May Maadham - Joy forever

If someone asks me my favorite month in a year, I would say it is the month of May. Inspite of scorching heat of the sun and soaring of mercury to great heights, I love the month as it is the month of vacation for many and when you can live your life to the fullest.

If someone asks me the name of the film that I had watched most number of times in my life, without thinking I would name it -“May Maadham”. It is not a super hit film, nor even a hit film, the hero and heroine are not in the top league in any film industry down south, the director is not an ace film maker of Tamil Cinema… Still it is one of the movies very close to my heart.

Simple love story. A love story of a girl freaking out her first vacation in Chennai, escaping form the clutches of her father and a photographer guy who does 1001 gimmicks to make both ends meet. The main plus point of the movie is the screenplay and narration that doesn’t bore you till about 15 mins before the end, where you visualize a so-so climax.

Another major highlight is the music of A.R.Rahman, one of his best compositions at that time. The classical “Maargazhi Poove”, the peppy “Paalakaatu Machaanukku”, the romantic “En Mel Vizhundha” and the melancholy “Minnale nee”(Rahman himself confessed that it is one of his best compositions, on which he worked a lot) are among Rahman’s masterpieces. Not to forget “Madras-a suthi paaka poren”, a song that will remind you your good old home city anytime you listen to it. :-)

One more reason for my liking towards the film is that you can identify the characters in the film as someone next door and no one is like imported from fairyland. Sandhya, Romeo, Calcutta, Aandal amma, All-in-all, the stammering bridegroom of Sandhya, the military-rule father of Sandhya.. Every character will surely remind you of someone in your neighborhood. And the Dabba car especially with its special background tone will surely invoke a smile on anyone’s face. Yeah, I forgot… Rahman’s background score is just amazing in the film.

Next, a few facts that you could observe in the film… One of the very few films where hero and heroine appear with bare minimal makeup. You get to see the title cards only after about 30 mins from the start of the movie. Nobody could have captured Mahabalipuram in dark as beautifully as it is shown in “En mel vizhundha mazhaithuliye” song. Hats off to P.C.Sreeram. And this song, in particular, is special because it was tuned for Vairamuthu's lyrics and not the usual way of writing lyrics for tunes.

All songs are a delight to watch and picturized well, even the ordinary “Aadi paaru mangaatha” song. The songs of the movie were reused many years after its release by ARR for his Hindi venture, Love You Hamesha.

Even today, if the movie is shown in some channel I would stop and watch it as much as I can. Sorry, I never bothered to keep up the count… ;-)

Sachien - The Miracle of Vijay

Sachien – I watched this movie almost an year back for the first time. That was precisely 3 weeks after its release. That was the time when Vijay had just become my favorite actor. After watching the movie the feeling that I am his fan and he is my most favorite actor, was rooted strongly in my heart. A miracle that made me an ardent Vijay. Sachien-the miracle of love was the miracle of Vijay on me. Never ever my friends could have imagined I will become a fan like this. :-)

For me, Sachien was 50% Vijay, 25% Genelia and 25% Vadivelu. A romantic entertainer from Vijay after a very long gap, it was a pleasure to watch. No one could have essayed the role of a effervescent college student at the age of 31 as Vijay did in the movie. His character, his dressing styles, the way he says “Manufacturing defect”, the style with which he exclaims “Arrey..”, the English phrases he uses often in dialogues(quite an unusual thing).. It was a great experience watching him as a Dude onscreen. Special thanks to Mrs. Sangeetha’s dress department.

And Genelia, gosh!!! I could not imagine any other actresses(not even Jyothika) in the role of cute, energetic and hot tempered Shalini. She was a prefect choice for the role and was a pleasant surprise package of the film. Vadivelu, in his usual excellent form provides comic relief along with Vijay and it is one of the best comedy pieces from him in recent times. There was not much loudness especially.

The movie has 101 minuses. The over-created foggy ambience of Ooty(even the interiors of airports and houses had smoky fog), the worst special appearance by Bipasha Basu(Looks like an aunt-Rediff.com), the story line that reminds you of Vijay’s own Kushi many a time(Many said Sachien is Kushi Part-2), the unwanted fights inserted for the sake of Vijay’s fans, the incomplete portrayal of Sachien’s affection towards the little girl next door etc etc… The movie has enough of negatives.

But at the same time, the film has many great moments which I loved a lot and wished I could watch in Vijay movies very often. The scene where Sachien meets Shalini for the first time in rain, the scene where he teases her when Vadivelu introduces her to Sachien, the Vaseegara song episode, the scene before interval when Sachien proposes to Shalini, the scene when Sachien accepts that he lost the bet with Shalini and bids her farewell and the climax scene at airport.

All in all, it was a feel good movie with all ingredients that a Vijay fan could expect. Sad that it could reach only upto class A audience and didn’t taste success in B and C centers used to senseless masalas of Vijay :-(