Seethakathi is a
semi-satirical film about Tamil cinema and an endearing drama about stage plays
and stage performers. It attempts to show that stage is losing its prominence
and the struggles stage plays go through amidst other forms such as cinema and
digital entertainment. There is a scene where this is beautifully potrayed.
Vijay Sethupathi as Ayya returns home in an auto rickshaw, taking in the sights
of malls, people taking selfies, teenagers addicted to their phones and men
crowding around Tasmac shop.
Vijay as Ayya
Adhimoolam stuns us with his versatility as we see him play a variety of
characters over a period of few decades in fleeting shots. There is a 8-minute lengthy
scene (filmed in a single shot) by Vijay sethupathi essaying the role of
Aurangzeb with gravitas, making us realise his love and respect for art.
While talking to
the other stage artistes, VJS asks one of them, “naalaiku ready ah?”
For which, the other guy replies “neenga solli kodutha maathiriye paniduven ayya.”
And VJS, “naan sollikodutha maathiriye panrathuku nee yethuku? Neeye pannu.”
Just like the
first few wonderful minutes of the film, the positive points about the film in
this write-up might end here. If Seethakathi is a stock market, the 25th
minute is the exit point. This isn’t Vijay Sethupathi’s 25th film,
more like Vijay Sethupathi’s 25-min film. The film that majorly discusses and
jokes about incompetent actors and the kind of films being produced recently, on
its own, does the same thing to the audience- betrays us by advertising
Seethakati as a Vijay Sethupathi film.
The Hindu
newspaper writes,
//Seethakathi is
structured in a unique style; it starts off slowly and picks up only after a
while. It takes some time getting used to the pace, and for an impatient
audience, this might come across as a downer//
We are already
dealing with the betrayal by the promotion of Seethakathi as VJS film and now
the label ‘impatient’. There is a huge difference between merely
boring slow films and contemplative cinema, unfortunately both bear the label
of ‘slow cinema’. I still remember as a 6-year-old child watching Balu Mahendra’s
‘veedu’ and crying my heart out whenever they showed the grandpa’s
character. When I watched ‘sila
nerangalil’ in Netflix, a film about AIDS awareness, I wept for Prakash Raj’s
character. The 2-hour- film ‘merku thodarchi malai’ displayed the daily struggles
of villagers in the most convincing way even though the pace of the film was
slow.
All these films are contemplative cinema and
not slow cinema. It is reflective. It guides us through a strong narrative as
though an angel is holding our hands, making us beautifully float through the
aisle in a magnificent church.
Here, in
Seethakathi, there is no character that we are emotionally invested in. There
are some good performers like Archana (Ayya’s wife) and Mouli (Ayya’s stage
coordinator) and producer-actor (Sunil). But none of them allowed us to be in
their world. The connection between the audience and the story being told on
screen further drifted away once we realise that Vijay Sethupathi isn’t going
to be in the story anymore.
In this film, there is no sutble or great ambience.
Even the film shooting spots shown, aren’t value-adding to the story. There
aren’t any layers for us to feel. Template comedy genre like ‘enna aachu enaku’
and ‘ppppahh’ was tried in this film, that didn’t work for me. Repetitively
saying ‘ma’ and an actor trying to show navarasam in one reaction didn’t evoke
any laughter.
The first 25
minutes are already at a pace for a different set of viewing and thus, as
audience, we are preparing ourselves for productive and convincing slowness for
the rest of the film, only to be let down by just merely boring slowness without
any conviction for doing so: its emotional effects, its ambient effects, and
its meditative effects, which are all unfortunately diluted by condensation
rather than for the story to be enhanced.
The film
emphasises that ‘kalaikum kalaignargalukum azhivey kidayaadu.’ (There is no end
to art form and artistes) But for god’s sake, a film needs one. The 475-minute
first half and 590-minute second half, are another enormously painful portion
of watching ‘Seethakati’.
While driving
home after watching the film, they played Malabar Golds and Diamonds shop radio
ad where Vijay Sethupathi kept promoting listeners to visit the shop.
And my mum looks at the radio,
“eppa mattum pesu. Paduthiley pesidaathey.”
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