Awesome!

The other day I watched Roja on TV. I think it has been a very long time, since I watched the movie, because I seemed to take note of so many things. It was not intentional though. I just happened to notice those. I think it was and will remain one of the very few films, to be set in the backdrop of terrorism and still remain cute and heart-warming.

Mani Ratnam surprisingly showed very less red paint, when compared to his earlier violent films Nayagan and Thalapathi (which according to me are classics). I say it was violent when compared to the time it was released. (When my aunt was pregnant at the time of Nayagan, her parents forbade her from watching it fearing for the health of my yet-to-be-born cousin. When I look at her now, I feel they should have let my aunt watch it.) But, here in Roja, Arvind Swamy's face gets to show blood, but most of the time, the emphasis is on the dialogues and terrorists behavior. There was not a single scene where he was crying because of the pain of getting bashed up or blood, and I thought that was very subtle heroism without any self-aggrandizing dialogues.

I was very much drawn into the cinematography which was done by Santosh Sivan. There were almost zero aerial shots, the matrix style rotate-and-revolve through shots were unheard of. But the colors used and the 'feel' generated by each frame was pure ecstasy. Not for nothing do they call it a teamwork.

"What about the music, you dumbo?", I hear someone wondering out aloud. I am getting there. The music was and is out of the world. A.R.Rahman was lucky to have been spotted by Mani. No other filmmaker could have done justice to this prodigious talent. Even in the very first scene, the background score was so pleasing, that you get sucked into it. And in one of the scenes when Madhoo keeps running around her house shouting, that she has seen the groom, has a piece done with the violin(I think.) which featured as the tune for the "telephone" song for Indian. Pats on my back for making this discovery. Others who have already spotted that or any other references are free to make use of my comments section. Oh, yeah. I am generous. Now back to the film.

The most cutest scene must be when Madhoo enters the room wearing only his sweater and trying to cover up her bare legs. The look on both their eyes spoke so much that no dialogue could create that feel. Such innocence. Soooo cute. You wonder how the hell did Mani pick newcomers out of the blue for these roles and still extract so much from their eyes! The man is a genius. The scene where Arvind Swamy jumps out and tries to extinguish the Indian flag with "Thamizha thamizha" in the background, has no words to describe. I got goosepimples watching that. And the song, "Kathal Rojave" sung by SPB must be one of the best. It has the simplest of lyrics and yet, is so so soooooooo melodious. I don't know about the hindi versions and so forgive me if the hindi version didn't have simple lyrics, but I bet the song would have been the same enchanting best. Oh, I could go on and on with vivid descriptions of every frame which have been etched deep in my mind.(For those who wonder, I do have a mind on my own. :D)

Let me finish with this final piece. The climax where the terrorist is shown to let him go unharmed seems a stretch when I saw it now. But, again A.R.Rahman saves the scene, infact he elevates it with a piece that plays when Arvind stumbles and this terrorist involuntarily prevents him from falling.

To state in a single word - the title of this post!