Anbe sivam - poignant and moving. Review on Anbe Sivam Movie

My very first reason for wanting to watch this particular movie was because my heart throb Madhavan was starring in it, not to mention Kamal Hassan of whom I can talk endlessly. I had not even watched the trailers, so I had practically no inkling about the storyline or anything at all for that matter. I had gone to this particular movie with my friends. Since that first time I have watched Anbe Sivam countless number of times or atleast parts of it many times. It is a truly praiseworthy movie, a pleasant surprise, especially when you are expecting to watch at the most a very good adaptation of yet another run-of-the-mill film. Let me tell you that it has got nothing that is commercialised about it. It is a love story. A love story with a heart, because it is not just about that one particular type of love that movie makers all over the world have hyped about so much so that the very mention of it is enough to make you gag. This is a story about how a human being is supposed to live - to love. It is a love story where the object of love here is not just a pretty face or a great physique, but the whole wide world.

The content is varied, ranging from a matured romance between a rich girl and a social-awareness spreading street-play artist to communism to hatred to religion to love to prejudice to insensitivity..... I can go on and on. However the one concept that haunts you weeks after you have seen the movie is love and forgiveness. Love for a world which had long ceased to even give a moments' thought to what that word might mean; and forgiveness for a people who have nothing in them to give but hatred and ill-will.

Kamal Hassan is at his versatile best here, going through the various emotions required to be exhibited by him with ease. He brings tears to the viewers eyes without evoking even the slightest tinge of pity. He makes you feel with him the pain, the humiliation, the suffering that he goes through, but not once does he make you feel for him. He makes you want to be of service to him, to help him out with his daily chores which prove to be a herculaean task for his damaged self, and the next moment he makes you feel proud of him, because he takes all his own difficulties with a pinch of salt but when it comes to others he becomes devoted to their cause, even when he has to brave rain and storm (literally).

Madhavan's effort is also note-worthy. As a self-centred young globe-trotter, he depicts the typical unsatisfied, insensitive, immatured and spoilt brat that he is required to be. He makes one angry and ashamed at the same instant because he is everything that people detest in everybody else and yet at times identify within themselves. His character is most infuriating yet thought-provoking. Most of the time I empathise with him because I know that I would have done the same thing given identical situations.

The effort that has gone into the making of this movie is laudable and certainly needs to be encouraged. Hats off to Kamal Hassan and the rest of the crew who have done their part in piecing together a movie so poignant and moving. What is even more wonderful is the way that it has been presented, not with full of boring advices which pass right over one's head, but by giving it in a way that it makes the viewer think for himself and know that love is god.