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.