Mounaraagam – The Silent Symphony

Let me review this movie. I would love to write about the subtle and amateurish Manirathnam of Mounaraagam age, and how he graduated and made the celluloid a canvas full of emotions and beautiful picturesque locations and interesting characters and what not.  Perhaps this is the first love story that got etched into my memory as I sit back now and write about it.

I beg to disagree to the fact that all my blogs these days are being published during officer hours, its a simple coincidence that post lunch – I am a little bit bored. Since I am considered a rude and an arrogant gentleman, I don’t have many people to chat with…..which ofcourse, is a thankfully wonderful gift I enjoy.  Well, not always – since you don’t get time for yourself to pen your thoughts on a wonderful movie, that is so brilliant in handling the human emotions.

After watching Manirathnam’s technique and falling in love with that in his classics like Nayagan, Gharshana, Dhalapathy, Geethanjali, Anjali, Roja, Bombay, Iruvar, Sakhi, Amrutha(My favorite movie from his gallery), Yuva – notable of his movies apart from okayish movies like Guru, Donga Donga and Dil Se  … did I miss out on anything? I think Mounaraagam is completely a different film in the sense, it has only 2 characters in the movie all along.

Divya is a girl with a completely different mindset for a 80’s girl raised in Southeren India.  She is aggressive and egoistic and has a past, which gets revealed in a wonderful scene nicely depicted on screen with extra-ordinary gait by Revathi and Mohan and for a brief but wonderfully well  by Karthik.

The movie starts with a typical early morning scene in a middle class girl’s family, the introductions are done in a perfect manner – the youngest being the most chirpiest in the family, a typical orthodox father concerned about the marriage of his eldest daughter, the elder brother of the protagonist – lead lady. Typical Manirathnam’s scheme of things – the women are strong and are opinionated.

The first important scene is enacted by Revathi in typical flair and eloquence – Divya demonstrates that she is not interested in the arranged marriage, that is being planned at home.  She turns up late and tries to depict an image of a typical arrogant, egoistic girl – which is the beginning of the era of the educated women in India.  But to her surprise, Chandrakumar(played by Mohan) likes her for all her characteristics, he appears suave and charming and carries himself patiently all over the first half of the film. It will be revealed later, for all the antiques played by Divya at that moment, Chandrakumar likes her.  He cannot simply fathom as to why and express what was the reason for him to like her from that instant – he starts loving her basically from that moment.

The next scenes roll quickly and we get to see Divya marrying Chandrakumar in a typical Indian wedding, but the marriage turns out to be a disaster for Divya as she doesn’t like the idea of it and reveals the truth of her forgettable past.  She happens to love a robinhood-kinda-unemployed-brash-young Karthik(I don’t remember the character name). He dies in a freak accident and leaves her in a state of shock.

Few interesting scenes and the talent of screenplay, typically which had been the stronghold of Mani’s movies were nascent on Indian Celluloid, at least I guess so. I still get surprised, as to how a director can make a movie with only two significant roles in it and bring out all the emotions and make it a gripping story – Mounaraagam has it all, perhaps that was a remarkable change from the conventional movies we had not other choice, but see.  I can’t help but appreciate for this welcome change in our movies. It made us to stand, watch and applaud and say that for once we are also having meaningful movies – sans some stunts and meaningless songs and hero running on deserts/lakes/buildings/landscapes or whatever throughout the the song duration.

The movie ends up protraying the love that comes out of a marriage that resulted from understanding. In this case, it was born out of a divorce that was filed within a week of the protagonists’ marriage.  It was beautifully filled with Ilayaraaja’s music and the songs are really really great and the back ground music is something – many people instantly recognize and cannot help but fall in love with.  Unfortunately, Raja had to get inspired from another English number – but nevertheless, it was a good adaptation to the Indian screen. The keyboard is used fantastically well and the symphony has a meaning – particularly because it goes with the movie well.

There are few scenes which I like personally,

• The first confrontation scene of Revathy and Mohan
• The early morning scene in the typical South Indian orthodox family – it was a wonderful way of introducing every character in the movie, in its entirety
• The scene in which Revathy asks for divorce as her marriage gift from Mohan
• The scene in which Karthik comes to visit Revathy at her college and tell her that her father met with an accident – quite a funny one
• Revathy teaching telugu/tamil to the Sardarji in Delhi
• The climax scene

A must watch I would say, and rate it as the pre-cursor to another of Manirathnam’s classics – ‘Alai Payuthey’ or ‘Sakhi’ or ‘Saathiya (the movie is heavily damaged by Vivek and Rani in Hindi)’.

The ending is so sweet and realizing for the two persons who were in conflict with each other initially, and how time and relationship continue to mystify minds like me – well, Time is really the biggest medicine for anything and everything.

pOyittu varEn(Good bye in Tamil)