One can witness an interesting trend emerge in Tamil Cinema!!!.

For the last 3-5 years, we have seen the following:

1.       Better budgets and more spending

2.       Technical brilliance

3.       Better sense of fashion and clothing in films – again not by all films

4.       Better scripts and an effort to make good offbeat films

5.       Well– Many directors becoming actors – well opinions vary on this

6.       The unacceptable nature of bad masala movies made by so called Big Image Stars –This has been a Welcome change by the urban and semi rural people

Let us look at the Term Commercial or what people like to call it Formulistic Cinema….Ah well defined term for a film that defies logic, mass appeal to the Hero, an introduction song for the Hero, one villan who looks ugly or like a ghost, heroine for song and dance, the film revolves under one sentiment – mother, sister or a social cause whereby the hero stands by it, baseless fight scenes.

This has been the way for Tamil Cinema….where during the days of MGR , the concept of introducing the Hero,dialogues which made either a statement and or which were politically inclined were conceived.

If one looked at certain old commercial films, we could also see certain aspect which was shot real and in natural environment and also the fight sequences which were being led by the script.

The concept of Commercial Cinema changed face and looks when Bharthiraja (the man credited to have taken cinemato the real locations) came with a purposeful commercial film called 16 Vayathinila.  The 70s and the 80s witnessed two big directors KB and Bharthiraja making films which were women oriented subjects where the female character of the films had a big substantial role to play. One could also witness certain bold themes made them.

The emergence of Balu Mahendra also bore witnessed to this fact. The man who took cinema beyond our shores to the entire South Indian public. I am sure people remember the scripts, films made by him and the screenplays which played a big part.

Again all in the Commercial Framework.

One should also hear the wording or the phrase used by local people – This film is a Bharthiraja film, KB film or the great Balu Mahendra Film.

Well here comes the 90s the wording used changed the style in which cinema was made – The film is a Rajini film, Kamal film, Vijayakanth film or any other hero..

The beginning of the big and illogical commercial entertainers had started. A film was characterized by an Hero Introduction, mass kuthu songs, one slow song, one sentiment factor which was vital, well the last one being the ending was always great and the hero triumphs.

The importance of dance choreography gained importance whereby a fast number proved to have a visual appeal to the people and also made sure the film garnered a hit from the masses.

Again one man changed the way Commercial Cinema was being perceived – The Midas Man Shankar….it was the beginning of big budgets, social cause themes (well he seemed to have overplayed that card now), technicality, script importance and one big introduction – Item song number which were made to be a part of the film.

I am not writing about Maniratnam in this article as I am going to bring him into context in another article.

This was an important step made by Shankar as this marked the beginning of the end for illogical formulistic films by so called Mass Heroes.

The year 2000 began in bits and pieces where small time directors were running around with scripts where the so called mass heroes did not cater to due to their image issues. It all changed when one director out of sheer outburst starred in his own script which proved to be defining moment as the film went to receive acclaim and this began the trend whereby directors also started acting in movies.

Still the image heroes were hellbent and did not do much to respect script nor screenplay. Ameer is another director whom I would like to mention – the director of Ram and Parthiveeran.He had received awards for his films in Cyrpus and London but no one noticed it. The strange way of Tamil Cinema Industry for not recognizing awards or real accomplishment.

As always one person who was making all the noise was Kamal Hassan and the other directors decided to join the fray and voice their concerns on offbeat and good films. The land which wrote Kambha Ramayana could not write a proper script lamented Kamal Hassan.

Cheran who echoed similar feelings brought out two great films in Autograph and thavamai thavamirundhu .

The audience who are the ultimate test started feeling the need of good films and most big image films started bombing at the box office. The offbeat good films with mostly low budgets started putting pressure on the Commercial formulistic films to apply the script and screenplay a little better.

Today the perception is changing slowly whereby the producer, director and the big wide audience feels making a Commercial film is even tougher than making an offbeat film.  The best example can be put for Vijay’s films(not written in bad taste for Vijay’s fans). The film  Villu which is not worth to be written about – in short where even a big image hero like Vijay could not save the movie. I saw the movie and it had taken me back in time say by 15 years.

We still have a long way to go by making good Commercial Cinema in all aspects but we have made a good start and need to capitalize on the same. The big image heroes need to start respecting scripts and screenplays a little better and not force the director or producer to change according to their image and fancies.

IN SHORT IT SHOULD BE “KADHAIKAGAKADHANAYAGAN” WHEREVER POSSIBLE.