By Karthik Amarnath
Why are love triangles such a permanent cinematic trope? Be it an eighty-year outdated basic like Casablanca, or a ten-month outdated stunner like Previous Lives, we appear to revel watching two relationships pitted in opposition to one another. That’s what a triangle comes right down to, a battle between the sides, and the undeniable fact that out of two potential {couples}, just one can get their fortunately ever after. The selection, battle and competitors are, partially, what attracts us to those movies. However I do have a specific peeve about love triangles. It’s the time period itself. It’s unhealthy geometry. With two edges vying for one vertex, it shouldn’t be known as a love triangle, however only a love angle. A love angle has two sides, one ends at happiness, the opposite in heartbreak.
Love triangles angles are available numerous tilts and shades, however there’s one variety I wish to discuss, that’s reasonably distinctive to Tamil cinema (or for that matter, Indian cinema), which I name the love-marriage angle. Within the love-marriage angle, we’ve on the vertex a lady, who falls in love with one man, has an arranged-marriage with one other man, whom she then proceeds to fall in love with. In Tamil, one would possibly name this angle as one between Manmadhan’s Ambu and a Manamagan’s Anbu, (in English: the angle between the arrow of Cupid and an organized couple). One thing about this love-marriage angle has endlessly fascinated our filmmakers, going all the way in which again to C V Sridhar, arguably Tamil cinema’s first auteur, and surviving all the way in which previous Atlee, Tamil cinema’s latest massive shot filmmaker. And between these two, we’ve everybody from Mahendran to Mani Ratnam, from Bhagyaraj to Balachander, tackle this trope.
Its not simply the filmmakers, however the fraternity of movie aficionados which have discovered love-marriage angles alluring. Check out C. V. Sridhar’s filmography, which has movies as diversified as a star(s) making melodrama in Venniradai to a star-powered interval drama in Sivantha Mann, a tragic weepie in Sumaithangi to the trail breaking rom-com in Kadhalikka Neramillai. However, of all of Sridhar’s 40 odd movies, the 2 that earned him nationwide recognition have been Kalyana Parisu and Nenjil Or Aalayam, each centered on love angles. Take a look at J. Mahendran whose Mullum Malarum and Udhiri Pookkal are shoo-ins within the record of prime movies of any Tamil cinema fanatic. However Mahendran’s solely Nationwide Award was for Nenjathai Killathey which is one more love-marriage angle movie. Take Mani Ratnam and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, two globally acknowledged filmmakers. Take a look at the flicks that after put them on the map— Mouna Ragam and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam— each love-angle movies, each Nationwide award profitable movies, each a primary for the filmmakers.
And so it makes me marvel, what’s there actually on this trope a few threesome thats so winsome? Why is sacrificing a lover on the institutional altar of marriage some form of ceremony of passage for our filmmakers, like eliminating that coaching wheel earlier than driving onto the large stage?
Maybe, in relation to auteurs, one shouldn’t be bothered with the what or the why, however solely the how. It’s not the form of the story, however the shades of cinema that issues. So let’s take a tour, with 4 auteurs, and the shades they’ve drawn, throughout half a century of love-marriage angles.
Home of hearts
One of many easy pleasures of watching an outdated movie like CV Sridhar’s Nenjil Or Aalayam, is how simply on a binary shade canvas, we settle for a binary view of the world. Individuals are good or unhealthy, their actions, proper or unsuitable. The proverbial shades of gray are on the periphery, or left to comedy. Every thing is usually black and white. In Nenjil Or Aalayam, the truth is, every little thing is usually white. Actually, because the complete movie is ready inside a hospital with docs and nurses all clothed in white coats and scrubs. The central character, a chief physician, performed by Kalyan Kumar, is nearly a saint. An avowed celibate, with a heat baritone, he’s a person with the titular shrine in his coronary heart. Just like the hospital, it’s a shrine that homes all of the most cancers sufferers he’s dedicated to.
Or at the very least thats what we predict, till the character performed by Devika reveals up, and we be taught that the physician’s giant coronary heart was as soon as completely crammed together with his love for this lady. However on account of a pesky plot contrivance— effectively condensed to 2 minutes of dialogue— she’s married to a different man, performed by Muthuraman, who’s gravely ailing. And now, she needs the physician to open up his hospital— and his coronary heart— to deal with this man.
