Wounded by cupid's arrow - Tamil cinema

Mythology believes that cupid can create love between two people, irrespective of their differences. But it seems that our cinema has been in love with love itself for more than 100 years. As per 2010, India ranks first in annual film output, followed by Nollywood, Hollywood and China. We create nearly a 1000 films per year. Now how many out of those doesn’t have a love track in it? At least half? Is it a rule that each and every protagonist should have a love interest? Well, don’t mistake me; I am aware of love’s part in an earthling’s life,

“To be wise and love, Exceeds man’s might”

                                                              -William Shakespeare

I just doubt if it is needed every time for a 3 hours reflection of someone’s life.Beware, we not talking about the love/romantic films here, we are discussing about the other genre films which have a love track thrust upon them. I am not the kind of guy who struggles in the crowd to get a ticket for any of the ‘Khan’s’ film. So, I’ll just stick to kollywood now. For the amount of films we make, we must have experimented with a huge variety of genres by now. We had made some, yes, I am just claiming that it’s not enough. One cannot forget the impact of Soodhu kavvum or Oonayum aatukuttiyum in our cine field. Soodhu kavvum too had a minute love track, but an entirely different one.And it didn’t look eerie, it just went on with the story. And there are some films where the entire plot is built upon love albeit not being a romantic film –like khaka khaka or Naan sigapu manithan.We are not talking about them either, for they have the right to have the golden arrow by their side.

Directors of this era, have an entirely new and different vision. They are brave enough to experiment and wise enough to make it succeed. Yet, despite the perfectly worked screenplay, sometimes the audience gets bored and the smell of cigarettes gets the better of them. As far as we know, this happens mainly when an unwanted love song or sequence interrupts.

For instance take Sathuranga vettai, a perfectly sculptured tale of a con man.And despite the fresh fable, there comes an outdated, old-fashioned love story, which takes us back to the 90’s. One can argue that the protagonist character arc happens only because of his wife. But, it can be done in many other ways or they could have made it more interesting, just like the other parts of the movie. But here it’s like ‘Who cares, a love interest is a must for the hero, so just fill the space with something’. It's the same problem with Kaththi,a good commercial film with a wonderful social message. There is also a heroine – played by Samantha who despite her acting skills is just used as a mannequin in all the frames except in the songs .Some argue that they are inserted to entertain the c-class audience (I really have no idea about what they mean by that). If so,why can’t they work on it like they do in the other parts?

Even Director Shankar has to make adjustments his high-class stories to suit the needs of the so-called c-class audience. Remember the mosquito chasing scene in Enthiran and the graphic flowers in Anniyan? But, still there are some creators who are strong enough to make only what they need. Like Balaji tharaneetharan (Naduvula konjam pakkatha kaanom), who decided not to shoot the ‘Crazy minnal’ song (sung beautifully by Andrea Jeremiah) even after it became a hit on internet, just because he felt that it would deviate the story from friendship.

 We are on an entirely new age of cinema. From color to concept, many things have changed in these 100 years. Now it’s time, to change another, to take some risks and to break the myth. We are not saying that we don’t need a love track; we just don’t want it unnecessarily.  Audience today, of all classes wishes for something fresh, so risk it. Some have already started, let’s hope everyone changes. After all, who will cherish to spoil or impair his/her own creation?