Aaranya Kaandam-The Beauty of Post-modernity

   When the lifestyle of people changing it's nature, the creators also pushed to modify their creations. They need to change their stories, paintings, songs and other art forms to modern elements. When it comes to films, it is inevitable. After the world war 2, story writers oppose the moral of classic stories and supernatural elements in their works like, which is unbelievable realities and characters.There is no exact definition for post-modernism. But it has some characteristics to define itself.

         Tamil films are very classy from kaalidas to present day movies. But there are very few films which have a post-modern genre. In 2011, Aaranya kaandam released in theatres, as usual, it failed to bomb the box-office. Because it is an art film and even it got several international awards but it happened. Now it is praised as a cult.And the rest is history. Shortly post-modern is noted as new ideologies with different narratives and hold some characteristics.

     'Pastiche' is one of the elements of post-modern narratives which is explained as a mixture of genres. Let us look at the movie, how do you define it? comedy, dark humourism, thriller, drama or neo-noir. So the post-modern writers care about these type of genre mixing. it may create the new wave. In the movie, there are plenty of characters are unreliable.

    For instance, Subbu who is femme fatale of the story. Femme fatale is the fictional character of the film noir, who is a seductive woman and make suffers to the male characters by her sexual attraction. In 100 years of Kollywood, she is only femme-fatale without any absence of characteristics and glitters in the Tamil screen.Eventually "questionable characters" are the important term of post-modern narratives. It is entirely different from classic stories.

       The second one is the parody.Parody can be explained as pasting references from old genres. It can create the new tone on style. For example, consider the scene from aaranya kaandam when the drug deal was happening, the western formalism applied to the scene. In 1960's western cultural movies are very popular.And yuvan's BGM brilliantly crafted for showing western style.

    Especially characters eye-contact and tension, the way Thiagaraja kumararaja captured in his camera is amazing. The recent Tamil movie Jil-junk-jug also has a strong interpretation of post-modernism. And the whole story looks like the parody of western classic.Metafiction is another major bookmarks of post-modern pages. Because author's fiction can illustrate the film as a modern genre.In Aaranya kaandam all characters are developed by the nature of wild animals. So the writer creates his own fictional world in a story. Metafiction defined as  "write about writing" and the film always reminds us "Hey it is just a film".

    In one scene Subbu tells that,"Naama ellaarum oruthara appaaveenu ninaipom, aana avaruthaan periya Baasha ", which signifies herself at the last, because she is a game changer of the plot so it is a hook between pages and this is called "Self-referentiality" and it is one of the terms of intertextuality. Cultural reference is one of the great things in post-modernism. Quentin Tarantino's pulp fiction arguably one of the best modern movies, it has American pop-cultural references. And the trumanshow shows a media culture. Aaranya kaandam speak about the cinema influences on Tamil culture. And it is the part of our lifestyle.Especially this scene, "Ungalukku Rajini pudikkuma illa kamal pudikkuma"  this shows the crazy of people on cinema in modern culture. There is always an old song, we can hear in the background of many scenes.

    And the black comedy, irony and dramatic applied perfectly in a story. especially that scene,"Manasila oru poo ninachikonga saamy.." and at the end of the scene, Kajethiran tells that "Kushbu" and "Prabu". It conveys the cinema reference and shows the irony of comedy.

   When it comes to ideology, Aaranya kaandam redefined the classical masculinity because the male characters are dominative, strong and winner of masculinity. But in this movie, all male characters are degraded by someway.Pasupathy told Singaperumaal,"Vayasaayirichu athaan tokku aayiteenga". Kaalaiyan who is a loser as a family man. Pasupathy also quoted by child kodukaapuli as "Pondaatiya tholaichavan" and no need to mention Sappai. So the story opposes the classical masculinity. And it creates the new wave.

Eventually, Aaranya kaandam is the good plot for studying postmodernism. It may not be the touches the heart people but it touches the art of modern storytelling.

Onaayum Aattukuttiyum - How to create sympathy?

   Mysskin's iconical ethical drama,"Onaayum aatukuttiyum" is one of the greatest landscapes ever made in Tamil cinema.Even the story has metaphorical illustrations of the jungle, it speaks million amount of matters about humanity.And it reminds his another film Anjathe.Sympathy is essential to story device to create empathy to the audience.It makes a story unforgettable and great characterization. In this movie, the director didn't want to make partiality for giving empathy to the characters.And the audience gets closer to the characters.They don't care about their nature like Paid killers, drug addict guy and whoever. "How mysskin achieved it?",let us look the movie," Onaayum Aatukuttiyum".

   Firstly making the mood of the audience by the way of character's feel is the essential tool of a good plot.It helps to create the most memorable moments in the movie.so in the beginning, the director needs to develop,"Attaching".Attaching done by the creation of perspective with respect to our target character.By giving humanity nature to our characters, it is pretty simple to attach them into the audience.

