Oththa Seruppu - Meaning behind Glasses,Mirrors and Lenses

Movies with special attributes like, happened in a day, or happened in a single room are always 
an amazing audience by their focus on story and simplicity. Oththa Seruppu also one of them, but 

which is more than one of the above mentioned, Played by one character. When you have a story 

like this, you have to be very careful with elements inside the frame. It should be engaged, not bore to 
the audience. Parthiban brilliantly achieved by his facial expressions and method acting. And film asks 
money skeptical questions on money, economy, and relationships.

Most of the frames were filled with reflections on water, glass, and mirrors. But is it only places 
for style purposes?. Absolutely no. So let us dig meaning behind the glasses, mirrors, lenses in the 
movie.

"Eye Glasses - Represents the kindness"

Parthiban's son's frame starts with the eyewear of him. Of course Parthiban's frame also 
often filled with this. There are no characters to show kindness, only aggressive cops, who want to 
know the truth and close the case file. Another character comes with eyewear, who is a 
psychologist, yeah there is no doubt, she shows sympathy for the main lead. It represents
 innocence, in the form of wearing in the eye. At last, police inspector also showing kindness,
 Parthiban just says, "Sir, antha cooling glass super!". Which shows he is also eventually the 
one to show sympathy towards him. So here glass acts as innocence, kindness and empathic 
eyes.

"Camera, Lenses- Represents law and order."

In the story, all raw statements by the protagonist are recorded by the camera , it doesn't capture
 emotions. Like law and order, portrayed in the film. For some reason, emotional moments are 
not captured through the lens. In one scene where the psychologist gives her opinion, scene spanning
 cyclically on doctor's eyewear, camera, and window repeatedly, which shows that doctor 
wants to free him(window), out of law and order (camera) from her empathical eyes (eyewear). 
 Camera movements are widely used for this visual storytelling. 

"Broken mirrors- Broken humanity"

The story focuses on how money and rich lifestyle changed his wife's mental state. He breaks 
Gandhi's photos. And later repair with black tapes. These entire pessimistic things are performed by 
the protagonist, to show his belief about humanity in the movie. 

Not only these metaphors, candles, water reflections are shown brilliantly. Every time he sees his face 
in a mirror, he reminds his older self. Many directors master the technique of telling a story visually.
 In Oththa Seruppu, these elements are necessary to avoid the boring stuff and showing variety in 
visuals. Parthiban brilliantly places metaphors additionally, which comes from his filmmaking 
skill. Definitely, his films are worth studying.

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.

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.

Art imitates nature-Yuddham Sei(Munch's Scream)

 It is not rare to see the movies which have an inspiration from something in surroundings. I am not talking about copycat, adaptions or any other media issues. But I tell that sometimes art can be the reflection of artist's personal feelings. Or it may hugely obsessed with the atmosphere of the artist.In one interview mysskin says that yuddham sei inspired by Edvard Munch's hunting the scream.The scream is written by munch and lately, he draws the painting which is famed in the lists of famous painting like Monalisha and which is one of the highest sold painting.It is a modern art by munch with multiple colors and freehand patterns.

  Munch once mentioned in his diary he had been screaming with fear and anxiety and at the time his sister was admitted to hospital for insanity.Munch's sheltering place was not much distance from the asylum.This may reason for his screaming.In the writing of Munch, he writes

"I was walking along the road with two friends
The Sun was setting – the Sky turned blood-red.
And I felt a wave of Sadness – I paused
tired to Death – Above the blue-black
Fjord and City Blood and Flaming tongues hovered
My friends walked on – I stayed
behind – quaking with Angst – I
felt the great Scream in Nature.."

Munch's Scream

 Those two men in the bridge have not cared about his scream. It shows that the man cries inwardly. He is completely unheard in nature.And no one seems to hear it. Because it is in his head. Like our protagonist who missed his sister and screams himself. His isolation anxiety is a complete match to the main figure in the painting.In the above lines, he writes "Sky turned red as blood", which represent the disgusting dead bodies, separated hands of victims in the movie. And it creates sad inevitable feelings among the audience. There is a scream among all characters in the film.

