Is his magic waning?

Movie maker

A cardinal difference between Mani Ratnam and his contemporaries is that Mani has not gone through the grind of apprenticing under a senior director, something which is de rigeur for anyone aspiring to wield the director’s baton.

This management graduate with a producer father and two elder brothers who later forayed into film production, plunged into direction with a modest Kannada film, Pallavi Anupallavi banking on the expertise of his cameraman Balu Mahendra, then the best in the business. His next venture in Malayalam, Unaru, only received a lukewarm response at the box-office but Mani, full of beans and not lacking in confidence in any way, found his Tamil projects that came next, Pagal Nilavu and Mouna Ragam, especially the latter, faring much better as far as the audience reception was concerned. Mouna Ragam, a film featuring Mohan and Revathi, had nothing in it that revealed the makings of a master auteur which Mani would later become.

In 1987, Mani Ratnam stunned the audiences with his take on the life of the Don of Dharavi, the late Varadaraja Mudaliar, in Nayagan. This film, which achieved the distinction of being ranked among the top 100 films of all time by the American magazine Time, was clearly a tour de force in the director’s career. This distinction put him in the august company of two reputed Indian directors, Satyajit Ray and Guru Dutt, whose films too merited a place in the list. The film not only had a phenomenal run at the box-office, but also netted three national awards for Best Actor (Kamal Haasan), cinematography (P C Sriram) and Art Direction (Thota Tharani).

Mani then went on to enter Telugu cinema with Geetanjali, a family drama starring Nagarjuna, which fetched him a National Award for the Best Film. Mani’s tear-jerker Anjali, based on a story on the travails of an autistic girl child, came in the Year of the Girl Child and won acclaim from both the audiences and critics. Nayagan and Anjali had the distinction of representing the country in the Best Foreign Film category at the prestigious Oscar Awards. Agni Natchathiram, which dealt with urban angst too struck a chord with the audience, largely due to Ilaiyaraja’s foot tapping score and the innovative camera work of P C Sriram. Breezy romances like Alai Payuthe and Yuva have also figured among Mani’s oeuvres.

Unlike many of his peers who have preferred to play safe with the themes for their films, Mani has never shied away from choosing contemporary issues risking controversy. Iruvar, for instance, was based on the arch rivalry between the superstar of yesteryears, M G Ramachandran, and his friend-turned-foe, Karunanidhi. Hindi film Guru was a peek into the life and times of the famous industrialist Dhirubhai Ambani, whereas Kannathil Muthamittal, which tugged at the heartstrings of the viewers, had the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis for a backdrop. Bombay, which won the National Award for the Best Film on National Integration, touched on the controversial Mumbai riots, and his other films on terrorism, Roja and Dil Se, too were based on contemporary events.

Another path breaking effort from Mani was Thalapathi, which featured Rajinikanth and Mammooty in the lead roles, and here, Mani took a leaf from the Mahabharata with the abiding friendship between Duryodhana and Karna being the film’s leitmotif. Ravan too was loosely based on the Ramayana with Aishwarya Rai’s abduction being akin to Sita’s by the mythical Ravana.

One striking feature common to all Mani-directed films has been the quality of technical expertise that he has been able to bring on board. Cinematography has often been the piece de resistance in his films with P C Sriram cranking the camera for his earlier films like Mouna Ragam, Agni Natchathiram and Nayagan, Madhu Ambat (Anjali), Rajiv Menon (Bombay, Kadal) and Santosh Sivan (Ravan). His art directors too have represented the cream of talent and multiple national award winning editor Sreekar Prasad has inevitably been in charge of editing.

Music has always been an integral part of all his films and while Ilaiyaraja was his lucky mascot right from his early beginnings up to Nayagan, Mani opted for the king of the jingles circuit, A R Rahman, for Roja, and since then the duo have been inseparable. Mani has also worked with some of the finest stars in Indian cinema — Rajinikant, Kamal Haasan, Mammootty, Shahrukh Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Manisha Koirala, Preity Zinta and Aishwarya Rai, whom he introduced in Iruvar.

After the dismal failure of his ambitious Hindi film Ravan (the Tamil version Raavanan fared a little better), Mani was expected to bounce back strongly with Kadal, in which he introduced the offsprings of the stars of yesteryears, Karthik (Gautam) and Radha (Thulasi), and also had old timers Arjun and Arvind Swamy in pivotal roles. The initial reports on the film which released recently have hardly been encouraging and critics have openly begun to wonder whether Mani is fast losing his magical touch. While the technical support from Rajiv Menon in the cinematography department and the deft editing by Sreekar Prasad have been excellent, many critics have faulted Mani’s handling of the subject based on the lives of fishermen in the southern coast. Mani had roped in renowned novelist Jeyamohan to script the film, but the dialect too has not been clearly decipherable, and this has added to the confusion.

Mani’s films have also stormed the international circuit and retrospectives of his films have been screened in all the major film festivals the world over. A director who always keeps his cards close to his chest, Mani has always been secretive about the making of his films and this only increases the anticipation in the media and the audience. A number of new and young talents have been striking it rich in Tamil cinema, but someone like Mani, who really knows his onions, might not feel unduly disturbed over the competition.