   In the movie, we see the bunch of paid killers.After the death of one of them, we clear that he holds bible himself.It signifies his religious purity.And our innocent goat ( the protagonist) helps the guy who is known to him.Even he is a drug addict, we never give up to care him. So we learn from above cases that we should make the characters to do something humanly, it makes the watchers like him more. So the attaching can be achieved by "Crafting humanity".

    And makes the struggles to the character can influence the audience to pray for him passively. To give the suffering, it would be clear that the character wants something to win or he has a task to complete. So driven characters are very perfect for creating sympathy. In the movie, wolf(mysskin) wants to save the blind family. It is his duty, but there are many problems in it.By these conditions, stress can be created.

   When there is nothing to worry about the situation, sympathy can't be developed itself. Let feel the audience, "It is all out of our hands".Because helpless characters are more useful compare than sad characters.So the characters should be the victim of circumstances.We know that the wolf is brutal killer in his past, but now he turns good. But he can't escape from justice. So the characters who are dumbed by situations are the perfect pullers of emotions.Firstly let the audience know our characters are sad from their perspective.Secondly, give the light why he is sad and how he was the victim of the
circumstances. By contrast, the second one is best for a storytelling in modern terms.

  In my opinion, vulnerability is the best option for creating sympathy suddenly. Mysskin also handles this method to create empathy for the wolf.When wolf tells a story, the camera focussed on mid-close up.And the candles are placed between us and wolf.It makes the frame for forgiveness. He asks to forgive himself.It detailed in terms candles which shows the symbol Christianity (in Tamil 'Paavamannipu'). Not only in this scene, it applied in the climax he knees down and asks it. So the vulnerability can foreshadow the sympathy.And it makes the sacrifice. Because they have internal links in each other.Wolf died to save the girl, he really wants to save the whole family but he can't. And the transgender, she also died.These are stands for sacrifice.

  Eventually, in my point of view, Onaayum aattukuttiyum is the great example for film-makers to learn "How to create sympathy?". And mysskin is the only one who is the master of emotions.Finally, it makes the audience to cry and creates sadness.It deserves to get a lot of tear sheds.

Guru-Meaning of the shots (Cinematography of the scene)

Maniratnam's 2007 biographical drama "Guru" which is loosely based on the life of Dhirubhai Ambani.It is hard to find the reasons behind the camera movements and frame's composition in his films. He doesn't want to put random shots without meaning.In this scene, he uses a lot of factors for showing the character's ability and the frame of mind.

    1)In starting(above picture), Malik(chairman of The independent) forces Shyam(played by Madhavan) to tell about Guru Bhai(played by Abhishek).and this scene features Shyam in a medium close-up shot.And the camera panning right to left. When Malik knows Shyam was lying, he compels him to change the argument and forces to speak the truth. Madhavan changes his argument to truthful matters and so camera also changes the direction of panning(Left to Right).

    2)In this frame, we can notice that Shyam's frame improved into mid-close up to close-up. He is larger compare than previous shots. Because he speaks the truth independently
(his background image is the metaphor of it) and growing his strength of argument.

    3)And the next scene we see Guru tries to interrupt between Shyam's argument.But he isn't able to speak.And Malik says "Innum aarambikave illa".(This is like "it is beginning, you can't escape").
Guru really helpless, he can't get a chance to break the argument.So the Table-lamp covers his mouth and hiddenly says"Shut-up". The camera doesn't overpass his mouth, it is accurately placed in his mouth.So that lamp is used to achieve the character's "ability-showing".

   4)Shyam's size increases rapidly in the next shot.He speaks more truth so he occupies more screen space compare than two previous shots.This technic wisely crafted for showing the precision of the character.His size symbolize he became powerful in that scene.And the panning sequence continues till characters placed in their places.

   5)And this frame creates the relationship between characters.It shows Shyam's interruption between Guru and Malik.

   6)At the end of the scene, Guru wants to define himself.And he says,"Ennai azhikka ungalaala,intha newspaperala ethaalayum mudiyathu..".And he walks forward and gets closer to the audience.At this moment he portrayed as a big figure compares than others.The camera slightly moves upward(Tilt-up shot) to show the greatness of Guru Bhai.And hiddenly symbolize himself as a winner of the scene.

Interstellar-Inevitability of the situation

      Nolan's movies mostly hold the strong interpretations of philosophies and his stories revolve around the personal identity. Uncompromisable storytelling always connects the time and space concepts.He is modern-philosopher and he deserved for this statement.Let us look some ideologies of the Interstellar.Apart from science, it conveys the nature of time and what makes a situation worse.Situations are decided by the choices, we can't change it, and the situations may become worse with respect to our options.In the philosophical terms, this stuff is called "Murphy's law".It is defined as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong", In Interstellar, Nolan's personal morality reflects his own thoughts on this topic as an another version of this law.He doesn't want to change but wants to show the "subjectivity" of the situations.

