Nayagan (1987)

I've got just one question: Are there any Mani Ratham films that aren't good?

This one came by recommendation of Sid's Guide to Kollywood. I think I mentioned before that Dil Se is one of my favorite Indian films. It's also one of the first I watched. Part of the reasons Dil Se "got me good," as I like to say, is because of the cinematography.

The "hook" in Nayagan is the story, and a deceptively simple one. A kid (Velu) sees his father get killed and stabs the guy who did it. The kid later sees his father figure smuggling illegal goods--did they ever say what it was?--and he takes up smuggling in his father's place. Father figure gets killed, the kid (now grown) kills the guy who did it. It's a continual give-and-take of action-reaction sequences building brick upon brick to the concluding moment which, while fitting for the life Velu has lived, neither sympathizes nor sermonizes.

Now for my notes:

• Could the kids have been anymore cute?! That little girl was dressed like a princess every time she showed up on screen. Freakin' adorable!
• The moment where Velu's daughter asks whether or not it was his fault that mommy died--ouch. The look on Kamal Hassan's face spoke volumes. That was a great moment.
• Saranya looks a heck of a lot like our friend Kajol here, no?

Other than that, I can only say, "Did the retarded guy have to be the one? For reals?" I thought the same thing after watching The Village. True, there are mentally handicapped people who have issues and may do something dangerous but using them as a cinematic tool to do so is unsettling to me because in media there are NO images of mentally handicapped people behaving harmoniously to balance out the crazy attacker images. *steps off soapbox*