#GOD AMONG THE DRUNKARDS EP

[rodanmusic]

Blame The Mono - Midrange Mojo (Original Mix)

[novarose24]

Writings from Offline {Ep.2}

Raavanan

Director: Mani Rathnam

(Warning: spoiler alert)

Raavanan was an effort by the director to show the perspective from Raavanan in a modern sense. The title pretty evidently conveys that by the end, we would understand Raavanan’s perspective of the happenings in the Ramayana.

The movie, without any elaborate revealing, shows the widely perceived antagonist in the very first scene. One of the prime setting of the movie, water and river is also revealed in this scene. From here, we meet “Sita” who is then abducted by “Raavanan”.  We also meet the eagle for the first time, in this sequence. Being a symbol for Vishnu, it is of significant importance and visits again in later parts.

The title scene follows which has red, fire and shades of brown dominating the background. The song says “Veera” which literally means a brave warrior, giving an aura of justice and righteousness to the character.

The scene that follows is the one where our “Ram” is intimated about his wife’s kidnapping. The coolers hide his eyes, but it was pretty evident that he was more upset and angrier than worried. His face showed an expression of determination to kill his enemy.

The characters in the story embody the traits of the characters in the Ramayana, but are conveniently modified to suit the needs of the story. “Raavanan” is manifested as “Veera”, a dacoit who is a savior to the people but a villain in the eyes of law - in some sense, a robin-hood. The people who inform the police of their encounter with Veera have ten different accounts to give of him, almost like he had ten different faces. The repetition of the reference to ten faces is a common occurrence in the progression of the film. Ten different voices too torment him. There is no transition of character in the film except that he falls in love with the woman that he had kidnapped. His ideals and values remain the same. The change occurs in the perception of the audience.

The audience observe this change through the eyes of “Sita”, here “Raagini”. Since the emphasis is only on Raavanan in this story, Sita only functions as a tool for us to observe this change; she doesn’t express her story despite being given almost an equal amount of screen time. In the scenes following her abduction and in the scenes at the end, she does express her opinions and her desires; otherwise she follows the conventional-ideal-wife trope. She has an undying love for her “Ram”, portrayed as “Dev”, who’s name literally means god. The naming might be an intentional action to draw attention to the juxtaposition of his name and his actions. He is a police officer, we are initially of the feeling that he is a good cop who is honest and righteous, but eventually we see that his determination to catch Veera turns into a bit of an obsession. He lies to his wife and hurts her in order to get to Veera. Rescuing his wife is not his main motive; much like Veera he uses Raagini as a bait to reach his target. There is no difference between the two men in this spectrum. Dev plays an important role but has approximately the same screen time as “Singaraasu” who could possibly be a representation of “Kumbakarnan”. Veera’s other brother is the most decent and “civilized” among them, like “” and is called “Sakkara”. These two are always on their brother’s side and help him with his work. Their representations don’t exactly fit their counterpart in the epic.

“Hanuman’s” representation as “Gyana Prakasham” suffers the same fate. He is a forest guard with good knowledge about navigation in the forest, but is crippled by his addiction to alcohol. It is confusing that Hanuman’s modern version is a drunkard.

“Lakshman” is also represented in a contradictory context; but he still hurts Veera’s sister,” Venilla” the same way Lakshman hurts Soorpanaka.  Hearing the story of his sister, Veera’s acts of revenge are diluted of their viciousness. We understand that there is a valid reason on his side too. The alternating shots between the flashback and Raagini’s shocked concerned face creates this feeling.

The scene following this tells us how this account from the criminal’s past has influenced Raagini. Raagini walks to the middle of the river where there is a broken statue of Vishnu. She prays for her anger to keep burning because she fears she pities Veera and is falling for him. She stands near the head of the statue but Raavanan stands at the feet of the statue. This simple placement of the characters captures the gap between the two in the social order.

In a successive scene, the exact opposite is conveyed when Dev flips the back-to-back photos of Raagini and Veera. It could stand for how he considers his journey to rescue his wife is equivalent to triumphing over his enemy or his doubt on his wife of being in close proximity with his enemy. His shouting for Veera and the talk about lies-detector support this. The interesting thing about the accusations that he frames on Raagini is that it is set in the tunnels giving us the feeling that we are in the dark regarding the true motives. The colour of their dresses in this scene is pivotal. Both Dev and Raagini where white initially. When Raagini meets Veera, Veera is still clad in black like he usually was in the film. When Dev emerges out of hiding, he is clad in white shirt and brown leather jacket for the first time instead of his usual pale colored clothes.

The majority of the screen is green and when Veera and his folk come in, it is covered in earthly colors of brown and black. All the songs with his folk involve rain, water, mud and great lyrics! The “Kodu potta” song is important in terms of their message to the world. They want their land and the freedom to govern it themselves. Another observation is that Raagini who shelters from the rain at first is seen getting wet in the during the end; not a significant act but it could possibly mean that she is learning to enjoy their ways too. Another example for the developing soft corner in her heat is her clothing. Could be said to be a requirement of the plot, but the fact that she dressed in a red saree that turns brown in the rain is significant in my view.

The music and the songs all act as a measure of civilization. The songs of the tribe are more upbeat with mainly percussion and some kind of horns. The dialect used for the lyrics just like their speech is different. The song of the “civilized” world, “Kalvare”, is more classical and has a more refined version of the language. Also, it is the only vision we have of the two and their life before.

The narration of the story shifts from the actual chronology of events. The story begins with no pretext, with the kidnap of Raagini, then we have a short idea of Raagini and Dev’s happy life, the story continues showing the different sides of Veera and Dev and the dilemma that Raagini faces, there is flashback giving us Veera’s backstory and then the events flow to the climax.

The jumps from scenes and the sequencing were typically good but the editing didn’t quite meet expectations. A lot of unwanted scenes were left unedited.

The other is the references in the film to Ramayana. The story by itself pretty evidently points to the Ramayana. The constant references in dialogues seemed unnecessary personally; if the details were played more subtly, it would have been more interesting to search for the tethering between the two tales. For example, repetitive scenes that emphasis the distance that Veera maintains with Raagini was overplayed that it got a bit boring.

The only time he touches her is prevent her from harm when Dev shoots during the climax. In the consecutive scenes, Raagini and Veera reach out their hands to touch each other but that doesn’t happen. As the audience are waiting with a yearning for the two of them to meet, they are left uncompensated and conflicted with the death of Veera.