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[madhuraman]

NENJIL ORE AALAYAM --VIII
Dear friends,
Having gone into the various facets of the movie N O A , it is only natural that one looks at the man behind the project namely the Director who undoubtedly was the first ever personality of the modern T F industry to have built up a massive fan base exclusively for skills as a director. My impressions about Sridar so vividly stay in me that I deem it my pleasure to look at this great personality from varied points of view though basically from his contribution to NENJIL ORE AALAYAM. N O A right away won accolades from all neutral audience. Why I refer to "neutral' audience; we are considering that phase when audience used to line-up as Sivaji fans or MGR fans. It was CVS who commanded the attention of audience by adopting simple and straight dialogues, effective portrayal in the visual medium and of course captivating out-door locales even in the days of B&W FILMS.
Where Do I see SrIdar in N O A ?
SIMPLY EVERYWHERE. As a movie , he has picked up a theme, based on early adulthood adventure -the love. But, he has sharply drawn a line to segregate it from lust. He has straight gone into that domain --sacrifice an integral part of any genuine love. While addressing this intricate issue , he has exercised caution to keep off the prospects of suspicion between the patient husband, his wife and her erstwhile lover- the doctor. It is very difficult to put on celluloid such arguments as advocating to one's wife to marry someone else whatever be the exigency. [We know of several well-meant movies miserably failing for want of convincing presentation] This is where Sridar precisely won over the audience by a thorough screen play that had conveniently steered clear off any questionable integrity of any of the characters in the movie. Even adding a couple of songs /scenes of bondage between the Doctor and the lady would have diluted the later scope of sustaining natural loyalty between characters. Considering the times when it was done , Sridar was far ahead of his times. He has had the knack of story telling by visual presentation and thus saved lot of footage from viewing. Crispness everywhere along the movie- be it scenes, shots or dialogues have added to the elegance of the movie, without fatiguing the audience. Another dimension of Sridar relates to his mastery in song placement. [in all his movies, a typical feature has been the success of songs]. He has placed just enough number of songs when on an average 8 songs would row up in a movie then. From my understanding, he had the skill of picking up right tunes. This is an asset for a movie-director to assess as to what would go well with the audience. That way all N O A songs have swept the audience. Perhaps one of the very few tragedy subjects where all the songs reached the status of HIT songs was N O A .
AS EVER, HE HAS MADE THE BEST USE OF A.Vincent and P.N.Sundaram as cinematographers. The most significant feature I noticed in N O A is
Mr.A.Vincent has been accorded the status of
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY- a rare feature for a Tamil movie of 1961-62 and a special status for PN S as the cinematographer. In TF industry such gestures were literally unknown and certainly CVS was a trend setter for such proclivities. Throughout the movie CVS has critically adhered to the chosen line without a let up such that the climax reaches a climax effortlessly where MSV has lent a mega boost to the occasion by a brilliant song. Most Tamil films suffer from tensed up climax until the gang of villains is rounded up. No such mess has been allowed in the script and that speaks volumes about the Director's concept of the movie. What a grit it should have been for the Producer-Director to have banked on less known artistes for a subject that calls for fluent acting. Certainly CVS must have had the confidence of extracting the vivid expressions from all the inexperienced performers. By any standards, EXECUTING A MOVIE OF THE KIND OF N O A is certainly not feasible for the less accomplished. That he could make it and market it, is proof of the fact that distributors had immense faith on CVS's potential in handling the theme. What better proof can be adduced to substantiate the image that CVS had established very early in his career as a director. For specific reasons I have avoided scene by scene analysis of N O A. There are other fringes to be looked at.
Please wait . [To Continue]
Warm regards Prof.K.Raman Madurai.
_________________
Prof. K. Raman
Mumbai

[Jeev]

Nenjil Ore Aalayam will be shown on SUN TV on Thursday @ 10.30 pm.

Enjoy!

[baroque]

Vennira aadai
Utharavindri ulley vaa
Kadhalikka neramillai
Avalukkendru oru manam
Nenjam marapadhillai
Nenjil oru aalayam
Urimaik kural
policekaran magal


All Sridhar-MSV&TKR or MSV movies, I have enjoyed several times both songs & films over the yrs. ADORE THEM DEARLY. ZILLION TIMES I CAN WATCH, yeah including that crazy Bharathi girl's Avalukkendru oru manam.(recently only I watched this movie for songs, songs, songs)

Please bring other expert directors works too, Sir!