    In a car crash scene, Cooper says,"Murphy's law doesn't mean something bad will happen, it means whatever can happen will happen".Of course, there are no "wrong" or "right" choices for a question, it is based on the "subjectivity" of the question.As same as Nolan wants to portrait that situations are subjective, there is not always "wrong" means wrong.

   The characters are forced to make the selections.Like, plan A or plan B and "Which planet next?" .And the situations turn bad until the end of the movie.Cooper's daughter name is Murph and the car crash scene also foreshadows the remaining plot of the story.Cooper's law only hits at the end.But in other portions, when characters are caught in the decisional dilemmas, it leads to something wrong.For instance, after the visit in the miller planet, Amelie decided to go Edmunds planet, but Cooper denied and makes the decision on Mann's planet.This may create the question on our head,"What if they went to Edmunds planet first?".If they did it, there are no struggles to face like black holes.But it happened because some situations are inevitable.

   In miller planet, they faced the brutality of nature, in Mann planet situations became worse because of humanity.It shows how we separate the incidents as good and bad.But in nature, the situations do not depend on choices, but it depends on humans.After the disaster in miller planet, Amelie says that it was completely unexpectable.She sounds like, her theoretical were wrong as same as Mann's case.
Because Mann is coward and he is the reason for the second disaster.

    At the end, we realize that both plan A and plan B happened.It holds the interpretations of Cooper's (Nolan's) Murphy version.Finally, we find that story is actually a loop, it will happen again and again. And Murph realizes that "whatever can happen, it will happen" because it is preplanned by future humans in the movie and it will happen once again.Eventually, Nolan gives his illustration of ideology that human is always a reason for the situations whether it is good or worse and the outcome must be inevitable.

Anbe Sivam - Appearances and Deceptives

         In a pure art filmography, all characters should be shuffled in a single or multiple thematic lines of a story.So in this case morality of the characters may judge by some valuable arguments of the concept.Anbe sivam also deals with these type of storytelling devices and leads to ambiguous moral selections.It has its own way of narration and brilliant writing.Usually, Kamal Haasan likes to deals with post-modernistic elements in his works.Anbe sivam contains the characters who are judge people by their appearances.The film wants to sketch "Appearance can be deceptive".So it travels through the dual-thematic line, they are appearance and nature.In this movie, every character deals with another one with respect to appearance and personality types.
       

         Let us consider the first scene of the movie, it shows Madhavan's misjudgment of Kamal's nature.He watches his actions and appearance and decides kamal as a terrorist.It shows true personality but without the matching of look.In this moment audience receives the information of "Unreliable appearance".So this case stands for "False appearance".

         In the flashback portion, we see Naasar who believes himself as an innocent and believes God will take care of him if he prays.He doesn't  want to use God's name only for manipulations, he really believes in God.And he stands for "False personality".This character shows the uncertainty of personality type.It symbolizes the unworthiness of god.These two sequels convey the mistaken appearance and personality.

         And the third case is in the form of "False appearance and personality".This character who is thief exhibits how people are untrustful in both themes.As a writer, Kamal used him to express his own political thoughts.Especially this scene,"Kadhar sattai pottavellaam thiyaagiya? Coat suit potta yogiyana?"(English: Will a man wearing a suit and tie be a gentleman by a default?will a man wearing homespun cotton be a freedom fighter?).It represents Gandhi and Ambedkar. The movie speaks about communism but these leaders are capitalists.So the writer opposes the moral of these people.Gandhi believes that communism had a strong sense of selfishness.These 3 objectives express the nature of characters and who is reliable and unreliable.When it comes to Balasaraswathy she judges kamal by his thoughts.And later she apologizes.In this case, Kamal didn't stand for false appearance or personality, then what influenced her to apologize?. She realizes her mistake of the impression.In this place moral judgment places in the region of the impression.

     The movie deeply concentrates to show the appearance of the god.And it has metaphorical characters to presents it on screen.The dog and Naasar are the two important symbols of God's nature.The dog named Sankaran which means Lord Siva.The dog represents love in the movie and later sivam tells that,"Dog-a thiruppi potta God varuthu!(Dog written backward becomes God)" .So hiddenly conveys that "Love is God".And the mother character shows the "True appearance and true personality".She is one who helps to sivam to overcome his redemption from past.And portraits "Appearances can be deceptive" and no need to take it as "Appearances are deceptive".

     Name sequence of the character is very meaningful because Kamal's name is "Nalla-Sivam" which means "Lord Siva", and Madhavan named as "Anbarasu" which shows love.But he doesn't want to add the "anbu".Sivam also does not trust in God.So the characters named by opposite metaphors.Finally, conveys the theme of the movie "Love is God".There is a lot of metaphors in every frame and the movie strongly represents love.Kamal's appearance crafted for showing both negative and positive terms.Which tells that, appearances are temporary and unreliable and Love is permanent.It can decide the humanity of a person.And it should be the only factor to judge oneself.