Irandam Ulagam

Irandam Ulagam' is one of the most expected Tamil movie of the year. The same visual fx team who worked for 'Avatar' is rendered some magical touch for this movie. India has never seen such a colourful grand visual movie till now. From the man of creativity, Selvaraghavan's yet another variety of splendid movie followed by the success of 'Aayirathil Oruvan'. The actors, especially both the lead Arya and Anushka gave theirs best shots to deliver director's imagination come reality. Even supports from the foreign characters were very impressive especially theirs lip synchronizations. They had no accent, according to the story they are from the different world so it's a clean cover up.

It was quite like 'The Lovely Bones' where people from two different worlds were connected to each others in some way. In the land of human where love is thousands years old, a girl meets her perfect man. What about the boy, does he thinks same as she thought about him. Not like the 'love at first sight', for the time being it will become even. With all the hurdles the love grows stronger and they become inseparable. How careful the couples move their relationship from one to another level, no matter what there will always be a negative force in nature to pull them apart. A man in such position 'How far he would travel for his love?' is what the director asked in the movie tagline. People with same face each in a different world and theirs romance tales were narrated in the movie. With an alternate world, the alternate culture, lifestyle and yet to blossom the first ever love in the innocent young hearts in the history of their kind is what we are going witness.

I liked the movie because it was a refreshing concept, in a way it is totally new to the Indian audience. Like I said the performances were excellent. The locations were too beautiful, in fact most of them were computer generated images. The stories from two worlds were narrated frequently one after another till the intermission. Then there is no coming back to the actual world, from there everything is told in the world similar to the fairies. It will leave many people in confuse to see new in all the corners of the alternate world. Some will may lose concentration in transition. So it is clear that the movie is not for everyone especially the old generation will struggle to catch up with the movie.

Okay, now lets talk about the negative side of the movie. As an experimental movie product of this part of the earth, it got acclaim from fans and critics but the movie had few minus points too. The tale should have been a little shorter for a theme like this. The biggest drawback was the songs which won't fit into the story. Giving a new dimensional thematic movie is a great idea but the director should not bore the audience by stretching its length. Yes the songs are good to watch in the television set in music channels but not in the movie. Selva should have disobeyed the protocol of making an Indian cinema by scrapping those songs. Then it would have been around 20 minutes shorter and will be perfect. I know he got great visuals in his mind to put those into making cinemas like the Hollywood giants Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson. For that he has to think to make international standards by discarding usual Indian masalas. Because of those song tracks I felt the movie was little drag in the last quarter of the story. But the background score was very nice. The movie will test your patience in the near end portion by keeping it going for a little longer than you expect to roll up the end credits.

The movie had very fine special effects but 3d graphics were not quite convincible in parts. Especially those birds flying around far away in the sky and the lion hunting scenes were looked like some video game characters. Except those inaccuracies rest were indubitable. The way they showed the alternate world was really cool, very intelligent and a creative presentation. If you think you can handle the multiple layer movies like 'The Time Traveler's Wife' and 'Mr Nobody' then why can't this which had dual layer. In the end everything left to the audience, how far they understand about what they see and hear. Like the movies 'Endhiran' and 'Aayirathil Oruvan' you would not need to be highly smart to get the movie, a human with common sense will do.

7.5/10

Selvaraghavan is a very creative director but he tends to get carried away with crude dialogues or too many elements like in this movie. The idea of parallel worlds and a couple having different experiences in same is fantastic. But what a mess of costumes, cinematography and even screenplay around the abnormal worlds .Anushka is as usual brilliant in all the worlds and as a fan, I truly felt sorry that her talents got wasted in such a movie. Arya is an actor of limited range and also looks terrible in the abnormal world with the wierd makeup and hairstyle.

You cant create an alternative world and timeline and have white looking people and then suddenly brown people. Lesser said about the costumes the better, absolutely no consistency. CGI sucks big time. This movie needed a director like SSR or Shankar to do justice to the sets, cinematography, costumes and all the visual elements. There was a good story there but very poor execution at all levels.

