Poliisi on ystävämme - Saamy.

Harva elokuva alkaa niin loistavalla esimerkillä kuin tamilinkielinen perusmasala Saamy (2003), jossa pätkän päähenkilö (Vikram) raahautuu aamulla kaljakioskiin, josta hän ostaa yhden ison pullon ohrapirtelöä ja pesee sillä naamansa ja hampaansa. Sitten hän haukkaa aamupalaa sekoittamalla kaljaa idleihinsä (eteläintialaisia riisikakkujuttuja) ja uhoaa erinäisille ihmisille. [Very few movies begin with such a great example as the Tamil basic masala Saamy, where the main character (Vikram) drags himself in the morning to a beer-seller, where he buys a big bottle of beer and washes his face and teeth with it. Then he grabs breakfast by mixing beer with his idlis and telling some people off.]

Hei suomalaiset, rappioalkoholismi toimii Tamil Nadussakin. Biisin jälkeen sankarimme uhittelee poliisille ja vetää paria kyttää aika reilustikin turpaan. Voin hyväksyä tämmöisen meiningin, kun tietää intialaisen poliisin kyseenalaisen maineen korruption petikumppanina. [Hey Finns, destructive alcoholism works in Tamil Nadu, too. After a song our hero defies the police and kicks a couple of cops' asses quite heavily. I'm fine with this sort of behavior, when one considers the questionable reputation of the Indian police as the bedmate of corruption.¹ ]

Valitettavasti alkukohtaukset ovat ovelaa harhautusta, eikä Saamy olekaan leffa katujentallaajasta, joka oikoo poliisin rivejä omankädenoikeudella. Saamy on sen sijaan uusi poliisipäällikkö tai vastaava, joka esitti tavista saadakseen ensikäden tietoa poliisin tekemisistä. Pian hän paljastaa oman identiteettinsä ja asettaa tiukat säännöt Tirunevelin kaupungille. Ja yllätys, homma toimii ihan loistavasti, kun kunnon mies vastaa asioista. [Unfortunately the beginning are a cleverly misleading, and Saamy is not a movie about an ordinary man of the street who corrects the police force with self-delivered justice. Instead Saamy is the new chief of police or something to that effect, who pretended to be an ordinary guy to get first-hand information about what the police were doing. Soon he reveals his identity and lays down the strict rules for the town of Tirunevel. And surprise, everything works perfectly, when a proper man is in charge.]

Paikallisen gangsterin/poliitikon/jonkun naaman kanssa sujuu alussa myös loistavasti, kun Saamy antaa hänelle liikkumatilaa laittomien baarien pitämisen suhteen; kunhan anniskelualueet eivät ole temppelin tai koulun vieressä, kaikki on ihan jees. Jossain vaiheessa suhde mutkistuu ja gangsterista muodostuu pahis, tietty, mitä sitä ennen on luvassa biisejä, romanttisia kuvioita ja tietysti pakollinen komediaraita. [Business with the local gangster/politician/whatever goes smoothly in the beginning, when Saamy gives him space with regards to running illegal booze joints; as long as the alcohol is kept away from temples and schools, everything is fine. At some point the relationship gets more complex and the gangster turns out to be a villain, of course, but before that there are songs, romantic happenings² and of course the obligatory comedy track.]

Komediasta vastaa harvinaisen loistava Vivek. Hän esittää pappia, joka näkee kaikenlaisia yhteiskunnallisia vääryyksiä ympärillään, eikä pelkää protestoida, oli kyse sitten kastisyrjinnästä, virkamieskorruptiosta tai taikauskosta. Hauskaa, ovelaa ja saarnaavaa yht'aikaa! [The truly great Vivek is in charge of the comedy. He plays a pandit who sees all kinds of societal wrongs around him, and is not afraid to protest, whether it concerns caste discrimination, civil servant corruption or superstition. Funny, clever and sermonizing at the same time!]

Romanttisissa kommervenkeissä tapaamme Trishan, joka on eteläintialaisista sankarittarista tähän mennessä näkemäni perusteella ehdottomasti kuivin. Vaikka Trisha on ihan mukava joissain rooleissa, yleensä hän ei yksinkertaisesti liikuta puoleen eikä toiseen, ja siten aina toivoisi, että hän olisi vain leffoissa, joita en edes halua katsoa. Ihan söpöähän tämä juonikuvio elokuvassa oli, mutta aina välillä sitä vain pyöritteli peukaloitaan ja mietti, milloin Vivek tulisi taas saarnaamaan jostain jutusta. [In the romantic side of the plot we meet Trisha, who is out of the South-Indian heroines that I've seen so far the least interesting³. Even though she's quite nice is in some roles, usually she simply doesn't move me either way, and therefore I findm yself wishing she'd only be in movies I wouldn't want to watch. The plot here is quite cute, but at times I'd just twidle my thumbs and wonder when Vivek would come onto the screen again.]