Confronted with the love of his life on one hand, and the lifetime of her husband within the different, the physician’s battle is trigger for nice inside trauma, and for grand melodrama— which we get later within the movie. However first, Sridhar, along with Kannadasan and Viswanathan-Ramamoorthy, telegraph the physician’s arc in a matter of minutes, by means of the music Engirundhaalum Vaazhga, which begins with rain splashing throughout a window because the physician seems to be longingly at an outdated photograph, and ends with him (actually) closing a e-book on that picture of his previous. In between, we’ve lyrics that want for everlasting togetherness of the married couple, even whereas melodic phrases of the pallavi are punctuated by rising query marks. It culminates within the agonizing penultimate vaazhga, earlier than the (physician’s) descent into acceptance.
However then, what in regards to the lady, you ask? Proper from when she enters the hospital, we see why she might have been the yin to the physician’s yang. Like him, she too spends her time with the sufferers on the hospital. The place he’s busy studying their signs, poring over X-rays, prescribing therapies, she’s listening to their tales, opening her coronary heart, providing empathy. If his technique is medication, hers is compassion. The place he cures, she cares. However then, does she harbor any latent emotions for the physician? Properly, want I remind you? She’s a married lady. In a mainstream Tamil movie. From the 60s. And, oh, she’s named Seetha.
So when the movie goes to a spot the place she’s requested to contemplate rekindling her emotions for the physician, we get the searingly chic Sonnathu Nee Thaana, whose telling picture is Seetha wanting like a divine consort, clad in a white-saree, sitting with a Sitar, pouring out her timeless devotion to her husband. The lyrics, with strains like Deivathin Maarbil soodiya Maalai theruvinilae Vizhalamaa are additional proof that the movie views the human coronary heart as a temple and love as synonymous with bhakti (and marriages as made solely in heaven). The way in which this music is visualized— with due credit score to his cinematographer A. Vincent and editor N. M. Shankar — is an instance of what pushes Sridhar into an A for Auteur class in comparison with his contemporaries. The music was supposedly shot in 60 totally different angles, and we see the fixed shifts and swings in imagery mirroring the state of unrest that Seetha and her husband discover themselves in.
The movie itself had fairly a novel conceit with the doctor-patient relationship making it a geometrically full triangle too. And the movie engages, with dialogue that’s each minimal and affecting. However the melodramatic contrivances and agency ethical moorings retains most of it chained to that period. Standing the take a look at of time are all of the songs, a number of the visible grammar, and maybe the mini-arc of Muthuraman’s character. Particularly the half from when he first hears of the physician’s past love (with out understanding it was Seetha), and goes on to forged a shadow of betrayal on her — whereas an actual shadow falls on Seetha. He’s quickly overcome with angst at studying why she had “betrayed” the physician (this time a shadow falls on him), and finally sees his personal potential dying as a becoming closure.
In between all this, we get P B Srinivas’s Ninaipathellam Nadanthuvittaal, a philosophical musing which we would as we speak name mansplaining. Right here Muthuraman’s character, having simply realized of his spouse’s previous, offers her a Marcus Aurelius life lesson on accepting what destiny has introduced forth. The music has some pretty visible grammar, with every shot conveying the rising distance between the couple, like an invisible ghost resurfacing from the previous. The lyrics open with a punchline pithiness within the pallavi, solely to grab us within the charanam with strains like Aayiram Vaasal idhayam, which imagines the human coronary heart as a home crammed with doorways the place needs come and go as they please (not not like devotees at a temple, or sufferers at a hospital). However it then goes on to show the existential core that makes love triangles such a permanent trope; the concept love, in all its abundance, continues to be a binary, a bond between two, a yin and a yang. Any extra will result in heartbreak. And in Nenjil or Aalayam, that heartbreak is literal.
