Salt N Pepper(2011 Malayalam movie) - A simple & fun movie to watch out

These days we see a lot of innovative movies in terms of its story, narration, technicalities & the treatment in terms of direction & characterization.
Salt N Pepper stands unique in terms of both story, narration & Characterization.
Movie's opening title credits proves that food plays a vital role in the movie. Probably
this is the first time that I get to see such a title credits.

What is this movie about?

Its about 2 food lovers Kalidasan(played by Lal) a bachelor working in Archelogy Dept  & Maya(played by Shweta Menon)  spinster working as a dubbing artist who are in their mid life crisis & in persuit of something which is missing in their lives. They get to converse by a Phone call done mistakenly & what happens later is the story told with fun & classy taste. Amidst we have kalidasan's nephew Manu(Asif) an youngster coming to town  in search of a job who is a fun lover & likes to flirt with good looking girls & stays with Kalidasan & helps Kalidasan in his lady love interest. Then comes Meenakshi(Mythili) again a cousin of Maya in a false representing meeting gets to meet each other & rest is fun.

Director's Characterisation:

Kalidasan
The extent that Kalidasan has passion for food is shown in his Flashback scenes & in his story narration about the making of multilayered  cake with its history  which is the high light. Probably this is is the first time that I get to see such a unique scene.(Lastly I remember a similar kind of scene where mammootty tastes a food in a hotel & heads to the kitchen to find out if she is his
same friend). Person's life is filled with food, drinks,Historical artifacts collected  until manu comes down to stay with him. A nice potrait of mid life crisis.

Maya
Maya is both a food lover & Great food maker. Director takes his own time in establishing gradually to get a feel of characters. When she is not happy, she fails but when she is happy, she just rocks in what she does. thereby depicting the philosophy of life & happiness. 

Manu
Its only after Manu comes, story leads us to curiousity & becomes more interesting adding fun part to Kalidasan's Life and to the viewers too.

Meenakshi,
Although not much character insight was depicted who is a partner in crime gels well in the scenes where she encounters Manu.

Lal & Vijayaraghavan
We get more of a mundane & neutral mood in the scenes when these 2 interact until the last scene revealing the seriousness & sweet part of Vijayaraghavan.

Lal & Asif
Great partnership. Director infact carefully used both of them designing a contrast characters & its their partnership which moves the movie to the forward. Lal seems to have performed effortlessly, yet adding full sense to the character he played anybody who saw Apoorva Raagam which has different face of Asif can see the difference in his expressions & looks in this movie.

Lal & Shwetha
Scenes are dealt with matured sense. Adding the French story narration really worked making perfect sense to the plot.

Asif & Mythili
I loved this scenes although the sequences were silly. Nice & cool acting by Asif & Mythili

Actually I do have some questions for director especially the probability of love happening to both the couples in the situations that they are put up, but I think the movies is all about those
funny never imaginable situations which adds more excitement to life and the movie viewers

I loved the background song "Aanakallan" played for manu's scnenes & unexpectedly played at the end as surprise with some peppy & cool looks of Shwetha menon. It worked for me. Also background song for Lal & Shwetha is simple although not craving for attention. I loved the locations of the duet song between Manu & Meenakshi. DOP has explore many angles
with crane shots.I loved Production design of the kalidasan's house & lovely Cinematography.

Not sure if this movie would have a repeat value.
But I enjoyed this movie when I watched one time.

This movie deserves an appreciation for its unique plot, story narration & characterization with sensible touch & fun. A sweet movie.

Aval Appadithaan (1978 Tamil movie) - Movie ahead of its times & a true cult classic

We call a movie a cult classic for various reasons. Few of them are first of its kind,Few of them are ahead its times & are not accepted at their times, but then accepted widely and appreciated later.

I was proud to be an Indian from tamil origin after seeing this movie to say that we have more cult
classics in tamil right from early ages of movies. Its just that most of today's people aren't aware

Aval appadithaan is a movie about the contemporary society which tells about the various views about woman's liberty. Hold on!! Now that doesn't mean that this is some chick flick or any woman centric one like other cliched ones.thas where the director is different from other junkies who take movies more seriously & make it over dramatic with preachy attitude.

First shot itself tells the boldness of the director & what kind of style is adopted by director in terms of handling this script. Director just went ahead & broke the cliched means of story telling. Full of a realistic feel that you get through out the movie.

Story & Characeterisation
Here is the story in a nutshell without spoiling the interest of never watched audiences.

Arun(The meaning of the name Arun is 'Rust-coloured; red; passionate') a documentary filmmaker, genuine hearted, straight forward, respects woman's liberty. well educated & cultured is making a movie about how women are exploited & the various point of views. Always looking forward to make some progressive change through this work. Serious & Aggressive, but shows mostly in his work & walks the talk.
Director has been careful in naming the character.
As a matter of fact there is a scene in which arun says that "whats wrong if I'm a communist" to manju. Before that we see Manju saying with his irritating tone that "She hates red" for which kamal gives a sarcastic reply "that might be a problem with the eyes"

Arun's friend on the other hand is an ad agency boss, sub urban youngster, womaniser, male chaunistic, sarcastic, very straight forward, least bothered about woman's liberty & has his own opinions about the facts of some which can not be denied & a happy go lucky fellow who takes life as it comes. I hardly remember if rajini's character name was revealed in the entire movie.
Probably director might have thought that is irrelevant as we see many guys who has almost the same opinion & outlook towards life and woman.

