I remem­ber once, ‘Pud­hiya kalacharam’ came up an arti­cle with the head­ing ‘காத‌ல் ப‌ட‌ங்க‌ள்.. க‌வ‌லைப்ப‌டு ச‌கோத‌ரா !’ - the period where ‘Kaad­hal kotai’ started a trend of ‘Kaad­hal’ films. I have been watch­ing since the early TRa­jen­dar peak peri­ods — when­ever a char­ac­ter talks about love/friendship to the 4thwall [ the dia­log meant for audi­ence ], it gets a roar­ing applause [ Indha pon­nun­galE ippadi thaan kind of dia­logues ]. Of course, it still con­tin­ues. The writer of ‘Alaigall oivad­hillai’ Mani­van­nan said in ‘Goku­lathil seethai’ that why our films just end in mar­riage and don’t show what hap­pens after the lovers got mar­ried. ‘Alai­payuthey’ dealed with that con­cept whereas Nadodi­gal deals with the friends who help and make the love mar­riage happen.

Samuthi­rakkani worked as an asso­ciate with KB in ‘Kalki’[ adhu oru paadaavadhi padam — film that demor­alises women power ] and then with ‘Paruthi veeran’. Mean­while, he worked as a ser­ial direc­tor [ killer :) ] in many famous TV seri­als [ I never ever watched a sin­gle episode of any ser­ial in my life time ]. He even directed ‘Thanga vet­tai’. He patiently waited for his turn and directed 2 films. ‘Unnai saran adainthen’ and ‘Ner­anja man­asu’ ; both didn’t do very good at box office. He stunned me as Kanagu in Sub­ra­ma­nia­pu­ram with his sparkling per­for­mance as an actor.

If Sub­ra­ma­nia­pu­ram is Veenaaponavan’s poem, ‘Nadodi­gall’ is like a poem comes in ‘kavid­hai solai’ of vaara­malar. Yes ! Sub­ra­ma­niapram is a craft and nado­di­a­gall is not.

Nadodi­gall : Drama/2009/Tamil

Writer & Direc­tor : P.Samuthirakkani

Music : Sun­dar C Babu

Pho­tog­ra­phy : SRKathir

 Plot :  

In Rajapalayam, there are 3 friends [ Sasi, Vijay, Bha­rani ] who are closely knit­ted along with their fam­i­lies [ idhu­laye oru 15 charc­ters therum ]. Sasi loves Ananya and Vijay loves Abhi­naya, sis­ter of Sasi. Another friend comes to their town seek­ing help for his love and inten­si­fies it by a sui­cide attempt. What the friends do for the cou­ple to get mar­ried is told as part one. In the process, the friends loose what they value most. Did the cou­ple live prop­erly ? What is the com­pen­sa­tion for the loss faced by the friends ? இதான் க‌தை.

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 Let me take the good things first.. The film has too many char­ac­ters involved and some of them are etched really well. Eps­cially Paandi, his father, his noisy atmos­phere [ poet­i­cally used for another rea­son ], always munch­ing Nal­lam­maa [ Enna azh­agu ! ], ‘Pasanga’ teacher. Some of the touches are

- Sar­a­vanan explains the rea­son why he approaches Sasi. It’s shown in a sin­gle shot. A cou­ple sit in a beach and the girl’s father comes in and separates.

- Most of the dia­logues used by Paandi are really stun­ning. Unaku valikaad­dhadaa.. Nee valichaalum illembe..’ The price he receives for his help is stun­ning. One of the best sound record­ing hap­pened on screen. The impact it makes to the audi­ence is ter­rific. His per­for­mance in the sec­ond half was really good.

- The racy inter­val sequences.. Though it’s just an inter­val the sequences are filmed as if for an action thriller [ like Gilli ]. This gang has one more friend who doesn’t even utter a sin­gle dia­logue.. Nice char­ac­ter­i­za­tion [ like Mot­tai in Anjathey ]

- The local politi­cian ‘Chin­na­mani’ char­ac­ter is por­tayed and used properly.

- The hero­ines are unusu­ally beau­ti­ful. Ananya was too good and steals the show. Equally, the other hoer­ine Abhi­naya also did well [ the fair girl stand­ing first in the left side of the above photo !! ] — The shock­ing truth is that she is chal­lenged in real life [ unable to speak or hear ]. The direc­tor did this after a pop­u­lar hero­ine rejected the role stat­ing that she was unable to com­mu­ni­cate with Samu­drakani in Eng­lish. Direc­tor proved he is good by using a girl who can­not com­mu­ni­cate to anyone.