Jos nyt vähän saan omaa sukupuoltani vähätellä, niin biisienhän takia muijat näissä leffoissa joskus on. Saamyn musiikkianti on aika menevää, vaikka lyriikat tuppaavatkin olemaan vain listoja erinäisistä asioista. Tamil on varmasti runollisempi kieli kun nämä sanoitukset onnistuvat kuvaamaan. [If I could undermine my own gender for a moment, then it has to be said that it's mostly for the songs that girls in these movies sometimes are. Saamy's musical offering is quite good, though the lyrics seem to only be lists of different things. I'm sure Tamil is a more poetic language than these lyrics manage to convey.]

Kaikin puolin mukiinmenevä toimintapätkähän Saamy on, ei käy kieltäminen. Vikram antaa tasaisen roolisuorituksen, Vivek loistaa, ja juoni antaa juuri sopivasti paatosta. Silti aina välillä mietin, minkälainen leffasta olisi tullut, jos Vikramin esittämä Saamy ei olisikaan ollut roistojen keinoja käyttävä, poliisivoimia puhdistava kyttä, vaan ankaramman puolen, alkoholiin sortuva kadunmies. Erilainen elokuva, ja ehkä, surullista kyllä, parempi elokuva. [Saamy is quite an adequate action flick, can't be denied. Vikram gives a steady performance, Vivek shines and the plot delivers just enough of pathos. At the same time I sometimes wonder, what the movie would've been like if Saamy hadn't been the rowdy-methods-using cop but the violent, alcoholist man of the street. A different movie, for sure, and maybe, as sad as it is to say, a better movie.]

---

Second bilingual review. Just as shoddy as the first one. My style in Finnish is so weird, ugh. Hate.

Notes:

- "Poliisi on ystävämme" - the police is our friend. Finnish readers may connect this to a song from the 90s..

- ¹ This is what I mean about my shoddy Finnish. I just develop these overly complex sentence structures that end up sounding ridiculous in both English & Finnish. Bedmate of corruption? But I kind of like how it sounds in Finnish, heh.
² Direct translation would be "romantic patterns".
³ Literally translates "dryest".

^{Once again, English translation is shoddy because I am laaazy.}

Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana - the one Siddharth film to rule them all.

Today I had the fortune of sitting down with some friends of mine and making them watch Nuvvostanante Nenoddantana, the Telugu super-hit from 2005. My friends have seen tens of Indian films by now, but I don't think any of the films they'd seen so far could have prepared them for what was coming: a wonderfully romantic, funny, visual, glorious masala film. I can't believe I haven't discussed it on this blog yet, so allow me to correct that now.

It's one that even some mostly-exclusively-Hindi-film-watching people have made the effort to seek out and watch, and I'm very glad about that. This film is just such a gem and very accessible to people who like Bollywood. NVNN (or NVNV as it's sometimes abbreviated) takes its influences from Bollywood classics, such as DDLJ or Maine Pyaar Kiya, after all.

So the story is what you can imagine, based on the influences; rich NRI boy Santosh (Siddharth) returns to India for a wedding of a childhood friend, whose best friend is Siri, a girl of good heart but modest wealth (Trisha). He's wild and flirty and gets on her nerves, but of course, they end up falling in love anyway. As beautiful and strong as their love is, it still faces the challenge of convincing her brother (Srihari) that the NRI boy is good enough for his precious younger sister.

Of course, it goes without saying that the above plot description is extremely "bare bones". There is, in fact, a great amount of detail woven into the otherwise stereotypical masala script. The reason why the brother feels discontent towards rich people, for example, is demonstrated in the beginning of the film. That's not to say everything is incredibly original, but something about the script is so thought-through that it works splendidly.

Santosh at the beginning of the film is what some people would call annoying, what I call hilarious and what could be described as "kid on an extreme sugar high". He's hyperactive, playful, loud, and I suppose his shows of physical affection are meant to highlight the fact he's "westernized". Nevertheless, I loved him from the get go. The love story develops believably, there's mischief but also a lot of sweetness, as the two get to know each other.

The film's general tone might be over-the-top with the comedy on the first half, but I adore it, and I continue adoring it when it smooths over and we get the more somber but still entertaining second half. My friends scoffed a little at the idea that a love that blossomed in 15 days may be so strong as to endure the trials placed on it on the second half, but these are the kind of masala premises you have to buy into. If you do, you're rewarded with a great movie.

