'Madhubaanakadai' (Tamil)
Director: Kamalakannan
Cast: Rafeeq, Ishwarya
Set in a wine bar, the film takes a peek into the lives of habitual drinkers and liquor addicts who frequent the place. It chronicles a day at the bar where a variety of people drop in. A great leveller, the bar becomes a place where all inhibitions are shed, issues are thrashed around, and grievances expressed. A laudable attempt by a debutant maker, the film is bold and experimental, though self indulgent at times. It has no conventional story line, and the screenplay at times meanders, the incidents repetitive.
The characters are varied, and add colour to the ambience. It’s a day before Gandhi Jayanthi, the crowd thronging to the place, as the next day would be a dry one with liquor shops downing shutters. There is a dejected lover who tries to drown his misery in a peg; some high school students on their first drink, and caught by their master who was a regular at the bar; Chinnarasu who suggests that these boys be adviced on how to mix their drinks; transgenders and policemen, conservancy workers, and folk artistes; a grumpy cantankerous customer who throws his weight around; and a decently dressed regular who cons people into sharing their drink with him. Character one is likely to see at a bar. There is the spat between two employees, one of them in love with the bar owner’s daughter.
The romantic couple go into a lip lock, the shot captured in a very matter of fact way. The show stealer is Rajkumar as Mani who livens up the narration whenever he appears. One of the best moments in the film is his scene with the dejected drunk lover, Rajkumar’s expressions a delight to watch.
Both in its set design and in its ambience, the film captures the setting of a typical wine shop authentically, the hustle bustle and the noise rising to a crescendo at times. The film takes a dig at government-run institutions and the police, the dialogue at times scathing and caustic. Though one does get the feel that the film is cramped with too many characters and repetitive happenings. Towards the latter part, the entire events of the earlier part are captured and capsuled in montages in a single song.
The film neither condemns nor glorifies drinking, the director more of an observer of the realities around him. Low budgeted, it has little known actors and amateurs cast in the lead roles. The happenings are an amalgam of the interesting and the monotonous, the unusual and the bizarre. Clearly not meant for a mass audience, it’s for those satiated with typical formula plots, and who wouldn’t mind watching something unconventional and different.