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Shahran Sunny Audit
PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 3:57 pm 
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Location: London, UK
I had the exclusive privilege to watch this film last night at an undisclosed cinema hall right here in UK: London, and man this film rocked from start to finish!!

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The story begins with two friends. Chitthan (Vikram) who works as an undertaker in a graveyard and his close mate Shakthivel (Surya). When Shakthivel takes an interest to a young girl his close mate becomes possessive. It is this which brings the story to a point that goes beyond whatever was seen on Indian screen beforehand...and trust me the excellent ending is one that threw me off guard and had me thinking for a while!

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The film is directed by Bala who was responsible for Sethu (remade as Tere Naam) and Nanda (to be remade in Hindi). Both of these Tamil films are already regarded as masterpieces and are reminiscent of the Salim-Javed films of the 1970's. PITAMAGAN concludes the trilogy of films that look at the Indian man's condition of desolation, anger and frustrated sexuality. The themes are very controversial, and are tackled in a pure, harsh and simple-like manner.

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The technical values are splendid considering it was shot on a low budget with stedicam shots to rival Hollywood cinema. Performance was also quite breath-taking with both actor’s Vikram and Suyra shining in their roles. But for me the true winner of this movie is the film-maker Bala, who is already being tipped as the 21st don of Indian cinema. His controversial storylines can be too deeming for Indian cinema goers…but that does not worry the film-maker. He has shown on his pervious films a mother who in cold blood kills her own son, a hero beating women up casually, a rapist getting circumcised and racism between North and South Indian's. He doesn’t show this to be controversial; he shows it to tell the stories of the dark side of the human race.

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For me this has to be the best film I have seen this year, even topping world cinema masterpieces like City of God, Lace & even Kill Bill. When this one comes on DVD, with English Subtitles I strongly recommend you buy it and watch it in the dark with no-one around to disturb you….

The film will not be on cinema in the UK but it goes on general release in India on Tue 28th

The DVD will be out in Jan 04 and will be released by Tamilini in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, Dolby 5.1 and DTS track with English, Spanish and Telugu Subtitles.

Click Here to visit the website of the film.



Edited By Shahran Sunny Audit on 1066841353
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 7:23 pm 
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Shahran Sunny Audit wrote:
The DVD will be out in Jan 04 and will be released by Tamilini in 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen, Dolby 5.1 and DTS track with English, Spanish and Telugu Subtitles.

1.85:1? That's odd for a major release.
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Zoran009
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 7:28 pm 
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Supposedly SADMA was 1.85: 1 and Monsoon Wedding too..
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Aarkayne
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PostPosted: Wed Oct 22, 2003 8:59 pm 
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On the strength of the raves of various people on this forum I rented the SETHU dvd and watched it in the original Tamil. Man was I disappointed to say the least. The subtitling was not all that great. The acting was loud. There were plenty of commercial elements thrown in such as songs for no apparent reason. The heroine was weepy, screechy and irritating - if one was to be kind to her acting prowess. Vikram is extremely overrated. I cannot imagine him beyond roles such as these, his talent will certainly restrict him.

It was a film that had its technical moments but the dialogue and premise were pretty wanting to say the least. I am amazed this film maker (Bala) is touted as the '21st century don' of Indian cinema. By who and where may I ask?

Since everyone is welcome to their own opinions, I would really say at this point that at best Bala makes extremely melodramatic movies(of which I have seen only one) and to add to woes he mixes it up with the desolate subjects he chooses. But then it is a matter of personal preference and in a nutshell my own 2 cents worth.



Edited By Aarkayne on 1066856420
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Shahran Sunny Audit
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 3:59 am 
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Location: London, UK
I admit that the DVD of Sethu is badly translated on Pyramid DVD, but I still think its a great film...Vikram's character is intentionally loud and violent so naturally the film has to show this. Also the heroine is from a strict orthodox Brahmin family and this is visually showed by making the heroine unexposed to the world, which results in her irrational behaviour and her emotionally overloaded cries.

Songs in Sethu are situational, and are importantly placed at the right moments to express the character views (you sure you saw the right film as it seems to me like you was talking about Tera Naam).

I don't agree with you that the Sethu is melodramatic. That is defined by the likes of films like K3G, Priyamana Thozhi and Bhagban. Also watch Sethu without subtitles, it says a hell lot more then you expect.

