It’s becoming almost impossible for me to find company to go to the movies. “Why do you want to watch that movie?” I get asked time and again. Well, I have a love-hate relationship with Tamil cinema, and a love-only relationship with movie theatres. I want to watch every movie in the halls, not at home under a duvet (though of course in Chennai theatres even that’s not far off the mark).
Every time I arrive at the theatre with renewed optimism, hoping to find at least a moment in the movie that will leave a mark on me, maybe an angle that’s remotely appealing. In reality, every other time I reach the interval, the optimism vanishes and I wait for the finish line. The end is met with a sigh of relief and more often than not, with a bunch of existential questions.
My experiment in patience this week was multi-starrer but ‘all-about-the-hero’ Atharvaa film Gemini Ganesanum Suruli Raajanum. It is really an excess of inspirations. The male lead is inspired to fall in love many times over by his namesake yesteryear actor. Inspired by Autograph (2004), the male lead tracks his exes down to invite them to his wedding. That’s where the similarities between the two films end.
While Autograph was a coming-of-age story told with much sensitivity, this one justifies infidelity and glorifies cheating as a stepping-stone in the journey of life. The comic sequences were few and far between, so in 134 minutes I had about half the number of questions and thoughts. Here are some of them:
1. The catchphrase ‘Two steps forward one-step backward’ stands true for Tamil cinema. For every couple of path breaking films, we need one like this to prove that we have a long way to go. It’s a monthly reminder so to speak.
2. The film has five female characters — the hero’s mom and his four lovers —who all only seem to care about the man. An epic Bechdel test fail. But also another reason we need gendered lenses made-in-India for films made here.
3. Oh, I didn’t mean as sanskaari as the Censor Board in this country. We have a problem with lady-oriented films, right? What about gentleman oriented films like this that glorify cheating, lying and all?
4. Why are there children in the theatre watching this while they should be watching Chota Bheem and Dora on TV? What are they taking away from this? How are children even allowed to see this? #censordoublestandards
5. Here’s what the movie seems to be implying —That women spend all their time on facials and nails, and men chase after women like that; women who wear glasses, speak sense and are ‘mature’, understand these men and fall in love with them.
6. It isn’t true that all women are naïve and wanted to be married immediately after the declaration of love. It also isn’t true that all men cheat before they grow up. This works vice-versa as well.
7. You know, women help the homeless and raise funds for NGOs because it’s their passion, their calling or their job. All kind things aren’t mating calls performed to impress the opposite sex.
8. Talking about sex, when the hero proudly proclaims that he likes falling in love with women but doesn’t want to marry them, I think he is confusing love with lust. What he wants is to have sex but not settle down. It is 2017. Why are we still shying away
from sex?
9. On a serious note, heartbreak is hard on everybody irrespective of gender and sexuality. So this idea that men easily move on while women hold on forever and never forget is archaic and stupid!
10. Is this movie telling me that I might end up naming my child after a long lost love? If yes, I would need 16 children…for now.
(The writer is a city-based activist, in-your-face feminist and a media glutton)