Monday, December 25, 2006

"POI"eddddddddddddd

Ther r ways to kill time and bring oneself out of boredom, but I chose what was to be a disastrous way to kill time by deciding to watch a movie called "Poi" ..Ufff...Did I call it a movie?? It was worse than any of those Tv soaps that my Mum would be interested in.

It aint new to jack up expectations for a movie and take the audience for a wild ride through their extremely unrealistic whims and fancies, distressing satires and soporific dialogues. This movie tops my list as one of this kind. That it was from a much hyped director called Balachander talks volumes about the kind of cinema industry that we have. He could hav as well stopped with mentoring actors like rajni, kamal , prakash raj etc with his movies in 70's and 80's. It's disgusting to note that he still lives in the 70's and is only repeating his family dramas in variegated forms. In an era where a movie like Dhoom 2 is creating waves among the junta, Mr. Balachander needs to wake up and stand up to this level of competition and hone his directorial skills to match a few of his younger contemporaries.

For how long are we going to have movies with utterly jobless youths falling in love with lovely ladies . This movie is yet another run of the mill tam movie with a similar theme. It was after a long time that I had no option but to walk out of the theatre some 10 minutes after the interval. It had been such an emotional and financial drain :-(. Movie tickets in multiplexes do come with a price. The movie did make me take a resolution of not to venture into watching a movie without hearing the reviews, atleast in a multiplex.

Every alternate scene in the movie showcases Balachander as an imaginative figure who talks to the hero giving him tips to woo a girl and that impairs the tempo of the movie to the extent of feeling a gross hatred for the Man called "Balachander". For someone whose claimed to be the best in the art of extracting good performances, Balachander comes across as a highly unimpressive septagenarian with a white beard , with an accent that I had grown sick of. How often have I seen him speak like that, be it a movie or a serial. Add to that, the foul language that he uses to berate the hero everytime he flounders in his attempt to woo the girl just piles up the misery. A while later Prakashraj joins the party as one more imaginative character whose eloquence is only with Balachander. Prakashraj personifies destiny and presents a monstrous smile with no sound everytime there is a twist in the movie. Now fate is supposedly the villain in the movie. Balachander has used a sick white backdrop for all these scenes featuring him and prakashraj to distinguish the fictitious scenes of a fiction called "Poi"...Since the days of sridevi, in every movie of Balachander, there was an uncanny knack of projecting the heroine's eyes in an effort to convey a lot thru the eyes of the heroine. But, there's a limit to that and I guess there has already been an overdose of that in his previous movies and sadly there is more to it in this movie.

And this man does have a fascination for Hindi. The Heroine and one other trivial character using hindi words in the most unfashionable way is bound to create disgust among public. Words like "Ullu ka patta" are just not going to reach out to the audience as anything special and it will only help in this movie going down the history of tamil movies as one of the worst movies to have hit the screens.

The only positive if any about the movie, are it's songs. But then, You dont watch a movie for it's songs. I've been hearing to them on ma ipod for over two months now. The actors in the movie are beyond my scope of criticism. They are all too new to be criticized too soon.

I surely did need a cup of coffee after watching a sop like this. I started my enquiries on what is the climax of the movie to the guy at the coffee stall in the theatre. Much to my surprise and shock, he said the protaganists of the movie die..hahahah tats food for thought indeed. Until 10 mins after interval, they had not even started loving each other and finally end up ending their lives for each other...Funny....Silly old Man Balachander...It s hightime he contemplated retirement..