Jul 26, 2006 07:31 AM
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Baghyaraj is one of the most important directors from Tamil Cinema who gave continuous hits in 80’s. His movies are always great family entertainers meant for all age groups. More than a director he is remembered as a great screenplay writer. When I say this, don’t think that he has given different screenplays (like Memento, Virumandi, and Yuva/Ayutha Ezuthu) which would test the IQ of the audience. His screenplays are pretty straight in conventional fish bone structure. There would be a definitive happy staring, mixed middle part and a touching and meaningful ending. I think mastering this kind of streamline flow of narration is rather difficult than writing a non linear one.
After a long break, Baghyaraj is back again with a movie called “Parijatham” introducing his daughter Saranya as heroine. Though it is not at par with his yesteryear classics, Baghyaraj comes up with yet another winning screenplay which unlike his other movies tries to be different and non-linear. Though the movie tries to be trendy through song picturisation and non linear screenplay, it has the same old 80’s feel to it and that actually is both the plus and minus of the movie. It is a plus because it aids a simple story to be told in a refreshing and interesting way but minus is because of its dramatic feel. The whole cinema looks like a stage drama. A lot of importance is given to convey the story and emotions through dialogues rather than saying it through visuals. This is where the director Baghyaraj fails. But let us just concentrate on his screenplay, which I got amazed by in this movie.
A screenplay should make character and actions believable in very few scenes without wasting much screen time.
The friendly relationship between a mother and son is the main life line of the story. If this is not told convincingly the entire second half, the main part of the movie will not be acceptable or appealing. But to show their relationship we need to have scenes in which mother and son interacts or the son should sing a song praising his mother and about how friendly she is. But again the screenplay doesn’t allow to show them interact. So how can he portray their relation ship which is the main basement of the story?
Baghyaraj does it successfully with one single scene in the movie. He cleverly uses a college boy teasing a college girl concept to make it possible. When Seetha (mother) explains to Saranya about how mischievous his son was she narrates this story which happened when her son was studying in college. Unless you have a casual and friendly bondage with your mother, one cannot reveal such happenings in the college to your mom. By that very scene, the writer makes clear that how affectionate and friendly they are towards each other. Also the brilliance of Baghyaraj sparks when this scene is used in a totally different way for a different reason in the second half to bring in the necessary twist in the screenplay. While watching a movie, we take these kinds of scenes for granted, we really don’t get the impact that such scenes create. Only when it is not there, we feel like something is missing.
A screenplay should have short surprises now and then whatever may be the story.
You can imagine how boring our life would be if we know what will happen in future. A movie need not be a suspense thriller to have twists and turns. If you observe, any movie in any genre will have its own share of unpredictable moments. Parijatham has got quite a lot of twists and turns. In the beginning of the second half, we wonder about how they are going to find out who the real girl chosen by Seetha was. The way the screenplay unveils the mystery after connecting every loose end from the first half keeps us engaged. Every single scene in the first half though it may seem meaningless initially will get its meaning at a later point in the movie. But I feel Baghyaraj could have avoided the cliché of everyone lived happily ever after kind of ending.
Story inside Story – A New Attempt
The story inside story concept is something that is very new to Tamil cinema. The whole idea takes up more than enough screen time yet it serves a lot of purpose to accomplish what we often use to call “making a difference within a commercial format”. You just cannot make a movie conventionally commercial without having romance and love scenes in it. As the main story of the movie doesn’t give space for Prithviraj and Saranya to do romance and sing duets, this inside story is a short and sweet love story which fills enough colour and fragrance into this Parijatham. It paves way to include some lighter moments in the first half of the movie Though we are confused initially by its length as we don’t know how useful it is going to be for the main story, the clever comic relief that it gives make us forget that we are getting deviated from the main plot. This sub story is the final clue with which we arrive at the happy climax.
About performances, all of them have done their job well. The good thing is that every single character has something to do in the story. Saranya is comfortable with expressions but should take care of voice modulation and more importantly her weight. Prithviraj with two different characters to play does a fine job though he emulates Baghyaraj a lot in the first half. I seriously felt Baghyaraj could have given the role that he played to someone else.
Music by debutante Dharan is good with “Unnai Kandanae” being the pick of the lot. Background score by Sabesh-Murali adds to the stage drama feel of the movie. Cinematography is okay.
On the whole, Parijatham is fresh and worth watching at least once.
