Tamil film industry happy with National Awards

Shobha Warrier in Madras

The major awards announced by the 48th National Film Awards jury might have gone to the Hindi film industry, for a change.

They might have created a lot of controversy in the process but the contented lot are the Tamil film industry which has bagged, not one or two, but nine awards.

Even though it has not won any major awards, there are reasons for the industry to feel cheerful especially when it is going through a very bad patch.

Ever since problems arose between the artistes and producers, the Tamil film industry is trying hard to get out of the soup it is in.

The year 2000 belonged to Gnana Rajasekharan's sincere and commendable effort to portray the legendary poet Subramanya Bharati.

Bharati, Gnana Rajasekharan's film on the life of Bharati was a slow starter. It was not expected to set the box office on fire. It was a low budget film from an 'art director', which had Sayaji Shinde, who was totally unknown to Tamil filmgoers, playing Subramayana Bharati.

In all senses, Sayaji Shinde lived as the poet in the film. It was very unfortunate that he did not win a National Award for his very impressive and extraordinary portrayal. Sayaji Shinde's was one of the best performances of last year.

Bharati was given tax exemption a few weeks after it was released. Soon afterwards, the collections started picking up. The film went on to complete 100 days.

Bharati did, however, very deservingly win the best Tamil film award at the national level. It is also the second national award for the bureaucrat-filmmaker Gnana Rajasekharan (the first one was for Moha Mullu.)

Bharati also fetched a National Award for the young singer, Bhavatharani, daughter of Ilayaraja for her sweet rendition of Mayil pola ponnu onnu Bhavatharani was "extremely happy" at winning an award for her father's tunes!

The film also won an award for art direction. It was the third national award for P Krishnamoorthy, the art director. His first one was for G V Iyer's Kannada film, Madhavacharya. He won the same award again the next year for Hariharan's Malayalam film, Oru Vadakkan Veera Gadha. Unfortunately, he had to wait another decade to win a third award.

Bharati Raja received the best screenplay writer award for his yet-to-be released Kadal Pookal. Cheran was the joint winner for the best film on social issues for his film Vetrikodi Kattu. Cheran had always made films on social issues pertaining the village life and this, too, is no exception.

If Bharati was the film that was talked about by those who loved good cinema, Vikraman's Vaanathe Pole starring Vijayakanth was the most talked about film in the commercial circles.

When film after film by all major heroes failed at the box office, Vijayakanth's Vaanathe Pole ran 250 days all over Tamil Nadu and became the most successful film made in Tamil last year, and not surprisingly, it has won the best popular film award.

The other two awards won by the Tamil film industry are: Best Child Artiste Award for Master Udayaraj for the film Nila Kaalam; and Best Male Playback Singer Award to Shankar Mahadevan for his song in Kandukondain, Kandukondain.