Technorati Tags: Aaranya Kaandam
In a world where commercial cinema has and is ruling the roost, there are a miniscule amount of movie makers who dare to think beyond the obvious. Thiagarajan Kumararaja joins the elite list of trend setting directors who has managed to break the barriers of mundane cinema and deliver a gangster flick in a crisply packaged format.
Aaranya Kaandam basically delves around the lives of gangsters in Northern Chennai. Singaperumal (Jackie Shroff) is an ageing don who purportedly carries out various illegal businesses along with his gang for a living. One fine day Pasupathy (Sampath), a member of this gang happens to know about a drug deal that is going to take place between a broker and their rival gang run by Gajapathy and Gajendran. Pasupathy seeks permission from Singaperumal to illegal poach the drugs, since the broker was willing to sell the drugs at a much lesser cost. Singaperumal gives him the nod and this sets off a chain of enthralling events that takes the audience off-guard at several places. In the midst of all these events, enter two characters, Kaalaiyan and Kodungapuli, and how they get caught in the ensuing drug exchange fist-fight forms the rest of the story.
Credit must be given to the director for penning down a very taut screenplay that manages to entertain the audience to the fullest. All the characters (except the girl) have delivered a commendable performance. The only drawback I found in the movie was the girl, Subbu, who was completely non-sync with the movie. Her actions, body language, her dialogue delivery, and the way she emotes were far too cinematic for this movie.
The director also deserves praise for etching out each individual character with substance. Be it the police inspector, the josiyakaaran, the broker, or Singaperumal’s gang members, everybody would stay in the minds of the audiences while coming out of the theaters.
Even though the movie has been made on a shoe-string budget, the technical aspects of the movie are top-notch. The camera work, by C.S. Vinod is riveting and when coupled with the crisp editing of Praveen K L and Shrikanth N B, it provides a wonderful viewing experience for the audience. The music, by Yuvan Shankar Raja, adds a new dimension to the already-enthralling screenplay. Silence employed during the title roll-out and the usage ilayaraja sir’s songs from the 80’s sync perfectly with the movie. And please have an acumen to note the dialogues rendered by all the characters. They are sharp and humorous and are just brilliant. (The first and the last dialogues in the film are the biggest highlights)!
Overall, if you are looking out for refreshing cinema, then you definitely should not miss Aaranya Kaandam. It surpasses all the clichés that you would ought to witness in a regular Tamil gangster movie. No wonder, the movie won the Grand Jury Award for Best Film at the South Asian International Film Festival.
