jackofall.blogspot

Kadhal as the name suggest is a love story. You can pretty much guess the story, aishwarya a rich girl falls in love with a murugan a poor mechanic. Their parents oppose, they elope etc. The last 15 mins of the story is different. But to get to the last 15 mins you have to tell an age old story very interestingly for more than 2 hours. Director Balaji shakthivel and the kadhal team has done that wonderfully.



This is not another rosy love story, this movie shows the rose and the thorns too.A refreshing, realistic, non judgmental movie which portraits the beauty in simple things and laughs on the face of all the maniratnam clones. I tried to write without talking about the specific incidents in the movie. But i failed. So, for ur info there are a few spoilers.Do watch the movie if you haven’t watched it yet.You can always come back and read this post :).

The movie started with some lousy graphics of a heart beating and stuff.I was little alarmed.Is this another of those kathir type movie? is this a kadhal like one of those kadhal Virus,kadhal Fm, kadhal salsa etc types?.The credits assured me that the movie is going to be different. The credits were on different snap shots on the daily life of madurai. The camera starts from the temple and roams around the city capturing some interesting shots. Cinematographer Sd.Vijay Milton and editor Sashi kumar capture your attention right from the word go. The shots captured on the credits like that of a crazy beggar, a one handed man working in a tea shop make more meaning after you have seen the whole movie.

Balaji Shakthivel:


Balaji has done story, screenplay,dialouges and direction for the movie. Balaji could have gone the usual route. Start the movie with an early morning milkman putting milk in the hero/heroines house and slowly developing the characters. But he did not do that, he twisted the narration so that he can get the attention of the viewer’s right from the start. So he starts from the middle when the lovers are trying to elope and goes back to flashbacks to give the complete story.

The starting scene is done nicely. There is a murugan devotees procession and it seems to touch all the important characters at the start. The boy and the girls father donate money to the devotees. Boy's mother is in the crowd and the girl's bus gets stopped because of the procession.

Murugan is eagerly awaiting for the girl, the camera zooms to show that he is picking threads from the corner of his bag, he is tensed. He feels as if everybody including the model in the hoarding is looking at him. The tone of the movie is set. This is a movie where the smallest of details are brought forth for us to enjoy. Through out the movie the director takes more time in showing scenes that no other director will even bother to think about.

The tension mounts when you come to know that these teen age lovers are eloping.Aishwarya's frightening family members and the fact that the story is taking place in madurai, makes us more concerned on there safe eloping. Tensed aishwarya hiding her face with the cap, the delayed bus, bgm and the environment gives you more tension than all the movies in which the eloping lovers are chased by a mob with deadly weapons.



The movie then goes to the start on how the pair fell in love. It is a simple teenage infatuation, beautifully narrated. The director narrates how they are foolish, restless, dreamy and idealistically romantic during that time.

There is a scene where Murugan who follows the girl, sees her dad for the first time and is frightened. He comes back to his mechanic shop resolving that he is never gonna see her again,also that work is everything and he shouldn't be loving the girl.His friend in the shop starts advising about how not to go behind girls, as it will only ruin one's life. He keeps hearing all the advice. At the same moment aishwarya comes there in her scooty, she honks, throws a playful smile and a carless glance,he is done, he is clean bowled. The BGM starts thanana nanana thanana nanana, his friend's advising voice and all the other sounds go to the background and his resolve of not seeing her again is long forgotten, he takes his bike and goes behind her. That is infatuation at its best, beautifully captured.



You can see hard work in every frame and every dialouge. Even characters that are not the main focus, speak some interesting dialouges. When the girl comes to the mechanic shop with her friend on the pretext of repairing her scooty. There is a tension between the two because of the comments of the girl's friend. when one is focused on how the boy is reacting, his assistant the small kid(kattayan) utters some dialogue like if murugan shows it properly he can also learn how to fix the scooty. That little character does not have to utter that dialogue at all, he is nobody as far as that scene is concerned. But it is an example of how balaji shakthivel has constructed not only that single scene but the whole movie from everybody's viewpoint.

When i heard the audio first i thought the songs are going to be shot in some foreign countries or in some shopping complex with 20 dancers. But the great thing was most of the songs where the background songs. Beautifully picturized with hundreds of small shots. Now when i hear the songs of the movie i cannot clearly pin point how the song was picturized. A whole series of love scenes come to my mind with a song.