A (wo)man for all seasons
Keep in mind that pesky plot contrivance I discussed earlier. Properly it goes one thing like this: Seetha’s father is in a good scenario, for monetary and different causes, he must get his daughter married to Muthuraman’s character. So Seetha is guilted by her mom into accepting the proposal and depart her personal needs behind. This we be taught by means of a two-minute dialogue in Nenjil Or Aalayam, which supplies us the what and why of the movie’s setup. However what we dont see is how does this lady, who was as soon as in love with one individual, find yourself professing an “even dying shan’t do us aside” relationship with one other individual by means of an organized marriage. To fill that hole, we have to quick ahead a few a long time, to Mani Ratnam’s Mouna Ragam.
Mouna Ragam is not any black-and-white movie. And armed with a polychrome palette, Mani Ratnam together with his cinematographer PC Sreeram paint us the various shades of Revathi’s character Divya. Just like the fiery yellow saree she wears as she rages throughout a darkish road having been damage by her father. A rage that doesnt final very lengthy, for she quickly seems in a white davani having resigned to his want. The white then turns into darkish blues in a chilly marriage that appears DOA, and finally right into a rousing crimson when a dormant want begins to emerge.
The identical cant be stated in regards to the husband performed by Mohan who seems in a bleached white jibba pyjama all alongside, and is perhaps the whitest hero in Mani Ratnam’s oeuvre. When he introduces himself to his new bride, it reminds you of the Idhaya Koyil music that gave this film its title, visualized as a poet (additionally performed by Mohan) standing alone in a big corridor. The Mohan character in Mouna Ragam lives alone, in a big home, with solely books and music for firm. He might not be a poet, however when he’s damage, he doesn’t lash out or stroll away, and as an alternative expresses himself lyrically, to the tune of Ilayaraja and SPB’s Nilaave Vaa.
Like Ninaipathellam in Nenjil Or Aalayam, Nilaave Vaa too has a shade of mansplaining or, maybe I ought to name it “moonsplaining”. The metaphor of a distant moon brings with it a mellow temper, not like the heavy-handed emotion of Ninaipathellam. And reasonably than divine philosophy, Mohan’s character depends on human psychology, likening Divya’s misery to rising pains of a kid. Nonetheless, the visible grammar within the songs share quite a bit in frequent. In each songs, we’ve the husband in white and the spouse in darkish shades. He’s slowly retreating, into his ideas, and he or she’s making an attempt to observe him, actually and figuratively. In lots of photographs one character is framed inside a door or window, with the opposite exterior, as the space between them retains rising. There’s an invisible ghost right here too, however we dont know that simply but.
Nilaave Vaa isnt the one music in Mouna Ragam to look to the skies for a metaphor. We’ve the rain crammed dance celebrating a lady’s freedom in Oho Megan Vandhadho. There’s the mournful gray sky that hovers over a pair, in Manram Vantha Thendralukku, whose lyrics likens their untimely separation to a breeze that dies at a doorstep. In Pani Vizhum Iravu, we’ve the icy winds that blow in a sexless marriage, juxtaposed with an erotic dance within the twilight, all to the backdrop of the final word monument to like. And at last we see, for the primary time, a vibrant morning sunshine in Chinna Chinna Vanna Kuyil greeting the newfound heat and want in a relationship. With songs spanning the seasons, the story spans a yr, and the ambiance that holds all of it is Ilayaraja’s memorable background music, which seamlessly segues between the movie’s totally different moods, mirroring the psychological state of the primary character, Divya.
Mouna Ragam, like lots of Mani Ratnam’s early movies, is rife with mirrored writing. I dont imply the precise mirrors we discover in his scenes. I’m referring to how conceits in a single a part of the movie are mirrored in one other half. Like how a journey that begins with a teary farewell on a prepare ends in a teary union on a prepare. How in two totally different scenes, we’ve two totally different males dashing to unite with a lady, solely to fall down the steps. How at two totally different occasions, we see two totally different girls present their thaali as a plea to avoid wasting their husbands. Twice, we see a mom and daughter discuss conjugal relations, and each occasions the daughter results in tears, however her causes are totally different. Twice a person applies kunkumam on his spouse’s brow, with a close to equivalent musical riff, however the feelings are totally different. The general love triangle angle is itself a story of two relationships.
