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Sunday Afternoon Regional Film!

Today in the tradition of Doordarshan telecast of Regional Indian film, I watched the Tamil classic 16 Vayathinile-1977! I had always heard and read about this cult film but finally got the opportunity of watching it now on Amazon Prime with English subtitles!

The film is about a beautiful young village girl (Sreedevi) who just attains puberty and has dreams of making it big. A slightly crippled( mentally and physically) and unkept guy (Kamal Hassan) is her biggest admirer and trues in vain to impress her. Then there is the village ruffian (Rajnikanth) who lasts for her and there is a veterinary doctor (Sathyaraj) whom the girl likes.

How the lives of all these characters are connected make the crux of the film.

Bharthiraaja made this film at a time when most Tamil films were high on emotion, action and romance but seldom touched such realism. The rural life is far from filmy and shot with much authenticity. This is one of the major Tamil films which was shot extensively in outdoors to capture the village feel.

The story is powerful and the cast primarily of the 3 legends make it an unforgettable film. Sreedevi plays the lead with perfection and even at 15-16 of real age gives such a natural performance. Rajnikanth as the lusty villain is menacing and his fan following as a stylish villain soared with this. Though he has lesser screen time yet he delivers a solid punch. However, the best performance of the film is by the powerhouse Kamal Hassan! As the slightly retarted, lame and unkept villager he gives one of his best ever performance. His body language, expressions and the get up made sure that one can not forget his act. Infact his character of Chappani looks like a prequel of his later cult Telugu hit Swathi Muthyam (which was further remade into Eeshwar).

Bharthiraaja later remade 16 Vayathinile in Hindi as Solva Saal with Sreedevi and Amol Palekar but it flopped.

However , 16 Vayathinile still stands tall as a landmark Indian film which catapulted the 3 top stars of Tamil cinema to real stardom. It was a big hit and also got several awards. Though it is a commercial film with great songs from maestro Illayraja,yet it carries same realism punch and importance as the Hindi new wave cinema of 1970s by Shyam Benegal starring the new crop of awesum actors ,most noticeably in Ankur and Nishant!!

Doordarshan Zindabad! In 1993-1997 Shekhar Suman had become the most popular Tv star in Hindi and his serials were running to full TRP on DD metro-Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zee Tv-Andaz and later Sony -Movers and Shekar! However, Monday nights REPORTER on Doordarshan not just got huge popularity but lot of acclaim to him as well. In school days didnt watch most of episodes as they were a bit serious investigation as compared to the suspense thriller Tuesdays of Doordarshan-Tehkeekat! However, now that the maker Vinod Pande has uploaded lots of epsiodes online I saw the saga of Stock market which is spread across 4 thrilling episodes. HATS OFF to Vinod pande and team for being so bold wayback in 1994 to show the episodes apparently based on Harshad Mehta (name changed) scam of 1992. The episodes are so well shot and enacted that they look real with fiction added. The cult web series by Hansal Mehta- Scam 92 OfCourse is a master act and so well researched that nothing can tough it. However, considering the boundaries of Door darshan and that too immediately when the scam happened, I found it a brave attempt. The entire cast including Raj Kiran and Natasha acted well , but Shekhar Suman has never acted so naturally well!!

In the decade of 1990s one of the biggest assassinations happened in India, the shocking killing of Ex Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on 21st May 1991. For most of us who were in school at that time, the memory of the killing sends us back into an ugly memory. From that time the unfortunate incident has been the subject of novels, documentaries, films and docu dramas as well. Acclaimed director Nagesh Kukunoor again picks up the topic, though this time on the "HUNT" of the killers based on the book-"Ninety Days: The True Story of the Hunt for Rajiv Gandhi's Assassins" by Anirudhya Mitra. The web series on Sony Liv has already gained lot of popularity and acclaim. The series as we know is about the assassination and more so about "how" the SIT team organizes and try to connect the dots till they finally solve the case. In the course they go through trials, disappointments, opportunities and opportunities missed as well. Nagesh's show is a winner right from the first shot. Though many films in South including the award winning "The Terrorist" and in Hindi "Madras Cafe" have shown the events in detail, apart from ABP news brilliant docu drama "Pradhan Mantri" yet this series shows so many incidents that most of us must be unaware of. Since it is adapted from the book the details are quite near to reality. The screenplay of the show is very gripping. Hats off to the makers for keeping the show an investigating thriller and not adding unwanted "lighter moments" or "family life" of the team members as it would have broken the momentum. Though the show subtly touches the events, the red-tapism , the circumstances yet Nagesh succeeds in keeping all politics out of the show. The series is totally in contrast to the larger-than-life action-packed spy popular web series and USP here is the realism without losing pace. The show is so well shot in Madras (it officially became Chennai later), other parts of Tamil Nadu, New Delhi and finally culminates in Bangalore and outskirts and captures the nuisances across states. The dialogues in Tamil, Hindi does justice to the regions and the show creates maximum impact if seen with subtitles. The cast of the show is perfect. Right from the squad members, LTTE operators to politicians everyone does a great job. Amit Sial continues his range and shows how different he can be from his "RAID" avatar. The actor playing Sivarasan was absolutely menacing without actually doing lot of physical violence. However, in terms of acting the show belongs to Sahil Vaid. He is absolutely brilliant in the entire show. His command over Hindi and Tamil helped him portray the team member to perfection and captures the happiness, despair, anger and frustration so well. The show is at par with some of the best docu dramas made in India like Black Friday, Talwar and will surely be remembered for a long time. Nagesh Kukunoor after great films like Hyderabad Blues, 3 Deewarein , Iqbal and Dor was not on a very high phase. However, with this he shows that he can handle any subject and this show is amongst one of his best works!