This film sets a benchmark in Indian cinema. A fantasy film with creativity at its peak. General audiences often draw comparisons with Avatar, One thing to be made clear, IU is not a mainstream fantasy story like most Hollywood films of the similar genre. Selvaraghavan has related the Sufi and Zen concept in plot. His direction, screenplay and dialogs were flawless. Arya's performance was excellent in the first half but was just good as Maruvan. Anushka as both Ramya and Varna was excellent. The songs by Harris were melodious. However, Anirudh's BGM was not up to the mark as few parts of his score had reminiscence of '3'. Selvarghavan has to be lauded for his concept in this story development that has never been seen before. This is not a film, its a fairy tale. Indian audiences should be prepared to accept a change in film genres and watch it with an open mind with wisdom. All those negative reviews are by critics/viewers who lack wisdom and rational thinking. Its obvious that general viewers lack the ability to decipher simple metaphors in few scenes of this film. The only question, when Indian audiences like Hollywood films like Inception though its depth is significantly complex, why cant they accept much simple and straightforward quality Indian films like IU and the rest? Those mindsets have to change for Indian cinema to progress.

First of all, Irandam Ulagam isn't a film. It's imagination from an individual flawlessly splashed into cinema. I can't see Irandam Ulagam as a film, but as a canvas of unlimited imagination from the master Selvaraghavan. Let be it Hollywood, Bollywood, or any other cinema industry, a fearless splash of imaginative brilliance is nowhere to be found as every director maintains the systematic and mechanical structure of a film. Mr. Selvaraghavan has masterfully created a canvas of his romantic imagination in just 2 hours 40 minutes, and 9 seconds. Yes it may seem very lengthy, but this is imagination, and I never felt the time passing by. As for the "critics" which "reviewed" IU, ignore everything, because again, this isn't a film, it's a dream which will be enjoyed by predominantly children, who're careless of the mechanical world and filled with imagination. The proof of God's existence is clear throughout the film. The cast was perfect, and if you truly understand Mr. Selvaraghavan's vision, you'll find the cast perfect. And for the ratings or reviews, I have no comment, because this is my outcome: 10/10 and 100%.

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How far will you go for love asks Selvaraghavan through his latest film's tagline, but having seen the trailer of Irandam Ulagam the question on everyone's mind is how far has Selvaraghavan gone with his imagination and if he's taken Tamil cinema the distance with him? Irandam Ulagam is a tale of fantasy involving two worlds with several elements that are universal, including the pair of Arya and Anushka. In each world their relationship is provided with its own unique acts and dynamics.

The power of love and the warring between good and evil are not the only things that are universal, as it appears that superstitions of black tongued curses and bar songs too are common place around the galaxies. But the director uses those nuances to make the audience feel at home in his created landscape just as he points out the crimes of men ill-treating women – a thread which gives Anushka's character Varna her personality.

As the shy doctor Ramya and as the fierce warrior Varna, Anushka is simply at her best showcasing a wide range of emotions and stunts. It is her performance that stands as a pivot for the rest of the story to take shape. Arya as the warrior, with his massive physique reminds us that there is hardly anyone else in the industry who could have been so fitting for this role. The Georgian actors featured in this film definitely deserve a word of praise for their efforts to get their Tamil lip sync correct. But it does invariably add some kind of artificiality to the proceedings. The other peripheral characters like Venkatesh Hariharan and Padma Raman are good in their fleeting appearances.

The film's biggest strength is its visuals and credit to the creative director Merzin Tavaria and the team at Firefly Creative Studios for putting out one of the most VFX rich Tamil films without making it seem too jarring. It's easy for the cinematographer's work to be buried under such vast amounts of VFX but Ramji's precisional framing and lighting is what serves as the backbone for the VFX. The same can be said about Kola Bhaskar's editing as he painstakingly pieces together scenes that are heavily layered with CG work.

For a music director who's barely 3 films old scoring for this film could be a daunting task but Anirudh comes out triumphant with a great background score which doesn't let down the narration. Its a disappointment that a couple of Harris's songs don't have room in this 2 hour and 40 minute visual spectacle. 'Kanimozhiye' and 'Panangkalla' have come out well.

Irandam Ulagam, no doubt, is a movie made with lot of passion, courage and one which had demanded lot of effort from the filmmaking team. But Selvarghavan's idea of pure love may not necessarily find acceptance with everyone which results in the concept or the characters feeling emotionally detached from the audience. Also, the leisure paced screenplay and some character inconsistencies in the first half could add to the audience's restlessness.