Kadal, Mani Ratnam's latest venture is nothing like any of his earlier films. Of course, the universal good vs evil (nallavana, kettavana) theme which permeates Mani's films takes centre stage here also. But instead of showing us the varying shades in one individual's character, Kadal's premise is framed as the difference between God and devil. Or to be precise, the choice between God's path and Devil's path. Thus, an engrossing philosophical question is told in the backdrop of Christian theology. Kadal is thus Mani's first foray into spiritualism as well as his first in a village milieu. Sam (Arvind Swamy), a man of the cloth espouses God's path while Bergmans (Arjun), an opportunist, swears by the devil. Being alter egos, Sam and Bergmans cannot keep out of each other's lives. In the middle portion of the movie, Sam takes an orphan Thomas (Gautam, debut) under his wing and tries to instill a purpose in his life. Gautam finds that purpose in the form of Beatrice (Thulasi, debut) a nursing student, who is emotionally stunted. When Bergmans settles an old score with Sam, Thomas tips into the other side. Whether Sam and Beatrice are able to make him see the light and whether Sam and Bergmans achieve closure to their tussle forms rest of the story.
For a die-hard Mani fan like me the usual tropes are there. A memorable child actor (Mani always has a way with kids), presence of rain at important moments, lilting songs shot in variety of ways, the impish romance between Thomas and Beatrice, some superb camera work and editing and most important an authentic flavor. Also interesting was Mani's take on how two children react differently to trauma. Both Thomas and Beatrice have life altering experiences when young.
Still some things are not the same or are missing. Maybe I am becoming old or Mani is. Because I wasn't able to muster any enthusiasm for those songs picturised as dance numbers (Elay keechan, Adiye). I longed for the songs to be shot as montage or to be chopped up. I was thrilled to see Mani use Nenjukkulle to move the narrative forward with dialogues interspersing the lyric. I would have preferred not to have couple of songs if they impede the narration. That time could have been used to flesh out the characters, to add more punchier dialogues. Dialogues have been a hit and miss in Mani's movies. He could come up with great one-liners. He could also let the language flow like in Iruvar. But usually in his movies, Mani follows the 'less is more' maxim when it comes to dialogues. This was taken to extreme lengths in Thalapathi, leading to innumerable spoofs in subsequent years. Mani's aversion to verbiage is a reaction to tamil movies of yore, many of which were nothing but stage plays captured on camera. But there is a reason great drama relies on dialogues right from the classical dramas of Greeks. Words have power and words can sway. Particularly in a good vs evil premise that is being played out as drama (as opposed to action), the audience is very much playing out the debate in their minds. Without a satisfying argument or counter, the viewer is left hanging in Kadal. Many a time, Mani sets up the stage for a interesting argument or clash of ideas and then rushes through the shots. Thus when we try to rationalize some of the actions taken by the characters, we find it all on shaky ground. The twist in the plot as well as the denouement are predictable. Nothing wrong there. But by the end, with so much of the edifice built on shaky ground, the climax ends up being way less powerful than demanded by a story like this. At the end, I felt cheated. And being cheated is not how I wanted to feel after watching Mani.
Among the performances, Arjun steals the scenes. He has so much fun being evil personified that we half expect him to declare that he is the Devil himself. Gautam is competent on his debut. He sure has a future and his debut stands out in comparison with the other star son of recent times (Vikram Prabhu in Kumki). Arvind Swamy finally comes to grips playing a priest this time around compared to the climax scene in Minsara Kanavu. Rajiv Menon must have used filters to play around with the colours but the result in enjoyable
While watching the romance between Thomas and Beatrice in the movie, I longed for Mani to return to his strength, the urban romance, something which Gautam Vasudev Menon has mined to great effect of late. But then I remembered something Mani said in his 'Conversations' book with Baradwaj Rangan. He always tries to move on from his previous film(s) and tries not to repeat himself. Kadal represents a new beginning for him as he collaborated with noted Tamil litterateur Jeyamohan. I have not read Jeyamohan but there is no doubt that his story (a novel written specifically for this project) was good enough to persuade Mani to attempt a difficult subject. Jeyamohan's authority and Mani's nose for perfection must have contributed to the authentic fishing village and dialect in Kadal. Word has it that Mani and Jeyamohan are going to collaborate on another movie. As someone who always felt that tamil directors don't do enough adaptations, I welcome it. Despite my evident disappointments, I still enjoyed Kadal. To paraphrase Ed Moses, Mani's disappointing ventures are worth our time more than the best efforts of many other directors.
Update: One word about the reviews found in news papers/internet. I find a lot of comment has been made about how the fishing village dialect in the movie is difficult to follow. I didn't find any difficulty in following the dialogues. It says something about the times we are living in that a tamil movie with minimal english dialogues is immediately tagged as difficult to understand.
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