 Apart from the protagonist, it reflects the artist the artist's personal experience, like munch Mysskin's scream, reflects in his art. Before we start this discussion, let us view munch's scream once again.His fear is not about only for his family but also for the atmosphere. In that painting, air and water are represented as curved lines which is the symbol of decay. So many argue that that is an interpretation of pollution in Norway in that particular time period. Of course, the painting drew in the industrial age of his country so the scream can come from nature. And this is a reason why Oscar Wilde writes the line," Art imitates nature.."

In Tamil Nadu at the period of film release crime rate is very high. Many women and school children kidnap occurs in the state. According to 2011 reports, we get this point clearly. And also mysskin wites one dialogue," Unga veetla ipdilaam nadantha summa viduveengala..",which is the scream of nature or artist.

Like my previous statement, it is easy to see the art with artist's internal thoughts.You may wonder how the single piece of art inspires the film story. It does not help mysskin for write the entire plot, but it helps to set the mood for the storyline which is filled with dark and sorrow.So listen to nature, observe your surroundings and people, it may help you to hear the uncared screams as an artist.

Nayagan - Writing the Shakespearean Tragic hero

    What makes the hero a successful character or morally pure.From classic to modern or old to new every character can be defined by their individual ethics or from their subjective morals. A clean character should have written by his journey related to the nature of the plot.Most stories end with the triumph of protagonist, sacrifices and the defeat of villains.But apart from these trends, there is one kind of character who is literally spelled with the word "tragic". In the period of Shakespearean tragedies, this character was developed in his stories by the reaffirmation of Aristotle's tragic hero. Macbeth, Othello, and hamlet etc. What are the unique concepts they have?. The same 4 act journey of the heroes filled in those tragedies.They have their own journey, conflict, and flaw. In 1987 Nayagan released in theatres and gets international acclaim.The movie contains the maximum characteristics of the tragic hero and their journey.

    So let us get into the four-act structure of the hero's journey.Creating the morality, Failure of ethics, Self-examination, and Resolution. The first act gives some morality to the character which he follows to the next entire section of the movie.Shakespear writes Hero's morality is based on things what happens to him or the things changed is a path. In Nayagan velu adapt his own moral based on two subplot characters.One is his first father who died in the first scene. And his second Muslim father. Those are two characters who feed those philosophies in Velu's life. His moral is "Naalu perukku nallathuna ethuvum thappila..".It is very important to consider that the character didn't have an idea about that ethics. Nolan's Batman is the best example of this act. He has no idea about the new morals. He is completely opposite in his previous actions.So the journey of the hero starts with these morals initially.

  And the second act features the failure of ethics of the hero. This is the turn of the main narrative story.Their own philosophies become the reason for their flaw.His initial mistakes make suffer. The characters pushed to choose the option between difficult choices. It will make them as the victim of circumstances. It makes isolation, alienation and lot of troubles for the protagonists. Even Velu praised as a good-hearted man among people. He didn't escape from justice. And the justice makes his flaw. In Dark Knight, his primary motive is he won't kill anyone for the reason. Joker takes it as an advantage and makes more trouble. So it makes batman's flaw.

  And the third act called "Self-examination". It intensely created by the Doubting nature of our tragic heroes.Even he held his own justice with him, after many losses the character falls into this third act.It is clear that velu fight with his daughter to justify himself, he didn't want to lose his morals.But at final he suspects himself, as the result, he didn't  say himself whether he is a good guy or bad one.In Batman after the death of Racheal, he suspects on his morals and the whole third sequence of the trilogy is made for this purpose.And the final act is the resolution for the heroes and that is "He must die". By these type of ending writer creates the moral balancing for the movies.It also appeared in all tragedies of Shakespeare.

