Directors I grew with - Part 2 - Vetrimaaran - Imperfection is Beautiful!!!

                    When I started expanding my taste of movies to Hollywood, its natural I started loosing interest in Commercial movies and Masala entertainers. I initially thought it is the way stories are narrated which makes Hollywood movies pretty special. Not only that, Jumbled narration, multiple layers of story line, strong characterization, professional production plans have all made Hollywood movies undeniably special. Of all, you have an audience who welcome it with warm hands. I cannot celebrate movies that I dont understand. But there is one feature I admire from 5 Indian Movies one director Vetrimaaran (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vetrimaaran) for which he took 13 golden years!!! Worth it. He has all the awards to his name. National and International recognitions too!!! But I loved only one aspect of his movies - IMPERFECTION!!! Imperfection has its beauty which is eternal in its sense. This man has crafted it quite brilliantly. I feel imperfection has been planned and crafted!!!

                     Directors toil so hard to bring that perfection in their movies especially how one scene starts and ends. You can visually feel the start and end of each frame. But  perfection is boring!!! When frames are imperfect, you can feel the movie growing upon you. Each time you watch that movie, you get a new perspective. In fact, that pushes us to repeatedly watch it . Tats the beauty there. You get something different growing upon each time. I think his movies carry super reality. It should not actually feel like watching a movie when you are watching a movie. The medium has to connect itself to the viewers. Few directors have achieved it but the connection remains endless in all his movies. I guess thats why we start loving old songs more as we keep ageing. We are bored enough with this perfectly made computer music by the present era Music Directors/Album makers. Old songs are imperfect, manually orchestrated and I would keep hearing it million times. It keeps tingling our ears and nerves.

                     Movies made from novels has been there for a long time. But the challenge lies in bringing out the soul a novel tries to reveal. Novel's elaborate narration of scenes, steep characterization, intensity and of all, slow narration can be a treat for book lovers!! But for cinema-goers, its not!!! Producers cannot promise funding multiple parts of novel-to-movies unless first part gets successful!! So Director has to switch from being a book lover to a cinema lover to understand how well the movie can do justice to novel as well as the audience. I think Vetrimaaran has done all his 5 movies made from either novel or real stories (maybe either written or narrated informally as he himself revealed). He doesnt miss cinematic elements and the novel's soul. In fact, he has made a novel "Vekkai" tested its existence against time. Asuran is an adaptation of this novel. Though set in 1960s, the adaptation has made it excellent in staying relevant to this age.

                      When you make movies from novels, it may seem like you dont have any creativity or originality. Many Directors copy it from other movies in the name of Inspiration just to portray them as an original creative Directors (Mostly they write screenplay, dialogues also in Tamil Industry). But Vetrimaaran did not shy away from getting inspired by novels and adapt it this beautifully!! It may seem like he is not original. But nothing is original or nothing is perfect and cinema is no wiser. Whatever you write and direct, it may have a comparison point with other movies or real stories or things happening in society. I dont know if he is choosing the right novel or he is making it right as a movie. But I remember his words, "Medium has to connect to the Audience". You are so effortlessly doing that and Keep doing it for us Sir!!