Saturday, June 19, 2010

RONGVAN.....An open letter to Mani Ratnam

Dear Mani,
Right at the onset, I apologize for the 100 odd lines of condemnation of your efforts that is to follow. I my defense, I bought a ticket worth 10$ (cash), popcorn an water worth 15$ and cringed in my seat for two hours and hence reserve a right to complain. Let me just shoot direct the two cardinal questions that I am sure every cine-goer is itching to ask you.
1. Did you give the wrong tapes from Ramanand Saagar's Ramayan to your script writers. I thought instead of seeing Raavan's footage, they accidentally saw Raavan's brother Kumbhakaran's footage and got so stirred that they went into a longgg siesta and have not woken up ever since. And I guess you decided to not compete in the "Best Story Award" category and let your script writers remain absconding. Sadly enough, we missed them.
2. Now I had a slight confusion, I thought the movie's lead star cast was Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Vikram, but you relegated them to mere side kicks. The real star cast hogging most of the screen time was the terrific trio of the "gusty wind"s blowing at 1000 mph with a special fondness for Ms.Rai Bachchan's long tresses, "the incessant rains" or were they dollops of tears being shed by Ram and Raavanan from up above the skies for being reduced to such caricatures and the third important member of this trio; "the waterfalls"-these provided the perfect hiking entertainment trips for these side kicks whilst patiently waiting for the script writers to wake up. Oh I forgot, when hiking got boring, AB's baby entertained himself with some rain dances gyrating to some tribal moves with "Joker-like" expressions (hey pun unintended, I just meant a wannabe Heath Ledger like expressions).
Mani Sir, along with cine goers, you have hugely upset another community- The Editor's guild. These guys drove in straight from Ashutosh Gowarikar's editing table to yours. They were not let to do their jobs there and were hopeful that they get to wield their axes here- but alas there was nothing really there in the frames to ligate!!!!!
Dialogues....Enna Neenga Sir- Don't you just wanna compete in any department at the gala awards next year. Reallly...the search mission in the movie should have to rescue your dialogue writers that were hijacked and not really Ragini. In the bargain, you just put tremendous pressure on Ms Rai Bachchan's lungs who had to rely on screaming and shrieking to make up for want of dialogues (Hey, don't get mad at me.I just repeated these words twice, Ms Rai Bachchan repeated her screeching histrionics in all the 32 frames!!!!)
Ok now to some serious questions, that if answered could have spruced up the movie several notches higher. To be fair to you, this movie was certainly a visual delight and with Santosh Sivan helming the camera and Ms Ethereal Rai Bachchan filling up the frame, you expect no less, but you certainly get all the credit for creating an enchanting vision that certainly surpassed even Avataar for me. But the logistics all din't add up quite well for the simple reason- When a single man was wronged by the police, why does an entire clan wage a battle????
A little more detailing into Beera's character-The Naxal/tribal strife and tribulations, the rise of this Robin-Hood, his criminal past and more solid reasons of Dev desiring his captivity. Beera's was the most amateurish character graph.
Well my earnest desire that your writers shake off their self imposed "VanVaas" and may the Mighty Mani return with something in the likes of "Mouna Raagam, Agni Natchatram, Naayagan, Anjali and Iruvar" (Yes I am a loyalist to your tamil movies) and I can vouch that these efforts will remain unparalleled in the history of cinema.
Signing off!!
Yours Truly
An Ardent Mani Fan still recovering from post-Raavan depression!!!!!