En kanmani, un kadhali - song with a difference

Songs are a good source of linguistic nuances as well as nuances in thoughts. To say the truth, I learn most of my Tamil from songs.I love this particular song 'En kanmani un kadhali' from Tamil movie of the 70s for its music and the way its sung and of course, the way its portrayed. Thanks to youtube for allowing me to watch and re-watch the song umpteen times that powered me to blog on it.

The song starts with the pair of lovers fixedly gazing each other while travelling in a local town bus. Suddenly an clone of each of them start with the verses (Read it as: two of them in their own world). The song explores on the way the two in their own world interacts with the real world including their own real self. The song is written, sung and directed in such a way that four of them sing the song at few places. I think the individual singer voices were not mixed ( two track: one for the real world, one for the clone)

Here is the link to the youtube video

'Kimi ni shika kikoenai' / 'Only you can hear me'...

If you wish me to comment on the drama in one line, I would say that it is a love story woven through telepathy. Literally translating, the title means 'none other than you can hear me', the story is about a teenage girl who has problems talking with people and she is very lonely, lacking in confidence. The boy cannot talk or hear, but he communicates with this girl via telepathy. Finally when they plan to meet, the boy dies saving this girl from an accident, and after this she does not feel alone, for she has met her own self from the future via telepathy and she has more confidence of being alone. The drama ends with the sign language of him saying that you and I are not alone...

The drama is excellently enacted and portrays the psychology of people in such circumstances.The last portion was a little bit confusing. What I liked was the concept that was never heard of and the excellent background music and tracks. The drama is little more than hundred minutes long and the sub-titles are in sensible english...

Originally written as a short story by 'Otsu-ichi', it has been adapted into movie/drama, kids-series and as Manga-comics.

The drama can be viewed online at 'My-soju'

Swelling in silence...

Nicely composed and timed, this frame is the recent portrait that I relished on. Be it the costumes, backdrop, lighting or the mood imparted by the actors is dazzling. Light yellow, grey and caramel-white and red on a dark wood backdrop is simply amazing. Side lighting gives reality to the frame. In a moving film, we tend to miss the finer details like the white sweater or the simple satin necklace.

This frame is a still photo frozen in time, yet it speaks...it speaks what the director wanted to convey. Kudos to the camera-team and the actors. I am not sure if this frame found a place in the movie 'Vinnai thandi varuvaaya', yet this expresses that one can communicate a lot in still photography. In a different perspective, a lot can be privately communicated in silence. (The path to silence)

PS: The make-up team could have put little more attention. The girls nail-colors were little bit out of sync not only in this frame but in the entire movie. The guy's make-up was a little bit heavy and the girl's make-up was very light and soggy in certain places and it felt in close-up shots; the movie deals with a lot with close-up-shots.

Mella mella ennai thottu...

yuvan shankar has done an excellent remix of his father Ilayaraja's musical piece in the movie 'Sarvam'. The hero of the movie hears this music piece whenever his lover is around.

Today I fished out this song from youtube; the original song starts as ' Mella mella ennai thothu....' where the woman wants her lover to caress her in a staccato...Ilayaraja's prelude is also a staccato of violin chords, joined by the guitar with the flute mellifluously filling in later.

I am always against remixing of old songs...but yuvan has done a great job by keeping the original pace and instruments and improvised the recording.

Golden vines...intertwined with her thoughts

Golden vines intertwined with her thoughts...

I loved this still in the recent Tamil movie 'Sarvam'. I liked the lighting, background, her poise, costumes...amazing.
Kudos to the cameraman and costume designer.
Overall the background music score by Yuvanshankar was good.
Camera at most places was the bokeh type shots where the focus is on the subject with the background fading; this was a little annoying to me. And the next major was silhouette shots mostly with blue or red backgrounds. One shot was with the sun in the horizon...
The sets and lighting of the hospital shots in the first half were too exposed and swallowed the subjects unless the costumes were dark colored. In one shot, the same white color costume in the above picture amidst the hospital white background was too bland.

Fry your Brains

Today, the feel of working on a Saturday was relieved. Our team members went out for a Movie…’Bheja Fry’ at the PVR for a Morning show. The film was clean fun and was a nice movie to watch. It is about people who really fry your brains. The movie had nothing to express, but was a comedy movie. The 2.5 hours passed like few minutes. Later we had lunch at the ‘Sahib sultan’-Forum. The ambience of the restaurant was really good. Now I am sitting in office after an hour of strenuous drive back, though my manager drove the car.