The Impact of the opening scene- Nayagan | Anbe sivam | Pudhupettai | Aaranya kaandam |Tamil cinema

               Cinema is the conducting medium of the visuals, which features the massive amount of perspectives and tastes.An opening scene of the movie is the powerful tool for constructing the tone of the film.It is useful for hooking the theme and giving the illustration for the characters.You can introduce your character as a good guy or a bad one.And it is very precision for the character introduction. "First impression is the best". It is not only for the reality and also for the imagined story.There are many elements to convey in the opening frame.

Hooks of the theme -Nayagan
               Some writers want to show the whole story theme in the first scene as a shorter version.For instance, let us the Nayagan, in the opening scene Velu wants to save his father from the police department.Police asks himself where his father is but he doesn't index.And the policeman promises that he will not do anything to his father but he lied.They shoot his father.Apply this theme to the movie,"Revolutioner killed by betrayal".The same concept matches to the remaining movie.

                Velu nayakar also died for the same betrayal.It seems like revenge but it is in the form of betrayal in the plot.This is solid information for how an opening scene affects the audiences. Balachandar sir's movies mostly show the theme in the first frame of the movie.

Characterisation - Anbe Sivam and  Aaranya kaandam  
               Character introduction is important for storytelling when it comes to the opening scene, it is used to attach the character with audiences.In Anbe Sivam, the first shot shows the Madhavan's nature of "Superficial-Judgement".He judges people by their appearance in the movie.He misidentifies kamal as a terrorist.This scene features the primary theme of the movie.And it delivers the key to the audience.

              When it comes to Aaranya kaandam, it shows the laziness of Singaperumaal.This movie features the characters in the form of animals.So Singaperumaal represents the lion.Lions are lazy in nature.And the body language of  Singaperumaal symbolizes lion.So the point is it can give the idea about the characters and who he is in the storyline.Because most of us decide the morality of the characters in the first scene.

Colours and composition- Pudhupettai
              The appropriate color with sufficient blending mode can give the emotional impact to the audience.Every color has its own mood and significance.In pudhupettai we can see clearly the red color is in outside of the cell.And Kumar staying in the green which symbolizes the 'safety'.Mostly red is used for portraits the fear.When it comes to this film it shows his fear of survival in the outside world.So he feels safe in the green region.

              Lighting and color shades can decide the morality of the character.If the character is placed on the bright side, it may illustrate himself as a good and darkness stands for evil.

 Details of the frame
           "An artist always trying to give meaning to an every frame of his work".Most directors don't want to put the random objects in his frame.For instance, let us look the opening shot of No Country For Old Men.Consider the very first scene after the narration of Old sheriff.A fade-in shot with 3 major objects, gun, handcuffs and the siren of the car.It tells "Clash between lawmakers and lawbreakers.Lately, it reveals while watching the remaining movie.

            The initial frames take major priority for exporting the theme to audience's mindset.It is the very important tool for manipulating the plot as the director wants so finally when you see the first scene of the movie in front of a screen in future, don't ignore the opening scene.And remind yourself "The First shot shows us everything"

Pudhupettai-The Metaphor of fear.

    Pudhupettai is deserving the statement,"Saturation region of raw-filmmaking", But it is full of symbolism for near 3 hours.Till now it is praised by the audience as a cult classic crime drama.The very first shot of the movie details with red and green.Kokki Kumar sits in the frame of green, and he feels very safe.And red is covered in another part of the frame.It signifies the fear.His fear of outside.So he is comfortable in green.These color sequences are handled in the whole movie brilliantly.After few views, I can assume that fear is one of the themes that dominate the characters of the film.Correct color modes with sufficient blending can give the emotional impact to the audience.

 "Losing control" is another reason for the fear.Because everytime Kumar gets struggle, only after losing his self-control.The great example scene is "Avasara pattutiye kumaru!".Because there is always a connection between "being fearful" and "losing control".This movie shows the psychological connection between survival and fear.This fear also reason for his anger."Under all anger is fear, and under all fear is fear of survival".Fear triggers an anger to a man.

