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ALAVANDHAAN - fails miserably?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Topic started by abhinetri (@ 202.56.193.250) on Tue Nov 13 21:04:29 EST 2001.
All times in EST +10:30 for IST.

This 'so-called' film critic from REDIFF.COM says 'ABHAY' (Hindi Version of ALAVANDHAAN' is a crap movie. The link is given below...
http://www.rediff.com/entertai/2001/nov/13abhay.htm

How crucial was 'music' a crucial factor for a film like ALAVANDHAAN?

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Responses:

• Old responses
  
• From: Bharath (@ 192.25.158.12) on: Tue Dec 4 14:07:55 EST 2001
  
  i dont mind kamal showing sexually explicit stuff and talking about scenes. I think he does it because majority of the people dislike it and .
  
  he shld hate the idea that most people think such things r taboo when its not!
  
  To him sex shld be the same as driving a motor bike or car... when u can show the latter why not the former also... sex is not an inferior or a taboo concept....
  
  u can ask if he wants to show excreta etc... yes he can..but just that he chooses not to. I will quote kamal in saying that " alwarpet'la irukaravana poi .. nee yen mylapore'la irukka koodathunnu sonna enna artham"
  
  it his his option to show what he wants .. among the options of excreta and sex he chooses sex more often than not.. so its upto u to see it or not.
  
  as to the question of whether such things spoil or culture etc.. i personally think.. every kid above 14 yrs in india knows whats what and nothing is new to them.. the only factor is they feel embarrased to see such things in front of the parents.. so dont go with ur parents!
  
  its upto the censor board to decide such things.. when we elected for a democratic way of life.. we accept people can do what they want until they disturb another mans life... kamal is just doing that.. he exploring the limits of doing what one wants...
  
  so whats ur problem with it... if dont like it dont patronize the movie...
  
  how will u feel if i deny u the right to object to such movies... u r in effect doing the same thing to kamal by denying him the right to support such movies...
  
  
• From: Kupps (@ 156.153.255.126) on: Wed Dec 5 00:48:37 EST 2001
  
  Deviating the cart more from its original path
  
  Bharath
  
  I disagree with the statement that Majority of people(Indians) think sex as taboo or inferior.
  
  IMHO indians, culturally say that andharangam punidhamaanadhu (roughly translated as personal aspects are holy). This andharangam includes sexual life also. If they say andharangam is holy then why should they feel it as a taboo concept or inferior. But yes, they feel that discussing it publicly (even among wider family members and friends) is inferior. Only for the ascetic life it is taboo/denied but yes less than 5% of Indian population follow the ascetic way of life, truly. So coming back to main stream Indian life style. There could be many valid reasons for considering discussion of sex as profane/taboo/inferior. Infact Indian culture is sophisticated in terms of treating sexual feelings, coz they consider it as holy and hence practice(i dont know whether this word is apt here) it but refrain from discussing in public which actually proved good hitherto. Whereas in western there are certain people who consider sex itself as bad. So you find majority of others who feel that as wrong and hence to show their opposition against this "oppression", talk & have sex freely. That is why there are set of "educated" amongst the west who are against this "oppression" mentality and say that there is no wrong in free-sex(talking, discussion, having). Whereas such thing is not needed in India. In Indian context free-sex has its own disadvantages. So "aping" the foreign educated in India in the context of sex is not needed at all. But now in Indian society also certain sect of people especially urban educated youths feel that "oppression" is there in terms of sex. So they are also "aping" these foreign educated mass. This might be true in few cases also because, after all, Indian society is also influenced by the western and hence somewhere this "opperssion" mentality would have seeped in. But again, for that, the India way of avoiding free-sex and treating "andharangam punidhamaanadhu" is the best medicine(IMHO) rather than free-sex, coz this has been the proven one for this society.
  
  Simply stating for Indians its better divert your mentality/feeling and not suppress it if you feel sex is not needed for you(ascetics follow this way). For others you don't need to talk about it that is why much fuss about your day-to-day activity?
  
  Indian society is democratic in this aspect and has given different kind of freedom and path for different set of people in it. Yes! Sir! Indian society never tried to generalise and hence stuff in one idea that is applicable to one sect on to other sects.
  
  So when talking about Indian society we should be much careful about saying anything in general.
  
  diversion ends (really?)
  
  
• From: joe (@ 63.68.217.35) on: Wed Dec 5 12:35:06 EST 2001
  
  Sticking to Kamal and Aalavandhan, I dont know if I would call him a pedophile, but he does have a tendency to introduce sexual content/connotation in a way which simply mimics hollywood movies and is clearly not rooted in the culture at large--not to mention its irrelevance in the narrative.
  
  Secondly, these scenes/movies are not in any way an introspection of 'sex and culture' to deem it path breaking. In my mind, Kamal 'thinks' that he is a path breaking film maker by trying cheap stunts like this which obviously is not going too well with the viewers either in South India or the North. I remember in some of the reports during the making of this movie, there was the notion of how this movie was a study on the human mind and the psychology of killers whether one happens to be mad-man or a military-man. Anyone who saw the movie knows how much of a farce this was and made the audience to run and get a dose of 'ecstasy' themselves to come out of the pain.
  
  In the end if Kamal wants to keep his rightful place in Indian Film history as a great actor, he has to stick to only acting and refrain from sticking his hand in other aspects of film making--otherwise he risks himself to be remembered as a psycho in real life as well.
  
