Reviews

Why is Anbe Sivam regarded as the best movie in the history of Tamil cinema by many? Did this movie have any story at all? First of all is it a movie? No. Anbe Sivam is an experience, not only for one Madhavan but for another few thousands, who care to learn quite a lot of things and feel conceited about themselves, but fail miserably to confront the vagaries of life. What was the movie all about? An experienced matured man and a squeamish, egotist but tender hearted youth (a typical modern day youth) travelling together from Bhubaneshwar to Chennai(East coast of India).Fate hinders their journey in all possible ways which Madhavan initially considers exasperating but later reveres as an experience of a lifetime. The story is as simple as that but the associated scenes,dialogues and the lessons learnt reverberate through your mind for a long time.

Be it the floods,train accident or the little boy's death it is Madhavan who breaks down and get shattered. But Kamalhassan adapts himself and reconciles himself to reality and helps in the best possible way he can. While it takes a lot of effort for Madhavan to tell Kamalhaasan about his fraternal love towards him, Kamalhaasan finds it easy to tell 'A.Ars, you are a go(o)d man' (it's not that easy to tell it to someone earnestly). From where did Kamal get this maturity? The story moves into the flashback of Kamal,a communist, who loves the daughter of a capitalist, Nasser, whom he opposes as a worker regarding wages. When the duo decide to elope to Kerala for marriage, their bus meets with a gory accident. Kamal is badly bruised losing a limb and is totally disfigured. While struggling in bed for life, Nasser speaks extremely rude and blatant to Kamal. On conjuring up the scenes after the accident, he evaluates stark contrast of Nasser and the sister. Kamal sees god through the sister and sees it subsequently in quite a lot of people who propagate love.His outlook changes completely.

The first half with some lighter moments, the middle with some interesting dialogues and the last with some really shaking scenes Anbe Sivam stands tall amidst other usual Tamil movies. Madhavan is extraordinary communicating the emotions powerfully(especially in the climax dialogue with Kamalhaasan). The one fight scene in the middle could have been avoided. Rather than going abroad for shooting songs, this movie has brought out some really excellent locations in India( not only in machi machi song). The choice of season to shoot this movie has been brilliant with the monsoon accentuating the kind of feelings to be conveyed. Does the name 'Anbe Sivam' mean 'Anbarase Nallasivam' trying to say 'All are one soul'? Kamal only knows. Finally, I'm sure it would not take any effort for anyone who has seen this movie to say 'I love you Dr.Kamalhaasan' for such an excellent story and screenplay.

When I first learnt about Schindler's list, I had great expectations on how Spielberg would have made the greatest ever human tragedy. I expected big shots like Hitler, Himmler, Eichmann... but Spielberg had made the movie with stern, Helen heitsh, schindler and goeth. When I first saw the movie I thought Spielberg had missed quite a lot of incidents. I thought some scenes in the first 1 hour could have been cut to accommodate other incidents and I felt the movie was overrated. But only after watching the movie a second time I realized that the movie was 'Schindler's list' and not a documentary on holocaust. I also appreciated how important each and every scene was and got convinced that there couldn't have been a better version of the movie. While scenes like burning synagogues would have been sensational, It would have provoked outrage. But Spielberg had given this movie an emotional and human touch. Schindler's transformation from a corrupt flirt profit-minded businessman to a great saviour has been fabulously portrayed. This movie, though not a great tearjerker, has a lot of emotional dialogues and scenes.

Schindler viewing the ghetto liquidation from the top of a cliff, Schindler's soothing words to helen, Schindler trying to change goeth by telling about power,Schindler's talk to stern after orders on special treatment, Schindler thinking on what to do one fine night, Schindler saving the ladies and subsequently the children and many more of these scenes simply break you to give a wet eyes. Observe Neeson's body language on all these circumstances and you'll understand how nobel a heart he was and what kindness actually means. The scene where schindler gets furious with a Jewish woman and later brings her parents to his factory is my best in the movie. Goeth's split personality was frightening. The background score of music during the liquidation of the ghetto was moving. The lead trio of Liam neeson, Ralph Fiennes and Ben Kingsley have performed exceptionally well in the movie. Its quite sad that none got an Oscar. Thank god that the Reich officials were corrupt otherwise the Schindler Jews would have perished at Auschwitz and the world would have missed this great masterpiece.

Munich is definitely among the top of Spielberg's best movies. The movie is well crafted right from the way the title is displayed(showing all cities involved in the movie(incident) to the end of the movie where the director sends a strong message to the Zionist regime (or) even the warring nations at a larger picture.Eric bana shines as Avner exemplifying the saying 'Action speaks louder than words'.He is a stern Mossad agent who is asked to kill 11 Palestinian names, who are said to have planned the Munich massacre. But as the operation goes on, he starts losing his partners, all of them realizing that what they are doing is not righteous and Jewish.Ironically, everyone who realizes his fault face tragic end and the one who doesn't budge till the end escapes unscathed. Avner suffers a great mental trauma mistaking natural events for a bid on his life and loses peace totally that he is unable to enjoy his wife. He starts doubting whether the persons he kills were actually behind the Munich operation and gets out of mossad leaving a strong message that 'there is no peace at the end of all this'.A must watch movie . P.S. The movie is not at all biased.He gives the two chances for the arabs to explain their side. Hats off to the genius for maintaining neutrality in this movie. But,the israelis seem to be disgruntled with this movie which was expected.