O Kadhal Kanmani – Deep Dive
Cast : Dulquer Salmaan, Nithya Menon, Prakash Raj, Leela Samson, Ramya Subramaniam and more.
Editing :Â A. Sreekar Prasad
Music :Â A. R. Rahman
Cinematography :Â P. C. Sreeram
Written :Â Mani Ratnam
Direction :Â Mani Ratnam
Production :Â Madras Talkies
Distribution :Â Studio Green (Tamil) &Â Sri Venkateswara Creations (Telugu)
Thara, Aadhi, Ganapathy, Bhavani thats it. Just with 4 characters, the complete movie revolves around almost close to 2 and 1/2 hrs. Do you think its become a melodramatic?? No way at all.. Such a young, romantic movie which will never bore or drag you at any time. With a light heartened plot, with no big twist and turns, a slow journey of two characters, predictable ending, yet it make us to sit for 140 mins is not an easy task for sure..its all the Maniratnam’s way of handling love throughout the movie.
Title card, a gaming animation with title credits and a comic story in it, looks creative and later we come to know that film talks about a gamer and game takes an important role in the movie, thus the design with top the charts song ‘attakkara’ rap in background, a kind of welcome drink.
Even, Maniratnam can make a movie without rain but no Mani movie will never have atleast a scene connected to trains. They are so pinned and he is the one who introduced us the trendy train romance from 80s. Here, the very first scene in a railway station and lead pairs look each other in a gap of a fast moving train, though it resembles Alaipayuthey, its inevitable! Ofcourse PC and ARR lift the scene as usual to its level
From the beginning to end, a celebration of love, romance, youth, freshness, songs. At one point, close to climax, you will guess there is some arguements which will become a ego fight, but never, in the very next scene they will come to an agreement that they should never argue, fight, sentiments bla bla and then again high pitch romance pour in again with Theera Ula song.
Loop app song, a wonderful making where visuals shows itself, how the music has been made for this song. With loopy app in ipad, and dulquer cute expression for the BGM, nithyas bubbly smile, altogether a charming one. A song in a closed room, with stylish minimal choreo lift the song a level up. wait, its not over.. camera just revolves around the room in a pinky flavoured light, no words!!! specially the zoom-in angles when nithya jumps close to the camera, ‘just like that’ as in the song lyrics!
Humor touch along with the plot, then and there. “lodge la senthu thanga poromaa?? cha cha, aana oru room thaan irukku”, “You are Dead, chithappa innum oru life irukku” many to say and Bhavani characterisation, though a serious one, at times it helps for the humor in the movie.
Mental manathil, the song where we all become mental already by hearing in loop, has visuals in a different manner. Shaky camera with cut shots for the whole song as in the teaser. Though we blink eyes, a different attempt to say. One usually throw this shaky shots out of the movie, but here the top of the album, is completely shot in fast shaky frames.
Minimal dialogues are the notable unique in Maniratnam movies, but special in this flick is, he penned the dialogues himself. “Ena ketta enkenna theriyum” “Nee enga vena po, ana ena kalyanam Pannittu po”, are repetitive ones used in this flick. In the lead pair introduction dialogue conversation, the flip flop minmal words, are truly realistic one though its too long.
A little disappointment in regards to one of the song is ‘Naane Varugirane’ a master-piece song which will not come as a full song, also only a short bit. Yes already a carnatic song in the album where it get inserted at the right place, and this song interlude ‘Chinnanchiru ragasiyame’ a very crucial lyric for the plot of the movie which comes twice in the movie.
AR Ameen Maula song, it created expectation already to know how that song fit in this romance movie. He has framed a beautiful scene for that by showcasing a architecture heighness of a castle, the place where snegithane song shot in alaipayuthey, here they show the architecture beauty inside it, with such a awesome camera angles and lighting with moula song as BGM.
Gaming, its takes an important part in the movie. A game project is assigned to dulquer with the deadline of 6 weeks, which also becomes the cutoff time to say his inner love to his pair. A demo at the middle of game project, where he put his boss itself as villain and there the animation is little unrealistic as it is in the production state before completion and once the project over, when they show the final output, which is so attractive and attakkara bgm, goosebumps to the core. There the time comes to realise his love which completely filled in his hearts.
Dulquer and Nithya, a perfect selection in casting. Both compete well each other. After the pair made an agreement of not to fight or senti dialogues at one point of time, nithya’s expressions of wanting him by pretending oppositly, her anger and scream, realistic to say in terms, at the same time, dulquer freak out towards the end, it didnt look he is acting at the scene rather seems like we see it directly.
Maniratnam, one straight question to ask, are you really close to 60? Cant believe-in by seeing such a youthful execution of a romantic flick which shows the realistic relationships which prevails now a days among youths. After his successive low rated movies in recent times, he wanted to comeback by playing safely with his well-known area of love theme with tweaked plots of his own movie which makes no-doubt about the HIT. He has taken his Alaipayuthy, added some fresh trending moments of present day youths with the plot of live-in relationships to present it as OK Kanmani.