I believe Bala to be one of the best contemporary commercial director's in Indian cinema, and this is also said by many important players in Indian cinema from Boney Kapoor, Andoor Gopalkrishanan and Mani Ratnam, from their comments on both Sethu and Naandha. From these positive comments, and more importantly my own feelings on his work, I would safely place him as the 21st Don.
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Aarkayne
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 1:41 pm 
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Shahran Sunny Audit wrote:
I believe Bala to be one of the best contemporary commercial director's in Indian cinema....

Hmmm....a trifle early to pass such a sweeping judgement, dont you think...he's what 3-4 films old? Mani Ratnam, Ram Gopal Verma being in that league is understandable.....personally I would wait till he has explored some of the other genres as well before passing such a decree....although I am glad his films worked for you....unfortunately they have not yet for me....also is there a dvd of NAANDHA available as well...i must check that out too...now that my curiousity has been piqued....



Edited By Aarkayne on 1066916532
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bhaskar
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 3:11 pm 
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There is an Ayngaran DVD of Nandhaa available - typical Ayngaran quality. And I agree - I wouldn't call Bala God's gift to cinema just yet.....
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Shahran Sunny Audit
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PostPosted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 10:27 pm 
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Location: London, UK
Wait till you see this film...

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Love those stills, and the marketing campaign has already upset a lot of people...particularly kids and families...



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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 7:11 am 
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I saw this tonight and found it to be frustrating. Bala puts in noncommercial elements (brutal violence, no songs except in the background) and commercial elements (the long scene with Simran) and the film does justice to neither sensibility.

It took way too long to get to the main story. Not until well after intermission does it get really interesting. There is this rather strange and pointless scene with Simran playing herself. Surya and Vikram sort of kidnap her and she and Surya dance and lipsynch to old Tamil film songs. This goes on for a long time and gets tiresome quickly.

The villain (who looks a lot like an older Sivaji Ganesan) is not very menacing since we do not see him that much, and is the
standard cookie cutter rich evil villain. Not very interesting.

The performances are good. Vikram mostly grunts and growls throughout the film, but it never became over-gimmicky for me. The fact that Vikram's character can't ever be stopped in a fight made the fight scenes less tense. I like there to be some sense of danger in fight scenes. And why don't these bad guys ever use guns? Whoever dubbed Laila's voice had an annoying high-pitched squeaky voice.

I'm not a huge fan of Ilayaraja, and this film didn't change my mind. The background songs are okay, though I liked the post-intermission montage song. The sequence itself is the typical montage of the characters having fun. The background score has its moments.

The cinematography is very good. The theater displayed it at about 2.35:1, but I didn't notice the typical "anamorphic breathing" artifact when the focus was racked. Also, the it was played in mono. I didn't stick around to see if there was a DTS or DD logo in the credits, but one of the theater managers told me it didn't have a DD track, despite the showing of a DD logo before the film. The logo didn't play with digital sound, oddly enough.

This wasn't a horrible film, but not outstanding IMO. Judging from this film I'm not going to rush out to rent Sethu.
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spike86
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:45 pm 
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DragunR2 wrote:
Whoever dubbed Laila's voice had an annoying high-pitched squeaky voice.


Probably the same lady who did Meera Jasmine's voice in RUN. She had a horrible high pitched voice throught out the movie.
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Aryan
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 5:39 am 
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Almost everytime I see Bollywood actresses in Tamil films, they have an annoying high-pitched dubbing artistes for them. In any case, a dubbed film will most likely never win an Oscar, as matching visual and aural performances takes very special care and artistry which indian sound designers have never, ever risen up to - not even H. Sridhar.
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 16, 2004 4:58 pm 
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DVD released from Tamilini:

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pillairaj
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 1:13 am 
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That's actually a pretty decent cover. Anyone seen the DVD? Comments?
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dredd
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 5:46 pm 
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Location: Paris, FRANCE
pillairaj wrote:
That's actually a pretty decent cover. Anyone seen the DVD? Comments?

The film is very good. Bala's camera is very good and the fight scenes are brutal and yet believable.
Perrformances wise its just excellent.
The dvd has good PQ with 16X9 Cinemascope and has pretty decent DD + DTS.

Could anyone tell if that old man with the long white beard in the prison is actually Bala cameoing??

Dredd



Edited By dredd on 1077040054
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DragunR2
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2004 7:17 pm 
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dredd wrote:
Could anyone tell if that old man with the long white beard in the prison is actually Bala cameoing??

I don't think so. Here's a picture of Bala:

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