Jun 09, 2004 12:28 PM
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(Updated Jun 10, 2004 09:13 AM)
An actor succeeds only when the audience portrays him as the character played rather than his true self, on the screen and in the heart. Apart from 'Padmashree' Kamala Haasan and 'Chiyaan' Vikram, Tamil cinema has seen few heroes who undertake challenges that contemplate the stereotyped roles in the industry today.
It takes tons of commitment and ultimate belief in your capability to join that elite circle of actors that can perform such complex roles to a professional degree of perfection that could actually have the audience bedazzled. With the release of the movie ?Perazhagan? ? Surya has proved to be a new entrant in that elite circle of South Indian cinema.
When the other actors concentrate more on their physical image in a movie rather than a challenging role, Surya has the audience dancing to his tunes with his performance in the movie. Jyothika has proved herself different from the other actresses by playing the role of a blind girl to utmost perfection ? the way she places her eyes at odd angles, the walk, the facial expressions ? its all just too natural. I hope other actresses from South Indian cinema take the hint and not depend too much on glamour to keep their markets alive.
The movie stars the new Kollywood sensation Surya and leading actress Jyothika in dual roles. Apart from them, Vivek makes his presence felt with his well-timed comedy dialogues in his role as a 'marriage assembler' and Actress Manorama plays the role of ?Pattamma?, a caretaker and well wisher to the character ?Chinna?. The villain in this movie you will find is very natural ? there are no scenes that hype the villain?s character as you see in other movies. The villain in this movie is really huge ? his presence dominates the screen in every one of his scenes. Surya must sure have had a tough time maintaining the balance while shooting for the movie.
Surya plays one role as a hot headed, fire blooded and fist talking (and Pulsar 150 DTSi riding) college student ?Karthik? and the other role as a highly jovial, tall talking, hunch backed, cripple legged and buck toothed handicap Telephone Booth owner ?Chinna?. Jyothika plays the sweet uptown role ?Priya? and the blind girl from a wandering road side circus troop ?Lakshmi?.
Chinna is one character who tries to cover up all his deformities with tall talk and admiration for himself. He seems to make a decent living from his telephone booth income and rejects every girl he sees, just to make sure they don?t do the same to him! Although Chinna keeps doing all the high talking ? the movie portrays him as a very kind hearted person who can really understand what true love is all about.
Laksmi on the other hand is blind from birth and is part of a wandering roadside circus troop. Here I don?t find all the words needed to appreciate Jyothika?s performance. In several scenes, Laskhmi evokes sympathy from the hearts of the audience ? if you can make the audience feel the character rather than the actress, then all the credit goes definitely to the actress and the director.
This is unlike any of the AVM Productions - not the usual family soaps or masala movies that producers put their cast and audience through. The story revolves more around Chinna and how his true love finally succeeds over other difficulties. The storyline itself is superb - and I will spare from telling you anything about the storyline here. It is better on the screen! Will Chinna unite with his only true love in wedlock? Or will he succumb to his deformities? This is the central concept around which all the other cast revolve.
This movie has a number of scenes that deserve the highest order of appreciation ? the anger splattered all over Karthik?s face during the boxing match, the song that follows that, the scene where Laskhmi is trying to dry some clothes and Chinna plays around with her by the pulling the clothesline away from her and the scene where Lakshmi gets to face reality when she sees Chinna for the first time and yet accepts him with all the deformities he has for the purity of his heart.
The camera and effects in this movie are extremely good. The camera work in the boxing match scene is truly brilliant. The work in the double scenes where Karthik and Chinna appear very naturally on the scene is highly well done. The direction is one of a kind and has the capacity to give many more good movies to the Tamil market. The screenplay could have been better. The fight scenes are charged with emotion and adrenaline.
The music track by Yuvan Shankar Raja is highly innovative and creative. I guess this lion cub is maturing well with time. When many movies have separate comedy tracks ? Vivek has done a wonderful job by embedding his comedy track as a integral part of the movie without deviating as much as an inch from the storyline. The costumes and make up in this movie for the lead artistes deserve special regard. The scene where the roadside circus troop is actually performing ? I found Jyothika?s costumes to be highly natural. I don?t remember seeing many heroines these days perform so well in such deglamourized roles. Surya?s new hairdo for his role as Karthik was simply stunning. I am pretty sure Surya enjoys more girls on his fan list than boys.
Jyothika and Surya are budding into mature artists and have proved their capabilities with the release of Perazhagan. I wish that both of them go a long way in the industry and give their audiences many more surprises in their acting career. Their performances in their dual roles deserve rave reviews and mighty rounds of applause. The villain did his role just right and Vivek and Manorama have put in their experience wherever required.
I don?t know how many people have noticed ? but Jyothika seems to be on her way to her usual rotund self (compared to her appearance in the recent Tamil block buster police movie ?Kaakka Kaakka?) and Surya seems to be following her trend. Hey you both ? watch out! Staying fit is considered more important these days than ever before in the film industry.
While the movie focuses on several emotions like love, anger, vengeance and so on, the motto of the movie is that in a true love relationship ? your appearance on the outside does not count as much as the inner beauty in you. And that is why the hunch backed, cripple legged and buck toothed star of the movie Chinna (alias Prem Kumar!!!) is the true Perazhagan. After a pretty long time, a movie worthy of the AVM Productions tag is finally on the silver screen!!!