Aramm - Review

Aram, directed by Mr.Gopi, who filed a case against director A R Murugadoss and leveled charges against director Ranjith of stealing his stories for the movies, Kaththi and Madras respectively, has directed this movie. The Lady Superstar of Kollywood, Nayanthara plays the lead here. Gopi might have lost the case in court, but with Aram he makes a strong statement against those who called him liars. Aramm is a well made, hard-hitting film, with some avoidable communist dialogues.

We have seen lady super stars playing action roles, like Vijayasanthi fighting against a bunch of rowdies or preaching feminism (ex. Jyothika's Magalir Mattum). This is not a movie like that. Gopi doesn't compromise on the script and there are no unwanted scenes. The story keeps moving while he establishes characters. In fact, it takes a while for us, to see Nayanthara, in action.

Aram mainly deals with the villages, that are being neglected by the govt and authorities. There are two different issues shown in the movie - first one is water scarcity and the second one is, resource scarcity in rescuing kids, from bore wells. Yes, most part of the movie, deals with rescuing a child, who accidentally falls down into a bore well. I swear, you will not get bored at any point while watching this movie. The duration of the movie, too is just 2 hours.

Nayan utters some powerful dialogues like "ஒரு உயிரோட விளையாடறோம்ன்ற குற்ற உணர்ச்சியே இல்லாத அதிகாரிங்க இருக்கிற வரைக்கும் இந்த நாடு எப்படி தான் உறுப்படுமோ?", "கிணத்துல விழுந்தது இந்த ஜனநாயகத்தை நம்பி இவங்களுக்கு ஓட்டு போட்ட மக்கள் தான் சார்". The way the movie mocks at the callous attitude of VAOs, police officers, councilors etc, is truly enjoyable. When there is a delay in beginning the rescue operations, one guy questions, will the attitude be same, had it been a minister's son or daughter? There is a reference to a guy, who invented robots to rescue people from bore wells and the director questions, why such guys are not given importance?. Children falling into bore well has become too common nowadays, and some serious steps needs to be taken to resolve this problem.

While it is true that still there are lot of villages without a solution for water scarcity and their honest demands being neglected often, the comparison with rocket launching doesn't make sense at all. Right from the beginning, there's a reference to rocket launching and if you think patiently, you can only feel it doesn't make any sense.

It is true that villages lack basic facilities, authorities often neglect such places, politicians exploit the people and raising our voice against them is the need of the hour. But, because some villages lacks basic amenities, saying that we don't need rockets or satellites, is meaningless comparison. This has been the attitude of communist people for a while, we don't need rockets(even Surya's father Mr.Sivakumar made this statement recently), we don't need industries, we don't need digital improvements, we only need food and water. Going by that logic, we don't need movies, malls, theaters, smart phones etc. It's enough if we have food and water. Isn't this a meaningless anger?

It is the duty of the govt and authorities to focus on everything - both public welfare and infrastructure development. Expose on how the poor and downtrodden are neglected is a much needed one, but taking a dig at infrastructure through mass media, is not the right thing to do. There are different departments to deal with different issues, because those responsible for providing basic facilities, should we derail the growth of other departments too?

The TV discussion scenes (with news 18 Guna, Muthukrishnan I think) was a total let down. In reality, our media has not done anything useful. At least in movie, Gopi could have shown the media doing something interesting.

Nayanthara has a very good screen presence. She has done her part very well. There's nothing ugly, in the name of experiment. She knows her strengths and has played it smart. Not everyone has the charisma as Nayan has and that is why her dialogues are well received. Though the performance of everyone is natural, Ramachandran Durairaj, the one who plays the father of the child, was just stunning. After a while, he doesn't get too many scenes, but he makes an impact. While the village, attitude of officials, performances are too natural, the interrogation scenes between Kitty and Nayanthara was too artificial and the climax was kind of filmy.

Only if you are confident with your script, you can make a 2 hour Tamil movie with most part of it showing the rescue operations. The theater response was encouraging too, there was no sarcastic comments from the audience side and they didn't fail to whistle and clap for some scenes. Finally, Gopi has tasted success with a sincere film. Congratulations Mr.Gopi!!!

Aramm is good and don't miss it.