 Sun and the moon plays a major role for showing the actions of the protagonist.When he becomes powerful sun rises and after the defeats sun falls.In the previous scene of the climax, Kumar hallucinates the doll as his enemy.In this scene, we can see the cold moon in the sky.The moon appears in literature as a symbol of madness.It symbolizes that Kumar going crazy.He beyond the limits of fear and get mad.And it is the waning moon among the clouds.It symbolizes the meaning "letting go".

 He feared three times in the movie for survival.He afraid of his father, Anbu, and Moorthy.These are the reasons of Kumar's growth as a gangster.He became powerful after facing those fears.I like to notation the quote of Veronica Roth who is an American novelist,"Fear doesn't shut you down, it wakes you up".In the movie, we can see that every situation where Kumar struggles for survival, decides the rising of that particular character.

   

Research on Fight Club-Part 3(Masculinity and Feminity)

 Fight club shows how men lose their characteristics of masculinity and how to recover it from society.For instance, let us look the Narrator, his activities and thoughts slightly have a touch in feminity.In one scene  Narrator's teeth fall down.Tyler tells "Hey even Monalisa's falling apart" because Narrator cares about fairness, Tyler tells this to avoid a sadness in Narrator.He buys things for decorating the house, which are the activities of women.After joining in fight club, he loses teeth, fairness, and get a bleeding face.These are the activities of traditional men.

 In the film, there are very few women presented on the screen.They are figured as crazy sexual creatures.This is not like "Fight club degrade the feminity", but conveys the projections of society's thought about women.Recall the quotation,"Self-improvement is masturbation".This quote is a connector between masculinity and consumerism."Self-improvement" means owning things and decorate the home,"Masturbation" is the significance of the self-destruction.So the idea is "Consumerism deconstructs the masculinity".This is the reason why the narrator represents the feminity because he loses the mannerism of men and decorating the condo with IKEA furniture.

 Fight club portraits all men characters in the movie as a symbol of feminity except Tyler Durden.For example, let's look the Narrator's boss, he loves corn-flower blue color which represents the "sweetness".Also remember the group of men in "Remaining men together".They release their sadness by crying, "Crying and releasing emotions" is the significance of feminity.But Tyler needs the society of pure men so he starts the Fight Club. Violence is one of the characteristics of masculinity so It can help to re-masculine the man.

 Tyler believes fight club can grow the leadership and dominative skills among the members.And those members don't get afraid of losing fairness and hair.They truly want to submit themselves for some meaningful purpose.To give an illustration to my idea, I note the quote of Norman Mailer, that is "Masculine is not something given to you, but something you gain, and you gain it by winning small battles".So Tyler trusts the Fight club as a school of "Re-masculinity".    

No Country for Old Men-First scene analysis

      Coen brothers movies are really challenging for the audience to digest their film-making style and how they handle realism.When it comes to 'No Country For Old Men', it also requires multiple views for understanding the shots and frames.Consider the very first scene after the narration of old sheriff.

  1)A fade-in shot with 3 major objects.Gun, Handcuff, and siren of the car, they reveal the theme of the movie and tells "It is about law-makers and law-breakers".This is a long shot and these objects are placed on the right side and the left side occupied by the endless road.It stands for "Journey". So the idea of the scene is "Journey with law and justice".

  2)The next shot which longs 6 seconds shows the stun-gun and it enters inside the car.It exhibits that this gun may become our major object through this journey.

  3) Chigurh's face is covered by shadow.This is for showing the nature of our antagonist. And this frame can be separated by 3 layers, and they are Sheriff, Steel bar and Chigurh.And it looks like,"The Beast in the Cage".

    4) This Scene filled with details which speak about the characterization of Chigurh in the movie.In this scene, we can see brightness and darkness that separated by the invisible center line.Chigurh sits in the region of darkness and represents that, "Symbol of evil".

     5)And the next is the curious scene with more than 10 shots.In the First 5 shots, sheriff's face is the only thing visible in the scene to show his struggle.After we can see Chigurh's face with avoidance of sheriff's face.

   6)Next two shots are placed to showing  Chigurh's activities, he washes his hands and leaves the place.This low- angle shot refers the view of God.It means "God looks the sin of every man, he will not forget even they wash their hands in the holy water".And the next show the marks on the ground, which tells that "Man leaves his sin on the land".And Chigurh leaves the place with stun-gun.     