However it’s a stretch to name this movie a love triangle — although the movie’s <a href=“https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091559/mediaviewer/rm163188992/?ref_=tt_ov_i”>poster</a> kinda seems to be like a triangle. By the director’s personal admission, the section with Karthik’s character was an afterthought within the script, inserted to bolster the mainstream acceptability of the movie. Wanting again as we speak, at the remainder of the movie, the place there isnt a peep or whisper about this character, one might declare that the entire section is a delusion made up within the second by Divya, and the declare can be onerous to argue in opposition to. And with out the Karthik character, there’s nonetheless a clear healthful coming-of-age movie within the backdrop of an organized marriage.
That stated, there’s all the time been one thing enduring, and endearing, about that flashback’s place in Mouna Ragam, and about Mouna Ragam’s place in mainstream Tamil cinema. For very similar to the Karthik character’s swashbuckling entry, Mouna Ragam additionally marked the arrival of a brash younger filmmaker, a daring breaker of conventions, one who’d assuredly minimize throughout the prevailing automobile of Tamil mainstream cinema to pave his personal path. Alongside him, Tamil mainstream motion pictures too would assuredly come of age, with story, stagecraft, and melodrama giving method to temper, mise-en-scene, and mellowed drama—all by means of a healthful embrace of cinema.
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Okay, so I promised to speak about 4 movies, however as I used to be writing the primary two, the size actually received away from me. Ordinarily I’d chop, trim, and purge to suit every little thing inside a readable size. However I’m informed nowadays, that form of narrative enhancing is all very blasé, and the largest of filmmakers with the largest of stars see much more worth in sequelizing their stuff. I’ve subsequently taken their cue, banking on the continued generosity of our pleasant neighborhood producer writer for when the sequel is prepared.
Now I’m given to know that when such an expansive resolution is made, one should present a trailer for the sequel on the finish. So right here, of us, is a peek into “Angles, Triangles, and Auteurs- 2”:
“… SPB and Janaki’s dreamy rendition of that timeless ode to younger love, with misty visuals that make a jog within the woods appear like a stroll within the clouds.”
“..a woman who’s all the time on the run caught within the mounted frames of a nonetheless life photographer”
“..leapfrog over Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s extravagant showcase of the love-marriage angle as a sacrifice, when the passionate poetry of past love offers method to the trustworthy prose of a marital bond.”
“This isn’t a filmmaker who stares at conventions and asks why, however stomps throughout them and says why not..”
“…. in reckless Rumi, he finds an in a position companion, the form of character who doesn’t have to fall in like to make love, however would reasonably simply fuck and determine it out.”
THE END
BR butting in: Thanks for this totally pretty piece, Karthik. And please forgive me for hijacking your Reader’s Write In ? However simply wished so as to add some photos from Nenjil Ore Aalayam.
Certainly one of my favorite mirror photographs (and there are at the very least two extra):
The visible drama of two faces looming on a giant display would later discover an echo in Thevar Magan and lots of different movies.
Regardless of, as Karthik identified, the stagey melodrama of the dialogue and a few contrived conditions, I simply love how “cinematic” this movie is for its period, the early Nineteen Sixties. I simply love how a lot Sridhar strikes the digital camera, like on this three-way dialog.
The primary vast shot reveals all three folks (the lady within the distant background), then we observe in to the lady, after which minimize away to the 2 males, and finish with a return to the unique composition, this time with the lady within the foreground as she exits the body. Should you watch this scene, you will note the entire choreography of the digital camera / the staging — you will note precisely why this shot division occurred: it mirrors who’s speaking / who’s being talked about. It’s pure cinema, and the way I want I might watch a restored print.
A few add-ons. Regardless of the justly well-known male-singer songs, this beautiful album is a P Sushila present case: Sonnadhu neethana, Muthana muthallavo (oh, that buzzing bit), and the fabulous Enna ninaithu.
The “sol… sol… sol...” chorus (the repetition of the phrases, not the tune itself) from Sonnathu Neethana would discover a repeat in at the very least two different MSV/TKR songs: Aayiram penmai malarattume (Vazhaki Padagu) and Ponnezhil poothathu (Kalangarai Vilakkam).