Watched PS-1 last night with the family and a whole lot of other Indians. My thanks to all the others who showed up as they gave my daughter (whose first Indian movie was last night) a tease of what it means to watch an Indian movie with Indians in the theater and she had so much fun with the random whistles and cheers all around!
If you had read my preview you know two things 1) I am a fan of the book 2) I am not a fan of Maniratnam. But with PS-1, I am happy to say that Maniratnam delivered what he intended to! The movie gets a B+ / A- from me.
For fans of the book:
If you went looking for the book, just note that it is there as a backbone in terms of overall plot but keep in mind the movie is trying to achieve the impossible - condensing 5 volumes into 2 movies - and therefore has made a few character / script choices. However, those who read the books are at an advantage because they understand what's happening with all the fast transitions. I overheard a few people at the end of the movie saying they didn't quite follow what happened in the second half - hopefully this will lead them to the books in which case it is a win-win!
What I liked:
- Screenplay - Jeyamohan triumphs in distilling the essence of the first two volumes to one movie
- Production values - set design, costumes were excellent
- Acting - almost all of these actors did their parts well! There were one or two weak performances but overall I was not disappointed with Vanthiyadevan, Nandini, Aditya Karikalan, and Azhwarkadiyaan. I have never seen any Karthi movies and he gets full points for capturing the essence of Vanthiyadevan's comedic sensibilities and the chemistry with Jeyaram works!
- Opening number - I was not a fan of the Ponni Nadhi song because I didn't like the enunciation choices ARR made, but seeing it on screen overlaid with visuals was much better.
- Graphics choices - nothing unnecessary or too artificial. The ships were well done (maybe modeled after Borbudur) and battle scenes were choreographed really well!
- Song incorporation - they didn't have all the songs full length and were quite neatly incorporated in the background.
- Srilanka scenes were well done visually!
Misses:
- Rapid transitions - there was no room for character development given the pace of the movie. I understand that they had to make certain cuts to condense the 2 books into 1 movie, still scenes with Kudandai Josiyar, Kandanamaaran, Idumbankaari helped us get to know Vanthiyadevan, Azhwarkadiyaan better in the books. There was no room for that in the movie. Poonghuzali was a disappointment. Vanthiyadevan's encounter with Poonghuzali and asking her about Senthan Amuthan is out of the blue if you've not read the book! I compare it to LOTR where the movies still allowed us to see the multi-dimensional character of Frodo, Samwise and Aragorn - that was lacking. Also because of the pace and transitions some viewers felt lost in the second half
- BGM - I know people are going to say that i am just a fan of Illayaraja and will not accept ARR's score, but this was a weak link IMO. With the focus on making a pan-Indian adventure movie, there was a lack of local feel in the background score. Fight scenes were just standard orchestrations with loud score.
- Sound quality - why was everything so loud!!! Just blasting the sound straight on for 3 hours hurt my ears!
- Some key characters are missing or minimized - Kandanmaaran comes to mind. I was expecting a lot more from the secret tunnel scenes and while Devralan aattam did not disappoint, the tunnel scenes did - both in terms of content and the set. This makes me wonder if Manimegalai will show in part 2
- The beauty of the land was not fully captured. They could have done something simple like using Kamal's voice over to show us the land in addition to the history
- Unnecessary departures from the book which can irritate fans of the book - but I can forgive some of those choices.
Final Thoughts:
My daughter said it best when she described the movie as an epic fantasy and not a piece of historic fiction. If you went in with that mindset then the choices made make more sense and the appeal to a pan-indian audience is justified. Ideally I would have loved it if they hadn't strayed from the book, but I am OK with most of the departures except a few critical ones, but I will reserve judgement until I see PS-2. The BGM could have elevated the movie to a different level but it made easy choices by going for epic orchestrations and severed itself from the land on which the history is based.
Having said all these, hats off to Maniratnam for having pulled this off! As a fan of the books I was waiting for an adaptation and he delivers his take on it and manages to appeal to a wide range of people. Ideally the only way the books can be brought to life at the pace we want is if Netflix or Amazon commissioned a 10 part series with each part running for 90 mins. But last night for about 3 hours I was happy to share my favorite book with countless others who had never read it and are now curious about it. That is perhaps the main achievement of the movie!
