An introspect into Gangster/Crime Films
Newspaper and hot tea is the perfect way to start my day. From sports to cinema politics to books and Sudoku, it gives my brain a small exercise at the beginning of each day. (not that it is not at all used later). On one such late Sunday morning, I was sitting in my balcony sipping the hot tea thinking about the movie that I had seen last night. It was a gangster film "VadaChennai" by Vetrimaran with Dhanush as the lead actor. It was an excellent movie with a humble introduction for the hero, his transformation from a caroms player to a part-time "rowdie", his teenage love and then his ascent to a full time "rowdie". It had a lot of mass scenes and an excellently put nonlinear storyline which reminded of Pulp Fiction and Quentin Tarantino.
Beep
It was BookmyShow notification asking my opinion about the film.
Let's do it. 100% Love for VadaChennai
"Thara mass local gangster film. Raw and Real. Excellent script by Vetrimaran, taking Tamil cinema to a whole new level. Dhanush Andreah and all other actors were excellent. Must go and watch"
Now lets open my long-neglected newspaper. The usual news of Sabarimala row greeted me along with Amritsar tragedy and a delayed bullet train project. The Statue of Unity (of Sardar Patel) is being inaugurated shortly but is facing a lot of protests by tribal people as they are been evacuated from their homes for the project. They were asked to leave their home and will be given alternate land and jobs by the government.
My imagination started to run out now
What if this had happened to me? The government came to my house one fine morning and asked me to quit my job as a project manager in a leading IT firm. I will be given a new job as a car mechanic. Of course, in the meantime I have to leave my house as the government wants that land too, in return I get a new house at a new place where I could be a mechanic. I have to do this because I love my country. (It's for a fact that I have never even opened the bonnet of any car)
But this made me think of a whole new topic. Is Vada Chennai a gangster film at all? Two scenes came to my mind
First, one in which Rajan, played exceptionally well by Ameer, confronts the politician Muthu and stands in his way for bringing "good" for the people.
The second one, where Anbu, played by Dhanush, stands between the same people and the new "Gangsters" who had replaced Rajan by killing him. ( Muthu played his cards well here of course).
In one way, Rajan and Anbu are not gangsters at all. They are people who understood that the development as projected by those in power will not be good for the people. They were intelligent people who understood that the government was exploiting them for the needs of some multinational corporations. They understood that this "development" will force their people to leave the skills and knowledge that they had acquired over the years from their ancestors and by themselves by experience and start a new life where these skills have no value. So in a way, it is not a gangster film at all. Instead, it is to be understood as a film that questions our form of development put forward by the establishment.
I started to list down all the gangster/crime films that I had seen. In many of these movies, I could see that the "Rowdie aka Gangster" be it Velunaykan or Don Vito Corleone were the ones who were intelligent enough to understand these tricks played upon them and also to stand up to the establishment. So it is not right to call them Gangster/Crime films which have been the tradition for long.
Beep
It was BookmyShow notification asking my opinion about the film.
Let's do it. 100% Love for VadaChennai
"Thara mass local gangster film. Raw and Real. Excellent script by Vetrimaran, taking Tamil cinema to a whole new level. Dhanush Andreah and all other actors were excellent. Must go and watch"
Now lets open my long-neglected newspaper. The usual news of Sabarimala row greeted me along with Amritsar tragedy and a delayed bullet train project. The Statue of Unity (of Sardar Patel) is being inaugurated shortly but is facing a lot of protests by tribal people as they are been evacuated from their homes for the project. They were asked to leave their home and will be given alternate land and jobs by the government.
My imagination started to run out now
What if this had happened to me? The government came to my house one fine morning and asked me to quit my job as a project manager in a leading IT firm. I will be given a new job as a car mechanic. Of course, in the meantime I have to leave my house as the government wants that land too, in return I get a new house at a new place where I could be a mechanic. I have to do this because I love my country. (It's for a fact that I have never even opened the bonnet of any car)
But this made me think of a whole new topic. Is Vada Chennai a gangster film at all? Two scenes came to my mind
First, one in which Rajan, played exceptionally well by Ameer, confronts the politician Muthu and stands in his way for bringing "good" for the people.
The second one, where Anbu, played by Dhanush, stands between the same people and the new "Gangsters" who had replaced Rajan by killing him. ( Muthu played his cards well here of course).
In one way, Rajan and Anbu are not gangsters at all. They are people who understood that the development as projected by those in power will not be good for the people. They were intelligent people who understood that the government was exploiting them for the needs of some multinational corporations. They understood that this "development" will force their people to leave the skills and knowledge that they had acquired over the years from their ancestors and by themselves by experience and start a new life where these skills have no value. So in a way, it is not a gangster film at all. Instead, it is to be understood as a film that questions our form of development put forward by the establishment.
I started to list down all the gangster/crime films that I had seen. In many of these movies, I could see that the "Rowdie aka Gangster" be it Velunaykan or Don Vito Corleone were the ones who were intelligent enough to understand these tricks played upon them and also to stand up to the establishment. So it is not right to call them Gangster/Crime films which have been the tradition for long.
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