Ostrich pants - when I knew I would love this film like nothing else.

What helps make the story a great ride is the amazing way the film is shot. To everybody and anybody who is perhaps tired of seeing foreign (as in, non-Indian) locales in your Indian films, you need to watch Southie films! The loving way Venu Gopal (if I'm to believe the back of the DVD box) has shot the countryside of India is worth noting. The songs, the costumes, just pretty much all the visuals, are lovely.

Which brings us to...

The music. Seeing as how this film is directed by a man whose name is synonymous with dance, it's no wonder it feels like the whole movie is in a way choreographed, danced more than it is acted. What struck me about Siddharth as an actor in this movie, and why I became a fan, was the physicality of the role (and I know that sounds like a pretentious thing to say about a masala entertainer but hear me out). He's a great dancer, and that shows, when he plays the physical comedy scenes, the hyperactive energy Santosh has on the first half, but also the more serious determinence we see in the character on the first half. The choreographies in the film are so wonderful, as well, intricate and imaginative.

Rewatching NVNN really makes me want to see Wanted, Prabhu Deva's Hindi directional debut. This man is capable of good things, so much is clear, but I'm really psyched about seeing whether he infuses a more straight-forward action flick with a touch of choreography, as he did with NVNN and its masala format.

And once again let me remind you that Prakash Ra-- I mean, Prakash Dad is in this movie. And while I think his later Dad roles have been more exceptional, this one stands as a damned classic Prakash Dad performance. Everybody needs a dose of Prakash Dad every once in a while.

I know not everybody is going to love this movie but it's definitely a special one, for me personally, but as I understand it, also in the history of Telugu cinema. This film brought life to the industry, giving it new talent, new energy, new gloss. A breath of fresh air. I won't argue whether Tollywood needed that, I'll simply say that I'm happy this film exists. So very happy.

Bheema; vigilante justice was never this boring!

Oh, Bheema. I waited for you so long, through all the delays and the set-backs. I knew I should keep my expectations low - you would not amount to anything more than an average Tamil action masala. "But," I kept thinking, "I like those, don't I? And this one has Vikram, and Prakash Raj, and Trisha looking lovely. Surely that's got to count for something, right?"

And so finally you arrived, without much notice, and I began watching. And stopped. And tried continuing. And stopped. And like this, little by little, I progressed until I finally tied myself down for the last hour or so.

Bheema, like so many Tamil films, is a tale of men. Women are a footnote, the kind you merely skim through. The most central relationship is between gangster Chinna (Prakash Raj) and his bodyguard/goon Sekar (Vikram), who first saw Chinna as a kid, and has since then aspired to be the kind of Man with a capital M that Chinna is. It's a kind of a manly love story - one of admiration, devotion as well as friendship. Law-abiding is not an option in their world; the police are corrupt and useless to the extreme.

Of course, Chinna's gang uses violence to punish those that go unpunished by the police - the true wrongdoers. And so very have truckloads of film violence, Sekar being a badass extraordinaire, the director trying to inject emphasis with annoying computer effects and way too many stylized shots and of course, the joke of a romantic storyline between Trisha's character and Sekar.

There's no reason why she falls in love with Sekar and then stalks him here and there. She fully understands he's one rude, dangerous feller (with admittedly rather nice looks & physique) who couldn't give two craps about her, and yet she bugs him until the magical moment when he against all reason suddenly likes her a lot, too. The song sequences are glorious visually, and if I focus hard to forget about the actual "love story", I enjoy them a lot. In general, though? Meh.

I remain a fan of Prakash Raj but when the storyline is as much a mixed bag as this film's was, there's not much even fine actors can do with it. There is always the occasional convincing moment but I just didn't care enough for the characters, or their cause. Even the most fantastically choreographed fight scenes made me shrug and check the time stamp - how much of this film did I have left to view..

But maybe I'm being harsh, maybe I just needed to get into the good ol' action masala mood, maybe there was a scene I missed because I was busy filing my nails or something. Or maybe my evaluation is completely correct, and this is just one of those tragic low points in Vikram's career; the kind where you agree to do films beneath you even though just about everybody knows you can do better.

And if nothing else, I quite enjoyed the "Siru paarvayalae" song, a historical picturization where for no reason whatsoever Vikram gets captured in various settings and Trisha dances and then releases him and yet nobody tries to recapture him. There's no logic, but who needs logic when you can have the pretty? Here's the song on YouTube.