Big Fish [ க‌தை சொல்லியின் க‌தை ! ]

In any friends’ gang, we might have come across one inter­est­ing and con­vinc­ing story teller. They can­not tell any­thing straight but with vivid expla­na­tions. It might have been a sim­ple acci­dent — but the way they explain is like some spec­tac­u­lar mir­a­cle has hap­pened. The impor­tant thing about this type of char­ac­ter is their tol­er­ance to insult.

 I remem­ber one of my aunts used to tell the story of Thooku thooki, Thangap pad­u­mai with e every dia­logue and song in the after­noons of the sum­mer vaca­tions. She mem­o­rized by hear­ing the same in LP records. My school­mate was a mas­ter story teller — he used to take me in his hero majes­tic bike to a remote place and explain the films he saw. The first film he explained was ‘Chanakya’ Kamal’s mallu movie — he freely takes almost the time of the movie except songs n fights. He nar­rated me the furi­ous story of those times ‘Shiva’ ad the most sweet love story ‘Geethan­jali’. In fact, he is my first con­tact for films — he was the one who started giv­ing film lists for me. [ என்ன்ன்னா ப‌ட‌ம்டா .. பெஜாராயிட்ட‌ன்மா :) ]

 Nobody can for­get the bril­liant story telling of Oho pro­duc­tions Chel­lappa to his father. Chithralaya gopu was inspired by the way Dada mirasi nar­rates the story with less dia­logues and more expres­sions [ he is a film maker from Marathi; Direc­tor of Pud­hiya par­a­vai ]. One of my old time friends used to nar­rate the story with utmost pro­fan­ity [ ‘ச‌ங்கிலி முருக‌ன்’ குடும்ப‌ம் டோட்ட‌ல் டேமேஜ் :) ]- oth­er­wise, he can’t take the story for­ward. I still can believe what­ever Sujatha writes and what­ever Nel­lai Kannan speaks [ த‌மிழ‌ருவின்னு இவ‌ரை சொல்லி இருக்க‌லாம் !! ]. One such story teller is our ‘BIG FISH’ [ fore­word is length­ier than the review :) ]

 Trivia : Once AVM Sar­a­vanan told in an inter­view that the only direc­tor impressed him in story telling was KBhag­yaraj — He nar­rated Mund­hanai mudichu in Palm­grove hotel in 2+ hrs with­out a sin­gle ref­er­ence or a paper. He explained the story with all dia­logues [ includ­ing place­ment of songs ] with an inter­val too [ KBhag­yaraj took a puff in the break :) ].

Plot :

The story is based on the book with the same name ‘Big Fish’, writ­ten by Daniel Wal­lace. It was a novel of myths and fan­tasy illus­tra­tions. The film starts from the frus­tra­tion of William Bloom, a young man who couldn’t under­stand his father because of his story telling abil­i­ties. As a kid, he was con­vinced by his tales and as a grown-up, he couldn’t. Nev­er­the­less, his dying father Edward Bloom talks to every­one with always a story inside.

Nar­rated in flash­backs and present, William used to rec­ol­lect his father’s fables. The sto­ries about his brought-up in Ash­ton, involve­ment with a giant, cir­cus com­pany, meet­ing his lover and then turned wife. Thus with these unbe­liev­able sto­ries, William decides to dis­con­nect from his father and stays away from his father. How­ever, Will’s wife Josephine is attracted to the tales of her father-in-law. Time rebinds Will back to his father who becomes seri­ously ill. The final part of the puz­zle is left and Will decides to join the puz­zle game. What hap­pens then is the end.

View :

The movie is com­bi­na­tion of drama and fan­tasy. The story is just filled with unbe­liev­able peo­ple, places and hap­pen­ings. The main char­ac­ter Edward Bloom resem­bles a few other char­ac­ters from other films, For­rest Gump, Guido from life is beau­ti­ful. The story flows to and forth with change over in the nar­ra­tion with either senior or junior Edward.

As in any fairy tale, this story intro­duces so many unusual char­ac­ters like giant, twins, were­wolf, mer­maid, dream vil­lage and of course ‘Big fish’. The inter­est­ing part is the sub-plots that comes in dif­fer­ent stages of his nar­ra­tion. I liked the sta­tus of a poet chang­ing into some­thing else in Texas. The way the old doc­tor explain­ing about his father to William in his under­stand­ing — though every­body knows about the sto­ries they just accept it. Can we go back to our grand moth­ers or aunts and say what­ever you said was not true !

The best part is the senior’s love story end­ing in a mar­riage. But the hap­pen­ings in between goes just like a fairy tale. The char­ac­ters are so inter­est­ing to a giant, cir­cus owner, Korean twins, and a poet. They even touch the Texas real estate and Wall Street humor­ously on the flow.

The way the film ends was fab­u­lous. A per­fect cli­max of the story teller. The BGM needs a spe­cial men­tion in this movie and was so sooth­ing. Espe­cially dur­ing the cli­max, the BGM enhances the movie watch­ing expe­ri­ence. This is one of the kind where you just believe what hap­pens in the story and don’t ask for logic [ like Mr Magorium’s won­der emporium ].

Remem­ber the S.Ramakrishnan’s title ‘Eppod­hu­mirukum Kad­hai’ ?! — That’s story of Big Fish.

–Toto.

Related Posts B

1. The wrong man — right story.