Kalaignarin Kannamma disappoints

One of the strongest reasons to watch Kalaignarin Kannamma was that DMK chief Karunanidhi was making a comeback to the silver screen after several years. The memories of his earlier scripts are still fresh in the minds of most Tamilians belonging to the generation past, and it was therefore with expectations riding high that this reviewer strode into the theatre.

But to say I was mildly disappointed would be an understatement. Karunanidhi may have scripted powerful words decades ago that spurred on an entire generation, but unfortunately, times have changed. And with the ages, the concept of films has also changed. Gone are the days when performers mouthed long-drawn out dialogues as they would on stage.

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However, Kannamma is a throwback to those days long bygone. The idiom of film has changed today, and so has the taste of the audience which comprise mainly of youngsters who watch movies radically different from those of the 1960s.

The experience of watching the film was not too pleasurable, mostly because of the ineptitude of the director, S S Baba Vikram. From the moment the film started with two precocious, young boys talking about how strong their friendship is, to the last scene when as adults they fight off the baddies in an almost-unbelievable stunt sequence, the movie provided hardly any inspired moment.

It is quite obvious that the director has not updated himself on how films are made today, in 2005. This film may have worked if it were made in the early 1960s.

The rich boy (Madan) remains in his village opting not to study while his orphaned friend (Anandan) was sent to Chennai to study school, then college and finally medicine. There is also this rich and beautiful girl called Kannamma studying to become a doctor. The villain in the story is Babu, her driver who vows to 'own' her because she had spurned his advances. Anandan and Kannamma meet and fall in love. To cut a long story short, Anandan and Kannamma marry, as do Madan and her cousin. The villain, Babu has become a crorepati by now, and he bribes everyone with loads of money so that he can get his hands on Kannamma.

Then comes the Kargil War, and Anandan goes to serve in the war. When reports about Anandan missing from the front come, a pregnant and grief stricken Kannamma lapses into a world of silence. With this starts torture by Madan's wife -- suspicion and harsh words. The villain attempts to somehow get her too. What transpires then is what the rest of the movie is all about.

Though Karunanidhi hasn't reached the sublime heights with Kannamma as he had during his heyday in the 1960s, the long hiatus doesn't seem to have hurt his skill with the pen too much. However, one is left with the opinion that if the director had handled the story differently and elegantly, the interpretation of the words that Karunanidhi penned could have been very different, and the movie would have made a much better watch.