  
• From: KS (@ 165.122.128.250) on: Wed Dec 5 13:12:17 EST 2001
  
  Kupps,
  
  couldn't agree more. kalakkareenga:)
  
  
• From: unmaivilambi (@ 63.75.49.120) on: Wed Dec 5 15:22:44 EST 2001
  
  I donot know why you guys are hell bent on targetting these few scenes he does for whatever reason. Alavanadan is not good enough for the hype it generated, agreed. The movie is for adults and has nothing dramatically shocking for that section of the audience. Also Kamal made a great movie in Hey Ram. It had brilliantly shot scenes like the calcutta riots apart from the steamy scenes you guys despise.Even Thevar magan had some love scenes with Gowthami, still He amply demonstrated his talent in that movie.
  
  
• From: KS (@ 165.122.128.250) on: Wed Dec 5 16:03:40 EST 2001
  
  unmaivilambi,
  
  I can understand your feelings for him. It is not that we hate him but just that without those scenes the film would seem much better with less embarrassments. I too like some of his innocent kissing scenes but I couldn't stand Kamal trying to kiss Vasundara outside the hospital when his friend was dying in the hospital. Was that required? How does it help in making the movie better? It was ok in Chanakya, Mahanadhi, Thevar Magan, etc. But just give it a thought - are they really required and do they in anyway help in making the movie better?
  
  I'm sure without such scenes his movies would be able to draw more crowd and more people will start respecting him.
  
  
• From: ash (@ 12.5.196.254) on: Wed Dec 5 16:42:05 EST 2001
  
  I dont see anything wrong with the sexual scenes in Aalavandaan. As far as I know, any average URBAN filmgoer has already been exposed to see worse scenes than these from Hollywood films. Also all those movies are screened in HBO and STAR via cable. And majority of the URBAN people fairly an idea of sex in cinema (they know it right from the days of Silk smitha to Mumtaz now).
  Any average RURAL filmgoer also has been exposed to these scenes from the "BIT" movies (Malayalam imports) and other tamil movies.
  There is no reason to blame Kamal for having these scenes.
  
  
• From: KS (@ 165.122.128.250) on: Wed Dec 5 17:22:29 EST 2001
  
  ash,
  
  without being specific to Aalavandhan...do you expect all those movies to be of similar standards and will you be able to see all those movies with you entire family with the same comfort level? just curious, NOM.
  
  
• From: ash (@ 12.5.196.254) on: Wed Dec 5 17:31:26 EST 2001
  
  KS,
  My point here is are the scenes from Aalavandhan are not so very horribe (with Raveena) compared to all those movies which all the filmgoers do see day in and day out. Any form of art does have some glamour. Even songs out of some of the old lietrature ("Agananuru, Jayadevar Ashtapathi") do have sex in them. People still do recite them.
  I've been to movies with my family without knowing those movies had scenes(worse than aalavandhan), almost all of the "Bahgyaraj's" movies did have scenes and vulgar dialogues and the entire "TAMIZH KOORUM NALLULAGAM" did watch them with their families
  
  
• From: KS (@ 165.122.128.250) on: Wed Dec 5 17:35:33 EST 2001
  
  ash,
  
  I agree with you that some of the scenes in Aalavandhan are much better than others you have cited.
  
  
• From: ash (@ 12.5.196.254) on: Wed Dec 5 17:45:55 EST 2001
  
  In my opinion, for the money spent on this movie, Kamal could have done better as far story and screenplay. Also the latest graphics stuff and the gizmos could have been used in a different way (other than cartoons etc..).
  Yes technically it is good film and technically only.
  
  
• From: Bharath (@ 192.25.158.12) on: Wed Dec 5 17:47:00 EST 2001
  
  Kupps,
  
  An articulate and very well written posting. Your response was exactly the one I had been waiting for to put forth this one.
  
  Now there is a subtle difference between to repartee and the point I was actually trying to make. We may agree on the same beliefs but we seem to differ in its interpretation.
  
  You defined sex to be "andharangam punidhamaanadhu ". Yes I certainly agree with it. Thats the way we have been seeing sex. But Let me ask you this question at the risk of playing devils advocate here. Are all holy things meant to be kept a secret.
  
  Now I will put my point much more articulately. The "taboo" that I mentioned was not sex itself but rather the discussion of sex. I agree with you when u say according to indian culture sex is holy. But there I stop. From there on I interpret your posting as ; sex itself is not taboo. sex is holy but discussion about holy things is taboo.
  
  Now I dont neccesarily have to confirm to this view. Kamal in my opinion, although personally, I am not a big fan of him, knows more of hindu scripture than an average joe. There is a powerfull RSS man in him which eludes the common public.
  
  Kamal simply believes that discussion of sex as being taboo is a superstition and it may not neccessarily be a extra ordinary value add o the story but whats wrong in it being there. Whats wrong in kamal kissing sukanya. Dont lovers kiss each other. In the Indian population has no one become pregnant before marriage. Does no one talk about safe times to have sex.
  
  I personally hated the star TV revolution. It has destroyed the innocence of Millions of young Indians who now just want to enjoy the fun but not share the responsibility of developing the nation. But we are a free nation . These are the trade offs we have to make.
  
  Asking if such sexually explicit dialogues and visuals are necessary is like asking if Kamal neccessarily needed to be a commando. It wud have made no difference if he was a chowkidar also.
  
  But those are small shocks and suprises an artists introduces in a film that is part of a character development (in the fims sense :-) )
  
  
  //"So "aping" the foreign educated in India in the context of sex is not needed at all. "//
  
  see thats where i have a problem. You can't call "expression of sexual views as foriegn" as much as you cant call sex itself is foriegn. Why the comparison with USA or foreign. Dont we have our own views on sex which cud be expressed. Why should it be foreign.
  
  
• From: WhyNot (@ 203.24.100.137) on: Wed Dec 5 17:50:37 EST 2001
  
  Why should it be foreign
  
  Probably bcos half the other scenes in the movie were 'copied' blatantly from foreign films, so one can't be penalised for thinking abt foreign films in the other half.
  
  

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