Not as expected. Review on Raavan

When a film comes from Mani ratnam, it’s natural to expect something outstanding. ‘Raavan’ was most awaited movie. After two big disasters like ‘Kites’ and ‘Raajneeti’, I was eagerly waiting for Raavan. It’s not that bad but there is something missing, something very important. It doesn’t touch you. It seems Mani sir has lost that edge in his storytelling. I am saying this keeping Guru also in mind. Guru was a one time watch movie but it was not a story worth a storyteller like Mani Ratnam. When we further go back there is ‘Yuva’, now this is a movie with Mani Ratnam signature. Everything of ‘Yuva’ shows uniqueness of Mani sir. It touches you deep inside. Be it ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’ or ‘Dil Se’, all cause a hook in your heart and that hook is a thing which makes movie making an art and which is rare nowadays. Now movies are nothing more than popcorn, just a time pass.

Let’s go back to Raavan. The story is inspired by ‘Ramayan’ and starts from the point where Raavan kidnaps Seeta. Here Raavan urf Beera is leader of a backward cast of a backward area. He is cruel but his anger is against social injustice and there is some softness remaining deep in his heart. Ram urf Dev is police officer who is new in the area and decides to finish the terror of Beera. In order to do that police brings Beera’s sister to police station when she was getting married. There all the policemen rapes her all night. She tells this story to Beera and commits suiside. This becomes the reason for the kidnap of Dev’s wife Ragini. Beera kidnaps her to kill but during her stay with him she touches his heart and he couldn’t kill her. As I said, Beera is cruel but he is not loose character, he keeps a woman with him but never look at her with lust. He sees the pure beauty in her. Dev meets Sanjeevani (Hanuman) while searching for his wife who helps him in this task. I wont be a spoilsport by telling the climax for those who want to watch the movie.

Nothing new in the story but then most of the movie stories are like that. The difference lies in the way of telling it, in the emotions it portrays. Here the story is average and emotions too are weak, thanks to poor screenplay and performances. In every Mani Ratnam movie you will find a thread of some political or social issue which makes you think about it, that is absent in Raavan. Though it mentions something like that but not that strong which can make an impact on your thoughts. Beera represents that exploited class of society but it just mentions this that’s all. Few emotions which could have touch your heart if handled well like when Beera starts loving Raagini and Raagini’s changing perception for Beera, We understand all this but don’t feel it. We don’t feel the warmth of that fire which is burning inside Beera or Raagini’s sympathy for Beera doesn’t reach to us. This all doesn’t happen because of poor dialogues. Dialogues doesn’t have that edge which penetrate straight into the heart. Another weak part is acting. No one did a great job, everyone is mediocre. Abhishek was not looking dangerous at all, we don’t feel the terror of beera. He was better in Yuva. When love has been born in the heart there must be a pain too because this love is for a woman who cannot be with him. Abhishek couldn’t express that pain. Aishwarya is as usual not so good not so bad. Her screams irritates. Vikram as Dev doesn’t have much to do. Govinda is a great actor but he has spoiled his life on cheap movies, he has never worked with good filmmakers otherwise we could have seen some great performances. He has done a great job as Hanuman. We hope for some really good performances from him in his second inning. Ravi Kishan is a good actor, he always performs well.

The best part of movie is cinematography. Every frame of the movie is immensely beautiful. We see, rains, mountains, river…nature with all its beauty. Nature is like a character in the movie.

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