    Not only this movie, every movie with tragic characters follow this 4 act structure to create intense tragedies.Tragic characters can't be classified as a good or evil.Even his motivations labeled himself as a protagonist, his actions to achieve that motivation looks like villain's attitude.I would like to mention the phrase which is defined by Aristotle "A man doesn't become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall". Velu saw his downfall in his tragic journey.  Is he a hero? or the title (Nayagan) represents himself as to be?Who knows?. But the flaw of the character is different for both protagonists and antagonists.

  For protagonists, the flaw is his major fall after the losses.velu lost his son, daughter even his ethics. And faces overcome. For antagonists, the flaw is his eventual downfall. So what is eventually happen?. He dies that's all. He ends like those subplot characters for holding the same morals. Finally is he the protagonist? or antagonist? even we ask him personally to tell.Tragic heroes cannot be classified so he will tell "Theriyalaye pa.."

Aruvi - Meaning of Beer bottle (Analysis on existence)

 I think the first two frames of initial scenes tells the entire story of Aruvi.A girl's eyes looking the viewers and she occupies very small space in the corner, there is a lot of empty areas, the next shot is the big picture of herself which contains bleeding nose.The first frame shows nothingness in the blur life as same as Aruvi's search for meaning in her childhood days. She is not comfortable with her places and she always expects something unusual. So the initial frame conveys that searching the meaning in the plain empty area which can be spelled in the words of nihilism. And the second frame detailed with blood and without her vision which shows another part of the story that she struggles in society. The director made debut in his opening shots of the movie.

  A story revolves around the girl's journey into lying society. There is a lot of metaphors and symbolism in the plot.The director literally handles the magical realism in most of the places.A major part of the story detailed in the reality show which is called "Solvathellam Satthiyam". We can see that two stories told by subplot characters.One is about the granny who sold paniyaram and another one is about old village head.The first story shows the granny who is not obsessed with anything and didn't expect anything in life. And she didn't want to search the purpose of life.

 And the second story shows who expects love from his village peoples at his last moments. Both are deals with existential criticism of life. And the both are partially connected to the life of Aruvi. She didn't like the second one because she also didn't like oldman.but she likes the first story. But at the last moments, she also wants love as same as village head so she got the conclusion of the second story in the movie.

In final moments film is located in mountains. Opening scenes are contented with the waterfalls and mountains but the last one was dry.Generally, mountains signify the spirituality and they can be considered as God's nearest place in literature. And if they related to characters, it may illustrate that they feel isolated. And they symbolize loneliness or failure to reach her spiritual or emotional states.

Beer bottle stands for choices, chances, and metaphor of inevitability in life.The death can target anyone after we involved as a choice. This symbolism stands for our life's ending without our knowledge. The sequel exactly looks like Coin philosophy of Anton Chigurh in No country for old men movie.We see the beer bottle can target anyone, I think the climax scene explained it more briefly.The film ends with that beer bottle targets Aruvi.In earlier scenes, Aruvi is a god who rotates beer bottle to make the death choices.

But now she is the victim of it.It states herself to the victim of death or the end of existence. She laughs because she knew it that life can end without our permission and it means Nothing.

Jigarthanda - Neo-westernization in Tarantino's pattern

      In 2014 Karthick Subburaj gave birth to his masterpiece to Tamil cinema which is called Jigarthanda. Literally meant as Coldheart and it is solid proof that our directors try new genre in nowadays. The pacing of the film purely structured as per the Hollywood's critically acclaimed genre "Neo-western" which is a modernization of western dramas.The film critically and commercially gets successful reviews. Jigarthanda scripted as per the Quentin Tarantino's screenplay structure and the director credited in this movie as an inspiration of his works.In this post, I try to convince Jigarthanda as a neo-western cinema in Tarantino's ironical structure.

    Final scenes of  Jigarthanda is promising in that genre. It creates a mood as per the western formalism. A stripped guy waiting to die in the forsaken desert land. In a lot of western flicks, we see opponents who are ready to shoot with their guns. The good, the bad and the ugly is the perfect example of the western cinematography in firing scenes. The same sequence built by Subburaj in Jigarthanda. The tension created by the question,"Who is going to take their weapons first?" as same as Cowboy fights.Karthick has a gun and Simha has a firestick. The cinematography is really helpful for constructing the nature of western frames. Madurai landscapes portrayed differently in this movie for this genre.

