Karthi and Trisha in a nonetheless from ‘Ponniyin Selvan 2’
| Photo Credit: Tips Tamil/YouTube
Here’s a secret. The trick to take a look at the 2 elements of Ponniyin Selvan, to get pleasure from it as you have been meant to, is to see them as one complete natural unit — one movie — with just a few months as an interval. It offers you the massive image, the true magnum opus nature of Mani Ratnam’s newest. Of course, this was a revelation from a cheerful accident, a realisation when you’ve watched Ponniyin Selvan: 1 for the primary time lower than 12 hours earlier than watching Ponniyin Selvan: 2.
That’s when you realise and recognise the spirit with a sure vitality that powers by means of your entire movie, linking its two halves, one thing inconceivable to understand except you watch the 2 elements collectively. As an natural complete, the movie accommodates in itself, in elements, humour, valour, struggle, gore, magnificence, love, palace intrigue, an assassination, a fancy plot, betrayal, a well-played solid (well-deserved credit score to Vikram, Jayaram and Karthi for sterling performances, however it may very well be agreed with out a lot violence that just about everybody did a superb job), espionage, music like a trance, the cinematography of Ravi Varman, and breathtaking locales.
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Think of it this fashion: it is one impossibly lengthy shot of a movie, actually, not a sequel within the sense we have now come to know it. Not one thing that needn’t have been made, not one thing the primary half might have finished with out, not one thing that occurs on one other aircraft. But it is the completion of the movie, the Yang to the Ying of Part One and subsequently, one wonderful complete. Then the pluses of the primary movie compensate for the perceived minuses of the second (although the soundtrack is riveting and lends to the grandeur, should you noticed PS: 2 as a sequel, you’d be left considering A.R. Rahman wasn’t given as a lot play as within the first.)
To see the 2 movies, PS: 1 and PS: 2, one after the opposite, in that order, is the one means you will get the total image, but in addition its expanse, the epic narration, benefit from the music, perceive the plot line, the sub-plots, the historical past and context, that are all necessary.
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Of course, it’s Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, impressed by Kalki’s novel of the identical title, however that’s all proper. Even as a rabid, almost life-long fan of Kalki’s historic fiction, it is okay as a result of the movie works so effectively, tying up all of the free ends in neat little packages. The totally different strands it has launched are segmented and accomplished with finesse by the point the movie ends, with out ambiguities and never a lot left for the viewer to interpret, whereas historical past itself (and Kalki) depart some parts open-ended.
True, it ignores or bypasses a number of key strands, developments that cement Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan, and that is nonetheless okay as a result of it doesn’t look like the betrayal one assumed it could be. That is as a result of Mani Ratnam’s craft is skilful; it picks strands off Kalki, and with these strands, pleats a phenomenal garland that looks as if a phenomenal complete for the viewer. There’s a ripeness there, and that ripeness is all.
Vikram and Aishwarya Rai in a nonetheless from ‘Ponniyin Selvan’
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
For one who is additionally a reader, there’s sufficient assurance right here to understand a magnum opus. And should you haven’t learn the e-book but, do return and browse it, all 5 volumes of it. There’s a masterpiece in retailer after all, however right here’s to betting that studying the e-book offers you a way of how robust the duty of rendering the epic right into a movie was, why it didn’t get off the bottom twice earlier than even with the very best of intentions, and consequently, a better appreciation of the movie itself.
