Pathinaru Vayathinile

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!!

16 VAYATHINILE is the story of a 16-year-old schoolgirl, and the challenges she faces and overcomes. This film is all about beautiful storytelling. It says that the iconic character of Forrest gump is inspired from Kamal's character in Swathi Muthyam and I think Swathi Muthyam is also bit inspired from this movie.

The story is not new now but it attained cult status in Tamil cinema and is considered to be the trendster of films depicting realistic portrayals of rural life. Haasan's performance was considered a tour de force by critics since he was typecast as a romantic hero at that time.

Available on Amazon Prime Video & Youtube With English Subtitle.

© MandalBros.

Good Movie. Everybody acted very well in the movie. Songs and BGM in the movie were good. The Kamal Haasan and Rajinikanth combo scenes were main highlight in the movie. Those combo scenes were excellent in the movie. The movie bored and lagged a lot at some scenes in 1st half. Good Movie.

Pathinaaru Vayathinile / 16 Vayathinile (1977) : Brief Review -

The bellwether of Rural Romance in Tamil Cinema. Not tragic but a sentimental romance which grows from Adolescence to Maturity with realistic theories. Pathinaaru Vayathinile seemed quite like a mix-up of many old Hollywood and Bollywood films but it had its own original storyline while dealing the mainstream content. We have seen this formula before that a Teenage girl falls in love with a wrong man while her childhood buddy who is a true lover of her is always ignored by her. And then after getting abandoned by that wrong man she realises the true love of her childhood companion. Pathinaaru Vayathinile uses the same formula but keeps all the characters very original except for the heroin and that's fine because i don't think anybody could have done anything different with that character. It focuses on the strengths and vulnerabilities of Mayil, a 16-year-old schoolgirl, and the challenges she faces and overcomes. Sridevi plays 16 years old Mayil when she was actually 14 herself. But i didn't really see her that young, i mean the maturity when she speaks and the way she looks seemed like above 20 sometimes. I don't know why that happened to me but sorry i couldn't help saying this. Kamal Haasan as Chappanni is terrific. He is the best performer in this film, and very much credit of that goes to writing too as he was the only character in the film who had the highest scope. Rajinikanth plays an evil guy and he definitely looks one. 'How's this?', he asks. 'Very Good', i say. Bharathiraaja made an impressive debut, no doubts about that. 16 Vayathinile was the first Tamil film to be shot predominantly outdoors and yes that helped it very much because without that Real Village Layout, it might have lost that humour and realistic touch. Overall, a Classic Romance and you can call it tragic if you wish but i would rather call it a senti one.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest.

At a time when Tamil cinema lay submerged in cliched studio dramas starring aging heroes, Bharathiraja came with a breath of fresh air with this lovely pastoral tale. Rajini, Kamal, Sridevi and a host of new faces star in this all-time classic, with Ilayaraja's mind-blowing score making it an unmissable.