Dramatic irony fully crafted for good purpose in this plot. Usually, ironies are created when the audience knows what happens next but characters don't or wise verse. The toilet scene in this movie is the nice example of ironical treatment in scenes. We know the dead guy is not Sethu but killer didn't. Which makes us laugh but at the same time it builds a tension among audiences. And in the ending symbolically represents the irony in the plot that is ruthless gangster turns to good comedian or villain turns to hero. Tarantino usually leaves a signature or memorable moments in every scene's ending. It makes the plot as periodic or chapters. So the entire film can be dissected into 4 or 5 sections easily as same as Tarantino's movies.

Let us compare the intro scenes of Jigarthanda and Inglorious Basterds, the same elements applied in applied in these scenes. Which is placed for a purpose, Generally Tarantino's plot hugely contains humoring Coldhearted guys. We see Christopher Waltz and Bobby Simha in our comparisons. And some mind puzzling dialogue games between two opponents.Subburaj hugely inspired by the use of black comedies.Especially that toilet murder scene can be considered as one of the iconic long shorts in Tamil cinema. Editing was done its job perfectly in these moments. Without any background BGMs, the scene looks as epic.

What is ethics in post-apocalyptic story?-Yuddham Sei

  Some movies manipulate the worst part of humanity in its plot. Those movies contain the unkind and disturbing characters, ruthless moments and the important point is the atmosphere. Of course, creating atmosphere is the main thing in cinema to capture the audience to feel the liveness in a story.When it comes to Mysskin's world we can breathe the pessimism, darkness and the philosophy of good and evil.Especially Yuddham sei features the ethics and how it is defined in Mysskinism. Most of the frames were filled in disgusting dead bodies, steel factories and creates the satanic mood.

  True detective the great example to compare with mysskin's yuddham sei. The serial killer family kidnaps and gave the death penalty to their victims for revenge.And they dissecting their body parts, it is enough for making anthology elements in a movie. Mostly anthologies used to disturb the moods of the audience.Ethics were literally handled in the plot as per the post-apocalyptic features.

  Cheran's character metaphorically illustrates the innocence of goodness.He didn't anger with the public, even they disrespect him.  For example, we can take the auto stand scene.A group of drivers makes fun of him and a lady in mansion scold him for his inquiries.He didn't use his power for dealing with his personal queries because the case of his sister was discharged from his hand.These are the moments constructed for showing the inner of that character.So the idea of "innocence of goodness" also shown in his previous movies "Onaayum aatukuttiyum" and "pisaasu". These protagonists are morally sucked in his plots. As per the classic stories, protagonists are brave with a clean mind and they even take evil in their hand to destroy evil. But the case is different in this movie.

 If we notice clearly we can find that Cheran struggles with the worst humans in a society. He missed his sister and also the prisoner of circumstances.The same situations happened in the serial killer family.They losses daughter and cheated by society as well as Cheran's character. So both cases are similarly chiseled in a plot. But they vary from how the character deals with it. One side Cheran who wants to rescue his sister with the innocence of goodness and another side the family members who want to revenge with ruthless of goodness.And finally, the goals are succeeding for both sides. But the family members didn't return from it.So the goal may be pure but the path takes major priority to decide the existence of human. By these sequences, mysskin brilliantly creates the spectrum of ethics.


 The movie majorly conveys the free will, determinism and the purpose of life.We saw that the character of morally ruined and wants to win their goals.Protagonists, antagonist(Corrupted cops) and the serial killer family drive the plot and end with negatively or sometimes positively as per what they deserve. Our life is a journey with a society which is decayed from our perspective, and it may not treat us as per our character but it will end while we search for the meaning. And finally, our meaning will find by others.