Why I con­sider Nadodi­gal as average

Music.. My strong opin­ion is that a good film always has good music. Whether it is song or BGM [ Veedu ! ]. Even for a plain enter­tain­ment movie like Chennai-28, music is so impor­tant. That aspect is highly spoiled in Nadodi­gal. there’s not even a sin­gle good duet though almost every­body falls in love :) . The BGM part is mostly cov­ered by the siva sambo song — a racy n noisy one.

I never liked ‘Ivaar dhaan Sankaran.. Chief accoun­tant’ kind of intro. Cin­ema should be given it’s due respect in visuals.

Dia­logues : Every­body explains too many things in dia­logue.. Var­alaaun­dradhu.. Love-ndradhu.. Natupu-ndradhu.. Every word is explained. Remem­ber the KB’s tor­ture days.

Tel­ugu impact — Now the movie is get­ting remade in Tel­ugu. It’s planned one. That’s why they intro­duce the lady MP char­ac­ter and sho all the SUV cat­e­gory of vehi­cles in high speed [ Scor­pio, Tavera, Innova, of course Sumo ].

Through out the movie you get ques­tions about some logic. Most of them are unan­swered. A good film never makes me to ask ques­tions at least while watch­ing. The grip is miss­ing. You get those frus­tra­tions in most part of the movie.

The cli­max is the most con­fus­ing aspect of the movie. I don’t believe that the rich lovers get a moral of Sasi’s lec­ture. On top of it, the 3 friends get ready for one more help. In TN, if any­body says bet­ter not to love and go for work/studies, that film will be con­sid­ered as junk. As per FM radios, one can­not live with­out hav­ing a lover. [ Sorry ! next caller please :) ]

The sis­ter char­ac­ter falling in love is not a con­vinc­ing one. Why the rich lovers come to Sasi.. Of course, what stops their love to express to their parents ?

The kuthu song on the way to Namakkal — I was dis­heart­ened by under­es­ti­mat­ing the level of audi­ences. Also, I was shocked to see Sasi resem­bling T.Rajendar in some dance and action sequences. Sasi.. We expect ‘direc­tion’ from you and not ‘action’ !!

Unnec­es­sary inser­tion of Kanja karupu char­ac­ter — It’s purely sen­ti­men­tal and noth­ing else. The fault is not def­i­nitely on Ka.Karuppu. Samu­drakani lacks sense of humour.

I am not both­ered about the suc­cess of the movie. In fact, a suc­cess­ful movie makes so many fam­i­lies happy and moti­vates the assis­tant direc­tor to think about the story/script. Def­i­nitely this film is extremely bet­ter than Sun­darC films [ Sun­darC is the exact replace­ment of those days Thiyagarajan/Telugu dub­bing movies — I couldn’t even sit and watch the trailor of ‘5-m padai’ ]. But the hype made for Nadodi­gall equal to Sub­ra­ma­nia­pu­ram, Paruthi veeran is too much — those com­ments makes me uncomfortable.

To repent for this, I’ll come up with a review on POO [ a clas­sic film by Sasi ]. Have you ever won­dered, why Direc­tor Sasi thanked chi­nese direc­tor Zhang Yimou. in the title cards ? Our direc­tors nor­mally thank Nungam­bakkam HDFC bank or Kothaalam­patti Karur vaisya bank for giv­ing loans :).. யோசிச்சு வைங்க‌..

 –Toto.

ச‌ரியான‌ ஒரு பட‌த்தை எம‌து ம‌க்க‌ள் ஓட்டினால் அதை க‌ண்டு ம‌கிழ்ச்சிய‌டையும் முத‌ல் ர‌சிக‌ன் நான் தான். அதே ச‌ம‌ய‌த்தில் ம‌கேந்திர‌னும், ம‌ணிர‌த்ன‌மும் க‌ட்டிக் காத்த‌ த‌மிழ் ப‌ட‌ உல‌கில் பிழையான‌ ஒரு ப‌ட‌ம் தெலுங்கு ரைட்ஸ்‍க்காக‌ எடுக்க‌ப்ப‌ட்டு ஓடுகிற‌தென்றால், அதைக் க‌ண்டு வ‌ருத்த‌ப்ப‌டும் முத‌ல் ர‌சிக‌னும் நான் தான்.

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