Picture Imperfect...

Was watching 'Pachai Nirame...' in TV, the other day and was asusual spell-bound by the song and the imagery. Wow!! Could there be any other song that has been so well picturized?! The overall colour of the scene changing in line with the lyrics!! The camera running on a slow motion! The graceful swing of the dancers!! Simply superb!

If Vaiyramuthu has penned the lyrics of the song, then A R Rehman has written a poem with his tune, P C Sriram with this camera and Mani with his direction!! Its a perfect confluence of lyrics penned by four great people in their own medium!!

Now consider this 'Mayil Irage...' from Aa..Aah... what a waste!! When I first heard the song, I just could feel the touch of a peacock feathers in the voice of Madhushree and Naresh Iyer. And it was nonchalantly murdered on screen!

It turned out to be a fantastic mockery of Rahman's efforts - with the lead pair doing some gimmickry, dancing in the most ridiculous way, with that silly smile of a drunkard, in a stark blue costume. Very insensitive to the mood and melody of the song! (With S J Surya emoting, the damage was already half done!)

Plenty of such beautiful songs have lost their beauty on the screens - anyone could relate with 'Vaseegara...' - a song mercilessly sabotaged - pole dance for the passion-filled lyrics of Thamarai and emotion-charged voice of Bombay Jayashree. I guess the director took the songs in the bits of film rolls, which was left behind! (But Gautam seemed to have matured in 'Kaaka Kaaka' - not that the picturaization was extremely good, but it was pretty decent, esp. 'Ennai Konjam Maatri..')

I usually tend to picture the song in my own way, when I listen to the song. And most of the times, its a fiasco on the screen. Only Maniratnam has consistently made justice to songs. And I guess that's why Rahman too goes to extremes to come up with out-of-the-world songs!!

Shankar too comes up with impressive themes for his song. However, the problem is, his way of filming doesn't carry that beauty which comes out of sheer simplicity (Mani's style!). His direction is like a roller-coaster ride, which simply puts you in awe - time freeze techniques, 7 wonders, Mumbai models, extravagant costumes, enthralling foreign locales, and fantastic graphics (sometimes too thrust!) and what not!

But a roller-coaster ride is no match to the serenity of a mountain lake. And Mani's touch gives you that feel. It carries the emotion of the song too well. Picture this: 'Evano Oruvan' from 'Alaipayuthey' - the sorrow of parting and the longing of a turbulent soul, is too well symbolized by raging ocean, striking rain, the murky clouds and the stormy wind. One doesn't need anything more to explain the feeling!

But Mani too had let down a bit in 'Auyadha Ezhuthu'. I had great expectations for 'Nenjam Ellam', which on screen, was just reduced to a background score to Esha who was trying hard to act.

When I hear some nice songs these days, I'm scared to see the picturaization - I don't want my dream world to crash to the ground!


P.S. The lyrics too are sometimes itchy - When a song starts to talk so beautifully of the feeling of love as 'Mayil Irage..' why does it have to stoop afterwards to a mor amorous 'Enakkum Unakkum Viruppam antha moondram paal allava'?!