Great: Punnagai Mannan (1986)

Punnagai Mannan is a little hard to describe.  It begins as a tragic love story (for about fifteen minutes), and then switches relatively fluently into a clean, entertaining romantic story that is far more lighthearted.  If you read the storyline and are expecting a more offbeat film, you should know that this film is more of an entertainer with the requisite (but well done) formula of songs and comedy.  What sets it apart, though, is that it also has (mostly) good direction, good characters, and great acting.  There’s a full two hours to enjoy here, but unfortunately my final impression of the film is bogged down by the contrived ending which completely disrupts the tone of the entire film.  But let’s leave the criticism for later – first, I want to focus on the good side of this movie.  So let’s describe the plot:

The film starts with Kamal’s character, Sethu, and a girl named Ranjini who are passionately in love, but without the consent of their parents.  They meet together at a waterfall to commit suicide, as they cannot be together in this life.  However, Kamal accidentally survives and must live with the pain of Ranjini’s loss.  One would be forgiven if they assumed that the film would be a depressing one, based on this opening.  But actually, the rest of the movie (except the end) is much lighter, and focuses on the romance between Sethu, who is now a dance teacher, and one of his new students (Malini, played by Revathy) whose life, by chance, he saves.  He isn’t ready to move past his old lover at first, but slowly, he begins to appreciate her.

The star-crossed lover story at the beginning has been told better in a few minutes than some entire movies have tried to do.  It is K. Balachander at his best.  The rest of the movie doesn’t try to match the emotion of the opening.  From then on, the movie becomes a gentler romantic comedy-drama, and that’s fine, since it does the job extremely well.  The interactions of Sethu and Malini are charming, and Kamal and Revathy have rendered the quirks of their characters perfectly.  But the spark of the film comes from the superb chemistry between them.  And I don’t just mean their chemistry as budding lovers.  I also mean Kamal’s double role as his own uncle – the interactions between the uncle and Revathy are just as enjoyable, in a different way.

One could say that the film is simply about two people falling in love just like many others, but the key difference is the kind of approach Balachander takes.  For example, take the scene where Malini prays at Ranjini’s shrine for her to give her blessings to Sethu and Malini’s new love – this kind of poignant, understated scene just isn’t found in the brash love stories that are easily churned out every year.  There is also some very nice dialogues in the movie that have a natural bent without any excess melodrama.  The most significant example is Sethu’s final admission to Malini of his love for her.  It’s the culmination of many, many scenes between them, but Balachander keeps the script very concise and gentle.  I have to say, though, when Sethu confesses almost entirely in Tamil, but suddenly switches to English to say “I love you”, it feels a little forced, and that is a problem with all the English dialogue in this film.

The music in the film is excellent.  Ilaiyaraja has provided a consistently enjoyable soundtrack.  Since this film follows the entertainer formula, there are quite a few songs, but they aren’t just strewn about randomly.  They appear in moments where they can accentuate a particular point, and never feel forced.  An on-stage dance duet with Kamal and Revathy is a highlight – I just loved watching their synchronized, charmingly old-fashioned dance.  My other favourite song is “Vaan Megam”, which so charmingly communicates Malini’s joy after the above mentioned confession.

Now, I’ve been praising this movie for a while now, so it’s time I get to the main complaint.  In the film, a conflict eventually surfaces that once again prevents Sethu from pursuing his love – this time with Malini.  This would be a perfect chance to show how Sethu chooses not to make the same mistake twice, and chooses a different path from suicide.  And to some extent, the film does follow that, and it could have ended immediately after.  But then the strangest thing happens.  Suddenly, in the last 5 minutes, everything the movie had built up to is thrown away, and we get a contrived tragedy that is so sudden and so contrary to the build-up of the movie that it feels tacked on for no reason.  It was extremely disappointing, to say the least, and I cannot imagine what Balachander was thinking.  This seems to be a movie that begs for “light at the end of the tunnel”.

So why am I still saying Punnagai Mannan is “great” regardless of that?  Because in my opinion, the middle section of the film is a very great representation of how to do an entertainer right, providing maximum enjoyment without insulting the audience’s intelligence either.  The opening, of course, is much more tense and dramatic, but the film is able to shift its tone without feeling like two films glued together.  The comedy is clean and worked into the story with no comedy “track”, the characters are charming, the songs are lovely and well-placed in the film, and there are thankfully almost zero action/fight scenes.  It’s unfortunate that such a nice film had to have such a poorly devised ending, but such things can’t be helped.  Just make sure you aren’t going in expecting a different kind of film, based on the descriptions.