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Lakshmi Ramakrishnan who can be seen every now and then in an affectionate mother’s role or any other supporting role in Tamil movies has donned the director’s hat for the very first time for her directorial venture, Aaroganam. The movie that got released in October 2012 was not a commercial success but was lauded by the critics for its neat presentation and that propelled me to watch it after 3 months of its release!
Keeping the duration under 90 minutes, the director had a clear agenda in place - to establish the lead character’s emotions through her mental condition (bipolar disorder) and angst for her loved ones. The story of Aaroganam centers around the happenings in a day where a mother of 2 gets lost and her children try and find her whereabouts thereby revealing her past life through intermittent flashbacks.
Firstly I would like to congratulate Lakshmi for choosing such an offbeat subject where she needed to walk the tightrope in order to keep the narrative engaging. Secondly, being one of the few female directors in the industry, the predicaments of her unconsciously exhibiting staunch feminist ideals through her movie would have been ripe and if she was to take a neutral stance in order to do away with such a predicament, she had to ensure that the male ego was not bashed too much; winning the latter duel in particular might have been challenging for her and whether she was successful in that is debatable.
As far as the lead role of ‘Nirmala’ played by Viji Chandrasekar goes, she had been portrayed to carry a palette of emotions. The role was a challenging one and it required some quality experience since the extreme emotions had to be brought out well. Viji seemed to have been tailored for the role and one can hardly imagine anyone other than her playing the character. She was the epicenter around which the entire proceedings revolved.
‘Nirmala’s’ children, played by newcomers Jai Queheni and Veeresh were brilliant in their respective roles. Especially Queheni who essayed the role of ‘Selvi’ who was portrayed to be demure and shown to vent out a controlled rage on seeing her estranged father, made the role look authentic and gave a feeling that one is taking a peep at the happenings in the neighborhood.
The duo of Rajee Vijayasarathi and Uma Padmanabhan had their roles cut to shape and made a lovely middle aged pair who represented the society’s upper crest. Sampath as a psychiatrist and Jayaprakash as the crooked politician were there to beef up the supporting cast, though I could not make out the significance of Jayaprakash’s role and I felt that he was wasted. Also the man who essayed the role of Nirmala’s husband, Marimuthu, did a great job as the angry and incapable middle aged man who fights it hard to make ends meet with a wife who has a mental condition.
Shanmugasundaram, the cinematographer, made sure that the camera traveled along with the characters. He has used very many candid shots and more often than not one can see the camera being placed at odd places making room for some very interesting composition and that helped in establishing the depth in the emotions.
Editing by Kishore had to be lauded for merely keeping the movie under 90 minutes which has become a rarity even in Hollywood these days! Also the cuts from the present to the past was not confusing for the major part if we are to tide over a few jerks during the initial transitions. A club song towards the climax could have been avoided as it appeared more like a commercial compromise.
Music by K added strength to the movie especially the lively BGM. Throughout the movie one can observe that natural sounds have been used in order to establish the premise of a scene and that was sort of a novelty. Off the two songs, the one that was used for the montage shots during the movie’s course fitted the bill.
The movie has largely achieved its motto of providing a slice of the day-to-day battle fought by a single mother with bravado and sheer willpower, but somewhere along the line we cannot avoid the feeling of watching a plain documentary that was largely bland without much spice or sugar but still kept us glued to the show to an extent.
Verdict: Good Attempt!
Rating: 3/5
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