The "Thandatti Karupaiyee" song is the pick of all.Rather than picturizing it as group of girls singing a simple song. The camera runs around the whole function, capturing everything from connecting wires into the sound systems to drunken brawls and gives a 360 degree view of the function.It breaks in between for a bit,as aishwarya takes a moment for herself, in midst of all the comotion, she feels light and starts falling in love with murugan. she breaks into the melodious "Avan parthathumey nan" song.The music changes accordingly with a beautiful humming and then comes back to the commotion with native beats.

The whole song makes you feel, as if you are watching some one's home video.Nobody looks at the camera,Aishwarya's friend laughing for a joke,her uncle from the corner of the stage ordering someone, the dancers movement matching the beats and many more scene's feels so real.But a closer look will reveal that they are careful orchestrated and brilliantly edited.

During the first half of the movie there is hardly a scene which is shot on the same spot for more than a minute. There are innumerous small scenes, it is a pain to shoot so many of these small scenes, but the kadhal team has done it to enhance the narration style. kudos to them.And also editor sashi kumar does a great job by breaking the scenes and mixing the shots.

Vijay Milton
(I assume the guy with balaji is vijay milton)
Cinematographer Vijay Milton must have been a still photographer before this, there are so many beautifully framed shots. This movie could have been easily made into a colorful movie with soft lightings, polarizer and filters. But he has shunned away from them and has concentrated on presenting the subjects in natural light mostly. He has struck with what the director wanted.(This is a love story where you hardly see a flower in the frame) He seemed to have a liking for patterns, over the head shots and reflection shots.

One shot i liked a lot was in "Unnakenna irrupaen" song where the hero and heroine leave the theater late in the night, the shot is captured from the top of the theater, the couple walking and the last car takes off from the desolate parking lot with the painful backgound song.That single frame tells so much. Also he has captured some interesting reflected images of people in door knobs, helmets, vessels, rear view mirrors etc.

Sandhya:

Sandhya who played the role of aishwarya is a good find. She has acted very good and seemed to get into the roles of a school girl or a married woman easily. She has done a good job or balaji shakthivel has made her act good. Let's see how she does in her next movie.Will she get one?.It is a big question how she is going to survive competing the current Tamil cinema trend of preferring the least dressed heroines.

The movie slows down and loses the intensity after they elope to chennai.The scenes in madras are the other side of what happens to all these lovers who walk into sunsets in most of the romantic movies.The difficulties that they face in that one day, is enough to make lovers who are planning to elope think twice.Without a place to stay they spend there time watching a movie.The irony there is that these lovers are tired searching for a house all day and listening to all the disapproval of the society regarding there relationship, but the mass in the theater does not seem to have any problem in approaving the lovers on the screen.Everybody around this tired pair cheer the beautifully dressed hero and heroine who are dancing for a romantic song.



The movie then goes through the usual route and ends up with a different climax. The biggest blunder in the movie,according to me is the song "kiru kiru kiruvenna". I dont know why every director falls into the same pit. I dont know why they deliberately create a situation to make the heroine run around in scanty clothes. I think if this movie was taken in US, balaji could have been arrested for abusing a child. It is pathetic to see that small girl run in some stupid clothes.This song does not add anything to the story and was totally unnecessary.Also i wish balaji could have spent more time on the climax and gave more details about the new character who were introduced in the end.

I liked all the songs in the movie loved the painful "unnakena irrupaen" and "thandatti karuppai" with native beats.Joshuwa sridhar has also done a nice job.Naa Muthukumar has kept the lyrics simple, even though there are some vague lyrics, he compensates them with some beautiful ones.

Vizhi moodum pothum unnai piriyamal nan iruppaen.
Un Kanavukkul Kaval Irrupaen

Ullagathil ulla chithravadhaikkelam chella peyar vaithal kadhal

Who is this new singer haricharan, intresting voice,sounds more like karthick.

When ever there is a team of new comers, there are always fresh ideas and lot of hard work. It is clearly evident in this movie which has a few newcomers. The success of this movie is a fruit of hardwork done by the team Balaji shakthivel, vijay milton, sashi kumar, joshua sridhar and Na.muthu kumar. And kudos to shanker for trusting them and producing this movie. Hope balaji like many new directors hasn't spent all his fuel in his second(i wanted to say first but technically it is his second) movie. If he hasn't ,he can go a long way.