Research on Fight Club-Part 2(Consumerism and individuality)

  I can commemorate the quotation from the fight club."The Things you own end up owning you".It exhibits how we become addicted to things.Nowadays products are very magnetic, People easily defines one person by his possessions.Corporate world triggers fantasy inside people's thoughts.And we become day dreamers.We imagine ourselves as superheroes and rock stars, but the matter of the fact is different. This is why Tyler says that "We have no great wars".He claims that we have no great leaders to rule the world instead of making laziness among the people.To give an illustration to my idea, that is "It all depends on whether you have things, or they have you".  We lose our individuality, by owing materialistic life.To give a light to my thought, recall the narrator dad's dialogue"Get a job, next get married ".It shows that we are previously programmed by the same bullshit formula.

    Chuck Palahniuk mentions this quotation in his another novel named Lullaby,"Are these things really better than things I already have? or am I just trained to be dissatisfied with what I have now?"It would seem that we will never get satisfaction, in our current life, It augurs the truth, there is no end to owning things.Because consumers are manipulated by manufacturers who says that "Growth of science". We are terminated to achieve the will power."It's only you lose everything that you're free to do anything".In this line what "everything" means, It is the things owning ourselves.It is the only reason behind our weakness.


  Tyler Durden has expert advertising skill. For instance, attracting and "Make-listening" the people is one of the skills for commercial success.Tyler did it, he magnifies people by his minimalistic and nihilistic thoughts. And he makes those space-monkeys to talk about fight club because human wants to speak about a lot of things which are banned and not-advisable.so Tyler gives the first rule,"Do not talk about fight club".By these points, Tyler has an extraordinary business mind.

   Our protagonist(s) deals with two type of bosses.Firstly Narrator's boss who loved the corn-flower blue color, secondly the native owner of the place where the members were fighting.In the first case, Narrator beats own self wisely as per the monologue"I am Jack's smirking revenge".And achieve what he wants.In the second case, Tyler's actions can be compared to the biblical quotation,"If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also"(From Luke 26:9).And he can be compared to the form of Jesus Christ.

Research on Fight Club-Part 1(Nihilism)

             I see fight club as a bridge of desires and passion.And I can remember that Tyler always wanted us to be space monkeys, he wants ourselves more active, and destroy for some meaningful purpose.According to the nihilism,"No one will remind you because the history will vanish", So the whole system is not about the moral, only about activeness.Recall the quote of Tyler "We are God's unwanted children, so be it".We have to do something to prove our aliveness.We should come from our imaginations and designs.Pain is real, pain is the only thing to reach our goal, It is the only way to prove the Masculinity. "If you could be either God's worst enemy or nothing, which would you choose?". the idea is "Be something " is better than "Be nothing".

Image from IFC,

       Scars and Blood are the only things that talk about us. Sociology states that "No one will spread your skills and specialty to others, but they strew your weakness", so the need is not about our character, it is only about existentialism.No matter how we are, and how to control ourselves against anarchy. Do you ever asking yourself,"Why the fight club is present in "Fight Club"?. It can carry itself by its minimalistic script and mind-bending prestige.But why?.Because we have to know what is the physical truth?, pain, and moral conscience of our strength.


     "Knowing capacity" is one of the processes to achieve Nihilism.Recall the third rule of fight club,"If someone yells 'stop' goes limp, or taps out, the fight is over" After across the scars and blood, he can knows his capacity and "Who he is?", "Who the opposite guy is?" The point is he can accept his boundaries.So fight club is not about winners and losers, It is only about "True pain".


      Nihilism states that "Complete disbelief in belief".There are no truths to believe", Science may change its theory day to day.Which means we accept the statements of authorized persons and corporate companies.For instance, one scene from the movie, where space-monkeys changes the News board "You can use old motor oil to fertilize your lawn".Which symbolizes that we believe things blindly.Philosophy of optimistic-nihilism rejects all beliefs accepted by civilization.And it asks

"People will be born and die, In between why the creation of civilization and culture?"