shankar is a loser at the daytimes and Gautham is a loser at night times. It creates the anger among each character by creating the opposite metaphors.(How dare he winning in my moments).

There is plenty of moments in the movie and which is worth studying screenplay.Maniratnam usually does it in his films. I pick Alai paayuthe for this type of symmetric structure.Eventually, it is the way how Agni Natchathiram nailed the storytelling terms in different perspective. It may old, but I suggest this movie to aspiring filmmakers who want to achieve on the part of good storytelling.

Kattradhu Thamizh-Cinema of Decay

  While watching some movies we said ourselves that this is a kind of inevitable emotions. Because the way the director create the character is so embarrassing, may be or may not be.And when it comes to struggling characters, especially when it comes to the protagonist.As a director, it is your responsibility that you should create the empathy for those characters. We already discussed in our previous posts, that how mysskin makes empathized journey in his movie Onaayum Aaatukuttiyum. So let us get into the argument. Katradhu Tamizh is remarkable debut by director ram.The journey of the protagonist is very tragic at the same time it is filled with some happiest moments. While seeing the film we can see the visuals, plot, and characters are almost quietly going destroy together. Ram takes nihilist and pessimist approach to create this mood.

 So like Stanley Kubrick we can tell this film as "quietly going decay together..". Prabhakar's childhood life mostly capture with the color of green. So the initial frames were filled with green color.Which reminds the song lyrics of kannadhasan-"Pasumai niraintha ninaivugale..".When the story moves, green is vanishing slightly in the movie. It turns gritty mode like dessert. Those reducing colors represent Prabhakar's life and how it turns so dark and grunge textured. As the result, the color tone is completely changed. While he narrating his life to the cameraman, those interchanging between green and gritty creates the insane among the audience.

 Ram handles many symbolic elements in the film. The railway tracks show Prabhakar's life. When something happens badly, we see that we are getting into the tunnel and in good moments we get outside from that dark side. Because there is a light at the end.In Prabhakar's childhood when the dog getting into the tunnel it died. And it became one of the most important moments in his life. So the tunnel idea simply sticks with his mind.The light at the end of the tunnel represents the possibility of success, happiness especially after a long period of difficulty.

  There is a lot of single serving subplot characters in the movies. And end with how bad they can end. They teach something to the protagonist. Almost every character gets separation from Prabhakar's life. Probably they are decayed characters. You may ask that if all characters are flawed, then what makes the journey of the story?. It is the characterization of Prabhakar. Even he trapped mentally, he never wants to stay in one place. He like telling stories, he is an explorer. This makes the story very interesting.We can compare Bala's Naan-Kadavul to this case. Almost every character in Naan kadavul literally flawed except protagonist. He is very static and never bends over on anything.

 In Katradhu Tamil, along with those elements we should talk about the nature of the plot. Ram is hugely obsessed with capturing the cultural things among new generations. His other movies also depict his interest in writing the cultural ethics. Like these visuals and pot, this movie project the decay of culture. And how social inequalities makes the dominative and subdued peoples. Of course, the directors do it, they install their own personal feelings in their films. Ram is not an exception.

So eventually we see both are getting into the darkness of the tunnel. They died. But the director didn't want to finish with a sad ending, they get out of the tunnel, like "light after tunnel..", which makes happy ending with the green frame. There are many movies wrote in years to depict the decaysation. But Katradhu Tamizh achieved it by the good writing. We can easily be labeled it as a cinema of decay.