Raja's read only memories

Appeared in expresso , the daily supplement of The New Indian Express on 28th March, 2011 You can also read this review at: http://expressbuzz.com/entertainment/reviews/nil-gavani-sellathey/260322.html Rumours floated that Nil Gavani Sellathey (stop, observe, don’t move) was a rip-off of several Hollywood movies, including Wrong Turn and Uninvited, which in actuality is a frame-to-frame copy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . The movie is all about a trip undertaken by a group of friends that turns awry. Sam (Anand Chakaravarthy), Jo (Dhaniska), Arun (Ramssy), Priya (Lakshmi Nair) and Milo (Jagan) are friends, and are introduced to us in a slick manner, almost Shankar’s Boys -like. Sam gets engaged to Jo and Arun to Lakshmi, who is on a project trip to Chennai. The gang decides to go on a trip to, hold on, a temple village located on the TN-Andhra border, which apparently, we are told, is necessary for Lakshmi’s ‘project’. The gang gets a Mercedes B800 and hit the Golden Quadrilatera...

With Sighappu Rojakkal (Red Roses), director Bharatiraja, who had earlier directed 16 Vayadhinile , a movie that continues to be regarded as the watershed of Tamil cinema, and Kizhakke Pogum Rayil – both of which focused on bucolic backgrounds – can be said to have attempted the cinematic equivalent of Operation Entebbe; none so telling as the manner in which its title credits roll: the discolouration of a rose in a dark background, accompanied by the harsh scream of a feminine voice in the background, conveying subtly that she may be getting raped, or even murdered, and sowing the seed of thought that its lead could be an anti-hero. A trendsetter in ways more than one, the director adopted urban Chennai - replete with women in attractive attire with little or no inhibitions, glitzy bars and restaurants, and people in odd jobs striving to make ends meet - as the canvas for Sighappu... The departure in the theme was, as many a chronicler of Tamil cinema would say, the director’s mess...