HAS THE MASTER CRAFTSMAN LOST IT?

Selvaraghavan and NGK

Who is Selvaraghavan?

“Selvaraghavan is a the kind of auteur who always has a control over his writing. All of his films have either been misunderstood or often termed as gory. Despite being neglected by the so called mainstream audience he manages to have a hardcore fan following of which most of em are filmmaker aspirants.”

NGK

NGK alias Nandha goplan kumaran is a “psycho-socio political drama” directed by Selvaraghavan which helms surya sivakumar in the lead role

Other cast:

Sai pallavi as geetha kumari. Rakul preet sing as vanathi. Bala singh as giri annan. Ponvannan as pichaimuththu. Ilavarasu as Pandiyan.

The movie starts off with kumaran narrating the story.. he says my name is nandha gopala kumaran & people call me NGK. The nextcoming 10 mins proves that Selvaraghavan hasn’t lost his cinematographic sensibilities despite the fact that his last movie was 6 years ago. Is it so?? Really?? Yeah the master craftsman has always been known for his renaissance colour theories but the unknown fact is that he has a versatile sense of making the audience gimmick the camera movements. Sounds interesting right?? Yeah in those ten minutes his camera follows, tracks, and pans according to the movement of the charatcer NGK. Can u imagine a daring filmmaker who establishes the one-line of the story in a single shot and then narrating the story?? 🤷 Ngk and giri walk through the drains and reach to a height in the stairs where MGR is focused in the banner behind. It explains the character graph of NGK.

The upcoming scenes slowly try to establish NGK as a passionate youth who has completed his M.Tech in environmental science. Envi.science?? Yeah the surroundings, the effects 🤷 etc… NGk does organic farming and he plays the do-gooder types of cameos in other people’s lives.. the scene where, ngk sees a group of women and men standing over the same place for a week..also has a Selvaraghavan stamp on it. Because the girl doesn’t ask help from NGk directly…Instead, she stares NGK for a week so that ngk wears the do-gooder jacket there.

NGK is fed up by the fact that he couldn’t solve their problems.. by then, there comes his school friend raja who is just a low-case volunteer in the opposite party of the state. He makes a phone call to the councilor within a minute and solves the problem. This act kinda lures into ngk as he sooner thinks that people like him, spend years to get their work done whereas politicians do it in a matter of seconds. Slowly the power of politics creeps into him as he sees himself in the mirror and spatter his face.

“The background score teases us as if it’s a foreplay before the actual sex”

As per giri annan’s suggestion, NGK meets the local MLA pandya to solve all the problems in the area. This scene has a strange music. The background score teases us as if it’s a foreplay before the actual sex. Because, as soon as NGK gets his job done and thanks MLA, he asks “u are not gonna leave this place without lending me a hand right??” the hand for a hand human theory. Giri assures that NGK along with a cadre of 500 will join the party and NGK partially nods yes for this statement.

After this, NGK suits into the typical Selvaraghavan’s protoganist.. the character arc which explains the journey of the protoganist. NGK joins pandya, cleans toilet, cooks food, drops girl for pandya, plays the sombu-thooki guy and earns name from pandiya. The Selvaraghavan moment which sounded grrrccchh was when a guy asks pandiya to lend him NGk as a layman and pandya replies “ask me my wife but not kumaran(ngk)”😝

“Sai pallavi becomes the lady Selvaraghavan psych. ..for an instance she resembled a bit of jealousy in chandramukhi too”

Since kumaran ( NGK) has become inevitable for pandiya he takes kumaran along with him to meet the higher officials (CM & the two men termed as the muppadai) and vanathi who is introduced to us as an marketing PR in Indian politics. Kumaran plays a safe but smart show to outsmart pandiya so that he manages vanathi to make a mind of him. Vanathi is the most illogical female character ever written in a Selvaraghavan film.just imagine vanathi is introduced to us as a gigantic marketing PR but she behaves just like a yet another stupid girl in the world of tamil cinema. This is the first time that a character is illlogically written in a Selvaraghavan film.😑 On the other hand geetha kumari (sai pallavi) is fascinating. She outperforms “yamini” (female lead in mayakkam enna) in the sniffing scene.. she looks like as if she’s a male psych protoganist of a typical Selvaraghavan film.

From here the story travels in subtext to the fullest.. subtext?? What are u talking?? The best difference that i can give to make Selvaraghavan outshine anyother filmmaker/writer in the world is the “motion and dialogue delivery of a character over time” sounds confusing?? Lets take a long scene in aayirathil oruvan where there are no dialogues for over 5 minutes but parthiban’s emotions and his way of expressing them makes the scene astounding.. the only & other 2 filmmakers to “my knowledge” who are capable of creating these kind of impacts are sergei eissenstein, the man who established kinofist theory and of course Martin Scorsese.

“The subtext and the puns are kinda new to tamil cinema.. so people take time to understand the reality&duality of the character”

Now do this long shot montages which travels in a subtext try to make a difference in the persona of the movie?? Yay! This is the director’s intended way to make the character look fishy. I’m not gonna write about the second half of the film… Because there are already fan theories and conspiracies out in the social media which might help u readers. Every scene in the second half might seem like a discontinuity but the truth is that the plot & character graph of NGK is unravelled to an extent so that the viewers can unravel them completely.

SELVARAGHAVAN & COMPROMISATION

Has Selvaraghavan become more fictional than being realistic?? The sadest part & the answer is “ a little nay! And a big yay!” Selvaraghavan is being viewed as a standalone filmmaker when it comes to handling the craft. The master craftsman never gave a damn about the star image even if it was for kamal hasan… He always wanted what he wanted and his love for cinema fetched him ardent fans.. but are we seeing the same Selvaraghavan after 6 years??? No😥

“The sudden mushrooms and surya fans might call it as a masterpiece but a selvaraghavanian doesn’t”

As a ardent Selvaraghavan fan, It is terribly disappointing to experience a so called “mass fight sequence” in the hospital toilet which has a even more cliche mass bgm😑…even the fight sequence is digestable to an extent assuming the fact that it is written for the star value. but the placement and making of anbae peranbae song makes the movie look like it is written and directed by A.R. Murugadoss or a Shankar or any other commercial director of tamil cinema.

“selvaraghavan has not lost his craft completely but yes he has disappointed his fans & filmmaker aspirants”

MYSTERY 5:10
(Filmmaker aspirant)