Aparna’s Blog

Watch it here now: http://movies.ndtv.com/NDTV-Show-Special.aspx?ID=543 !!

Newspapers, magazines, websites, Abhishek Bachchan’s tweets, mail forwards, posters on newspapers and on the walls, trailers on all the Hindi and Tamil channels! After more than a couple of years of rumours initially about Mani Ratnam’s next film Lajjo that were doing the rounds in all the newspapers and websites and then the endless news about what next Mani Ratnam’s movie was all about, the initial names for the Hindi and Tamil versions – Raavan and Ashokavanam, the cast & crew, the problem with forest officials, rumours about the climax, etc., etc., interviews with the cast & crew & the director himself and not to mention all those non-informative news items which seemed to have been published just for filling up the space, the day of the release of the movie is just a couple of days away!

Having watched the last two movies of Mani Ratnam on the day of the release itself, I hope that I get to watch this too on the first day. Can’t wait to see Mani Ratnam delve deep into the numerous minds of Beera! My plan, as of now, is to watch Raavan first and then Raavanan. What about you?

Did you watch the programme ‘Mani Matters’ on CNN-IBN this weekend? Watching not just what was a quick recap of almost all the movies of Mani Ratnam till date, with the actors and other crew members talking about their experience of working with Mani Ratnam, but hearing the man himself speak about most of his movies has only doubled up my excitement and made the wait for the release of Raavan seem even longer! The show itself was a very good one, besides it isn’t often that you get to watch Mani Ratnam speak about his movies. Seeing clippings from so many movies of his at a stretch made me wish I could watch it all once again. In case you haven’t watched the show yet, do watch it here. Also, do check out another very good interview with Mani Ratnam here.

Now when everybody is talking about the director’s note on the website of Raavan, let’s revisit the note that was there on the website of Alaipayuthey. Check it out here in the archived website of Alaipayuthey. Follow the links below to read the notes on Karthik’s and Sakthi’s worlds too.

P.S.: To all those who got bored of this mini-series on Alaipayuthey, I’ll try to come up with posts on other topics soon!

My sister and I are video chatting now, excitedly discussing about Mani Ratnam’s movies, when she tells me that somebody’s status message says ‘It’s raining in Chennai’. I was so engrossed in talking about Mani’s movies that I didn’t even know that it’s raining here! Stepping out of the room, the maNN vaasanai greeted me. How blissful rains in the midst of scorching summer is!

Isn’t this newly released trailer intriguing? Don’t the sun rays filtered through the trees in the shot where Abhishek & Aishwarya are going on a boat look surreal? The music at 0:24 in this trailer reminds me of the BGM in Roja for the scenes featuring the terrorists. As I read the line ‘The bond between the hunter and the hunted – between the captor and the captive’ in the ‘Director’s note’ in the website of Raavan, I immediately started thinking about how Mani Ratnam has already shown a bond between the captor and the captive in Roja too. Anyway, the trailers are making the wait for the movie release seem longer by the day!

With this song, Mani Ratnam shows he needs neither exotic locales having nature’s beauty in abundance (Pacchai Nirame) nor a fort (Snehidhane) nor a festive atmosphere (Yaaro Yaarodi) and with just brick and cement (and not to forget those yellow and white bed spreads) as a backdrop, he can create stunning visuals too.
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