“Ungaluku horror na avalavu comedya pocha” is what one might feel watching ‘Pottu’.
There is nothing lazier in Tamil cinema these days than the horror comedy. An unintentional horror comedy. Considering this is Barath's Muthuramalingam, Pottu is supremely unimaginative on these accounts: it strongly believes that a mere imitation of a lady-like Kanchana character and Mottai Rajendran’s voice are legitimate add-on genres. The difference between Tekka and Chinna Thalapathy Barath is that one has a market, the other doesn’t. The heroines have no track record of phenomenal performances. The director/writer…I am not going to google to find out his name, has no idea of what he is filming. So what makes them think this film will sell? Why do they think people would be interested to watch this cinematic debris?
Blatantly disrespecting the fundamental art of storytelling, the first scene establishes there is a pei in Block B in a hospital. So that is going to attack everyone, someone is going to be killed, other than the audience. So this is basically a one-scene-film. The film that should have ended in the first scene itself, has extended itself to a 2-hour-comedy. But I am in, particularly to hear THAT famous dialogue.
Chinna thalapathy, our hero, is a 1st year medical college student, once again proving that ‘what a medical miracle’ will always sound comical. Hero, on his first day college, wearing the doctor’s white coat and a stethoscope enters the college. At the entrance gate, he bumps into his childhood friend, Biggboss fame Bharani who is also wearing a white coat. Every junior artiste walking at the background is also in their white coats. I wonder why the security guard at the gate isn’t wearing one?
Chinna thalapathy, our hero, is a 1st year medical college student, once again proving that ‘what a medical miracle’ will always sound comical. Hero, on his first day college, wearing the doctor’s white coat and a stethoscope enters the college. At the entrance gate, he bumps into his childhood friend, Biggboss fame Bharani who is also wearing a white coat. Every junior artiste walking at the background is also in their white coats. I wonder why the security guard at the gate isn’t wearing one?
There is a terrified-looking pei seated in the empty auditorium. Hero walks in, and very casually gets frightened and runs back shouting ‘pei’. The pei vanishes instantly like the film-maker’s IQ while making this film. The heroine thinks he is commenting on her and becomes angry. She looks at him and tells him, “Look at my curly hair treatment that I have been doing for 6 months. Look at my polished face , look at my lips, look at my well-trimmed eyebrow. And how dare you call me a pei?” For which the biggboss gate-jumper, Bharani, remarks, “Ippo-ellam pei mathiri make up podura thaan fashion ah?” The professor walks in and asks everyone to settle down.
So what happens to the pei, who is it? Why doesn’t the hero even bother to share it with anyone?
In another scene, the heroine’s friend says, “Nee oru nalla doctor aaganum na mortuary poiye thaan aganum.” Because the friend wants to help the heroine get rid of the fear of seeing dead bodies.
There are times when the director overemphasizes both the humour and the terror-This conversational exchange is one of those moments. But this chaos only reinforces that the hybrid genre, no matter how cinematically light-headed it feels, is mostly going to be unintentionally funny. Think about it. Even if you chuckle at the ghouls and cringe at the humans, you’d still technically be reacting to the binaries of a horror-comedy. So what if Pottu is disjointed and disoriented? At least it becomes a middling sum of accidental parts.
Here comes THAT dialogue which I was waiting to listen to. During one fight scene, a possessed Barath roars at the villains,
”Naalum Naalum Eightu, Vaikatuma un nethiyile pottu.”
It took me 8 minutes to be back to normal after a much-needed hearty laughter. Namitha is the mandiravaadhi who is there to chase away the pei. Throughout the film, she has only one facial expression- and that is as though she is stepping her right foot in a pool of erumai sani and a massive volume of pigeon shit has fallen on her hair. You know you walk past your neighbour’s house, takes a deep breath and mumble to yourself, “hey uncle is frying chicken wing I think.” That is exactly what Namitha does to spot a pei. She closes her eyes, inhales heavily, opens her eyes wide enough and screams, “Inga thaan iruku.”
The million dollar question- Who is Pottu? is answered in the flashback towards the end. Actress Iniya is lovingly called as Pottu amma by her clan and the group looks at her as their demi-god. The pei/aavi/aura gets into our hero’s body to save him from the villain group who kills people for the body parts. Since Barath has the same rare blood group as Pottu who hails from a tribal group, after her death, protects Barath. So whenever Barath is possessed, he becomes feminine like Kanchana Lawrence, wears nail polish, kolusu and depicts himself as Pottu.
If Iniya has a bigger size pottu, would the clan then be calling her
‘Periya amma’?
Periyamma is a unique film title though.
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