'Ponniyin Selvan: I' movie review: Calm down, Mani sir

Ponniyin Selvan IDir Mani RatnamCast Karthi Vikram Jayam RaviRating 155This film traverses breathlessly at breakneck speed between way too many scenes and setpieces mdash from horses in battle armada on high seas to swashbuckling swordfights mdash without a second for any kinda staging of emotions whatsoeverThe audience isnrsquot supposed to simply soak in the stuff on screen So much so that you begin to believe after a point that maybe a lot of footage has been lost and the movie has been stitched together with only the highpoints left overEither that Or the filmmakers are totally unable to contain the enthusiasm for the material at hand They devote themselves entirely therefore to simply cover page after page of the original text Remaining in turn far too faithful to the book this film is adapted from God knows that hardly ever works mdash take Midnightrsquos Children the film for the most popular literary instanceThe eponymous novel wersquore referring to here is Kalki Krishnamurthyrsquos periodhistorical fiction from the 1950s Irsquom told Ponniyin Selvan is a classic in Tamil literature also household text for those familiar with the language Not me evidently As a viewer that makes me someone who might be clueless about say Mahabharat before watching it first time on And that makes contextsetting on the part of filmmakers all the more essentialAlso ReadBTS stars Pratiksha Prashant reveals what went behind making Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Trishas jewellery for Ponniyin SelvanIt doesnrsquot help that you first hear the name Ponniyin Selvan itself I guess only in the final quarter of the film Itrsquos the nickname for the younger prince of Chola kingdom Arulmozhi Jayam Ravi and hersquos been around all through The parts with the elder prince Karikalan Vikram seem more engaging but theyrsquore too few and far betweenBoth these warrior princes are fighting random battles in two different parts of the world while a conspiracy to take over the kingdom by the secondlevel elites is being hatched in another partThe fine king Prakash Raj is clearly chilling back home Yet itrsquos not that the film is centred on these characters as much as a soldierspy Vandiyadevan Karthi hanging with a useless sidekick asked to warn the king of his throne slipping awayBetween folks mentioned above and indeed the princess queen treasurer his wife Aishwarya Rai Bachchan the commanderinchief and so many others that the movie goes back and forth with mdash what do you really make of the first part of Ponniyin Selvam shortened to PS1 Very little beyond the fact that soon as you settle into a characterscenescenario the movie simply moves onMaking this along with Mani Ratnamrsquos Kadal 2013 and Raavan 2010 before that the hardest for me to penetrate as an audience Katru Veliyidai 2017 was of course another crappytoxic story altogetherRatnam is at his best as was mostly the case in the rsquo90s and early noughties when he keeps it straight and simple mdash as with OK Kanmani 2015 more recently Same with his partnering composer AR Rahman PS1 is credited as an lsquoAR Rahman Musicalrsquo Doesnrsquot bode well that I have not a single tune even casually buzzing in my head from it I know you need to hear ARR songs a few times before passing comment Would I Donrsquot knowAnd yet it hardly takes a keen eye to observelaud the effort put into this visually captivating canvas mdash in terms of locations lighting VFX production design scale basically Itrsquod be unfair to summarily dismiss PS1 as BS1 and get on with it You do a doubletake sometimes and look up alright mdash especially the combat sequences with Ravi Varmanrsquos camera pacing through crowds with actors in sharp close up faces covering the giant fullscreenThe only time the camera does calm down for a bit is to admire the beauty of actor Aishwarya Rai Bachchan No complaints there as she opens an electronicallyoperated door to the Chola Dynasty treasures of late 10th centuryOnly therersquos hardly much in that part either as of the others to glue you to what happens next Maybe the story is just not leaping off the pages as it should Or perhaps a lot of the prosepoetry of this picture is lost in translation mdash and that I watched the version dubbed in HindiAlso to let you in on an unnecessary detail I kinda watched Ponniyin Selvan twice backtoback First day first show at 830 am that I was late for so I missed the first ten minutes and couldnrsquot tell anything of what was going onI snoozed through that show to start again right after at noon And couldnrsquot tell so much of whatrsquos going on still Only relieved once the doublebill ended with the announcement of the filmrsquos sequel slated for 2023 Watching PS2 as intently of course would be victory of hope over experience Unless I decide to read the book this time on mdash but then whatrsquos the point SelvanAlso Read Raju Srivastavas daughter pens a note to Amitabh Bachchan