Sunday, November 29, 2009

Eeram- S Pictures does it again


Imagine a typical day in your life when you go around with the regular routine, be it at work or home and then settle down to end the day on a rather nonchalant note. And at that particular moment if you were to come across something out of the ordinary, wouldn’t that really catch you by surprise? I had a similar experience last week when I saw the latest Tamil movie from the stable of S Pictures- Eeram. Now S Pictures, the movie production firm of Director Shankar has been known to make some small/medium budget interesting movies (unlike the big budget mass movies directed by Shankar himself for outside production houses ) like Kadhal, Veyyil, Kalloori etc. S Pictures has enabled debutant directors like Simbudevan to make a mark and also given a fresh lease of life to directors like Balaji Sakthivel,Vasantha Balan etc who couldn’t achieve much success with their initial movies. Continuing in this journey we now find another debutant, Arivazhagan (who has assisted Shankar earlier) coming up with his first film- Eeram (which means dampness in English).
As the movie begins, a cop Vasu ( Aadhi of Mirugam fame in a totally different avatar ) is called on to investigate the death of Ramya ( Sindhu Menon ).When Vasu arrives at the spot it is raining and throughout the movie water in the form of rain or otherwise is seen as an element in the narrative. Ramya’s body is recovered from a bath tub in an apartment of a high rise apartment complex. And since there is a suicide note left behind, it makes everybody including the police convinced that it’s a case of suicide. But somehow Vasu feels that there is something else apart from what meets their eyes and carries on with the investigation. And as Vasu gets emotional after seeing Ramya’s body, it is revealed that Ramya and Vasu used to love each other in their college days in Trichy.
Ramya’s sister Divya ( Saranya Mohan ) supported their love affair but since Ramya’s father disapproves of the same, they drift apart. Vasu goes on to fulfill his dream of becoming an IPS officer and Ramya marries Bala ( Nandha), a businessman and moves to Chennai. All this is depicted through flashback and then cutting back to the present there occurs a series of deaths all in a bizarre manner, one after the other. But this makes Vasu all the more determined to solve the mystery as he thinks there is a link to all these deaths. Slowly the movie evolves into an interesting thriller with a hint of the paranormal/supernatural touch.
One of the major highlights of the movie is the interval point where the director makes a startling revelation and manages to maintain the flow of the narrative later on adequately.Manoj Paramahamsa’s camera work literally adds strength to the film and brings out the blue and red colors (the colors by themselves qualify as elements in the movie) brilliantly. Thaman’s background score is certainly adequate and talking about the performances from the cast one can say that Arivazhagan’s choice of actors is excellent. Aadhi carries off the cop act convincingly and Nandha once again reminds you that he is an actor with potential. Sindhu Menon truly impresses and both Saranya Mohan and Srinath (as Nandha’s friend) do justice to their roles.
Overall this is a film which does manage to impress and keep the viewer fairly engrossed. It’s a welcome addition to the growing list of interesting Tamil movies the current year has witnessed so far.

Originally published in PFC.Check it out here- http://passionforcinema.com/eeram-s-pictures-does-it-again/

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