Aviyal

  Disclaimer: I walked into the movie biased against it. But MAN was I in for a pleasant surprise. Disclaimer 2: The review could be long. I’m not sure, I’m just starting to write. (I finished, yes it’s long) To be clear, let’s get one thing straight. This is NOT the book made into a movie. It’s the cinematic take on the story that is said in the book. Same story, different media. Said differently, by different people. But a good one at that. The movie shines in the manner of adaptation.  The plot is very intricate and twisted, but the premise is: a king, two princes, and scheming under-lords trying to overthrow the prince’s ascension. A swarm of deep and grey characters, stunning locations and great imagery. The difference between the book and the movie can be seen the moment the movie opens. Unlike the book, which opens to a wonderful and beautiful scenery of the Chola landscape, the movie opens in the middle of a battlefield, amidst fountains of blood and with men drunk on ...

Sometimes, sometimes you witness a movie that is perfectly written, perfectly directed, perfectly edited to the right length, with stellar acting, on-point characters, no bullshit, perfect background score and a wonderful climax. Cobra is not such a movie. In fact, it is the exact opposite of every point made above. The movie opens with an elaborate assassination scene. Right then it is obvious that the movie is going to be a drag. The entire sequence feels artificially inflated and made unnecessarily long. Not to mention the absurdity of the ‘science’ used. And after all that, the scene is not even satisfying. The entire movie is a sequence of such scenes. To be honest, the director was onto something cool or atleast curious before he tried to make it into a corporate villain / sentimental / romantic / superstitious drama. A schizophrenic assassin / maths teacher who gets info about his targets by solving coded sudoku puzzles in the newspaper. A father figure who posts said sudoku pu...

Hello there, it's been a long time since I spat out something negative about religion or society. So, here I am (of course, with some negativity). This time to say something negative about our beloved culture. Tamil culture is beautiful by nature. The art, the music, the dance, the women. The women. Ah, women. Maybe the Tamil culture is not so beautiful after all. I definitely forgot about the tradition and women part of the culture when I said it is beautiful.  Sure, the art side of our culture still is beautiful and great, but culture has a dark side. No, it can’t even be said as a dark side. It is a side that people often openly use to abuse women. It is a well-known side of the culture that is widely accepted by everyone. Culture is the reason why sexism is so normalised even in the modern world. Culture is the excuse people use to abuse women. Whenever a woman does something that disturbs the man, they come in with the "foolproof" argument, “ well, according to our ...