Here comes Manju
Manju(one of its meaning is "a feel that cannot be expressed") is the central character working as an art director under Arun's friend(Ad agency boss). synching to her name, she is the one character who had transformed from a regular sweet girl to a cynical, sarcastic, very bold in expressing his opinion & views, male hater because of her bitter past that he had both with men & women. Most of the times unpredictable

Its about the chronicles of various moments when Arun gets to meet Manju through his friend who refers Manju to help arun in his Documentary & here is Arun who is intrigued by her attitude & way of behaviour.
Story just moves forward & more of a character study, confrontation, revelation of the true facts
vs the idealism that is being practised which is still in the world of illusion. thereby leaving no answer for the
objective of Arun & Manju & the missing thing that they are looking for & in still in persuit.

Rajini & kamal

This is the most interesting part of the movie where two contrasting characters have a friendly chat
in which most of the times Rajini is a speaker and kamal being a listener who is calm, poised & keeps thinking about the root cause of the behavior of manju & at the same time
sensitive & responds to Rajini stating his view as a counter back. Mostly the topic is about Manju & women in general.
Director used Rajini very well giving a philosophical touch towards the realistic & vulgar (for that time) dialogues without bothering about the Censor Board. We get to hear more English words in this interesting conversation between them. There is a dialogue where Arun calls his friend "A Prejudice Ass" in English. All I would say is Directors has got real guts.Never the less to mention about the performance. I'm a die hard fan of kamal & rate him as one of the finest actors in the world & undoubtedly the best actor in India for various reasons.But I frankly felt that Rajini simply outbeats kamal in most of the scenes Through his style, dialogue delivery Although Rajini plays more of a supporting role & gets less screen presence compared to kamal..
& Thanks to Rudriah for the characterisation.

Director simply establishes the character & its attitude through his dialogues brilliantly.
there is scene where Rajini says " Rasikka pada vendiyadhu, rusikka pada vendiyadhu rendudhaan, onnu madhu innonnu maadhu,  pirappilayum sari, pazhakkavazhakkathilayum sari, padukkai arayilum sari".

This plot is the USP for the movie

Kamal & Sripriya
Well here in this stage, we get to see almost an equal space for both kamal & Sripriya. This is where you get to see the character study, revealation, confrontation & especially a debate kind of conversation as most of the times Manju would start getting cynnical about all the things that she sees & handles. At a stage you would start feeling that these both are made for each other & you are looking forward to see them both to sort their issues & live together.

Rajini & Sripriya
Almost most of the scenes would be in high voltage as conversation is between aggressive characters who just pours their views without bothering about the outcomes. But director has brilliantly dealt with this as we see both the sides falling. Time when Arun's friend shows his bossy attitude and the at the same time frankly tells about his wish to bed with Manju & thereby falling shamelessly before a Rock like Manju.Sripriya just rocks through out the movie & equally scores with Kamal & Rajini. By nature her voice has that essence of sarcasism which just bursts out in free fall & adds more intensity to her role.

Director seems to have a great control over the scenes with the help of Cinematographer. Shots tries to show the mood the characters & came out well. Although giving the limitations of monochromatic version which can just show either brighter mood throgh white, sober,trance mood with black & a surreal,sarcastic mood through grey.

Three soothing songs from Ilayaraja "Uravugal thodarkadhai", "Vaazhkkai oru odam" & "Panneer pushpangale". Since all of of them are sung either to sooth Manju in her various stages or sound of  manju's inner feelings, song has a sober mood in which Manju is still living & trying to hide from that.
Uravugal Thodarkadhai is my favourite. Thanks to Gautam Menon to reboot this song for today's audiences in Vaaranam Aaayiram which might have made many music lovers to dig out this song and its historical stamp that it carries.

Superb Climax & well justified again by the implicit expressions and dialogues.Arun always talks about the woman's liberation & ends up in almost a contrast character to whom he is gonna spend his rest of life. He doesn't want to be in a cliched world,  but ground reality which makes him to handle the cliched ones is inevitable & Arun's story ends up some thing like that - cliched. As the title says "Aval appadithaan" you see the never ending answer to Manju's persuit of life.

Almost all the scenes are my favorite & picking some would make me guilty.

I plead all the fellow movie goers to watch this movie. This movie deserved more acclaim.

My Salute to Director Rudraiah for a bold movie in 1978 & at the same time with true & frank
approach towards dealing with social issue without a preachy attitude. A true Cult classic!! I enjoyed this thoroughly. No questions for Rudraiah.