To restore parity after discussing an old Kamal Haasan film we thought we must do a Rajinikanth film. Ok, that's not the reason but we felt this Rajinikanth film must be discussed. This is 1978 and Rajinikanth's early years in Tamil cinema. It's the year he stamped his authority and signaled the coming of a legend of Indian cinema. Mullum Malarum, directed by Mahendran with cinematography by Balu Mahendra and music by Ilaiyaraaja had Rajinikanth, Shoba, Sarath Babu and Jayalaxmi. The film was based on a novel by Uma Chandran. A seminal film in not just the crew's and Rajinikanth's careers but to Tamil cinema itself, the film informed the direction Tamil cinema took from there on and also colored the future characters played by the superstar. To talk about all that and more we invited two of the biggest fans of the film. Shakila Zamboulingame, more popularly known by her account 1916tamilcinema on Instagram which contains some of the most original takes on everything Tamil cinema. Joining her is journalist Kavitha Muralidharan who is participating in our podcast for the third time. Participants: Aditya Anantha Shakila Zamboulingame Kavitha Muralidharan Edited by ABVan
Lokesh Kanagaraj's Vikram is just a week away and the expectations are immense for the film starring Kamal Haasan, Vijay Sethupathi and Fahadh Faasil. The furor began in late 2020 when they released a teaser revealing the title accompanied by a sampling of one of the greatest title tracks by Ilaiyaraaja - Vikram from the film of the same name that released in 1986. The 1986 film was a mammoth effort in terms of scripting and production. A screenplay written by Kamal Haasan and writer/novelist Sujatha adapted from the latter's serialized story and directed by Rajashekar the making of Vikram is as much of a lore as its aftermath, influences and the new film it has spawned (though not a sequel). Vikram has Kamal Haasan as an intelligence agent playing the closest James Bond could come to Indian cinema back till that point (and after Jai Shankar in Tamil cinema). It also had Sathyaraj as the villain with Lissy, Dimple Kapadia, Amjad Khan and Charuhasan completing a role call of who's who from different language industries. Guru aka Lazygeek joins us to talk about how Sujatha and Kamal Haasan met, their journey through cinema, their collaboration on Vikram, the production effort,how the film turned out and how it has aged. Joining him are Aditya and Anantha Participants Guru Aditya Anantha Edited by Ashoka
A film like Chennai 600028 needs no introduction but here is an attempt anyway - a small gang of first timers and amateurs, however privileged by their industry backgrounds, came together to make a movie on amateur cricket - street cricket to be precise - and male friendship. Venkat Prabhu bandied together Shiva, Premji, Nithin Sathya, Aravind Akash, Sampath, Jai, Vijay Vasanth, Ajay Raj and of course, Yuvan Shankar Raja to create a film whose infection charm and fun might have been felt during the set but with a few jitters as SP Balasubrahmanyam and his son SPB Charan put their money into it. The film completed fifteen years recently and what opened lukewarm with so many newcomers are all names today we always associate together as a gang and not by individual, went on to become a sleeper cult hit. To celebrate these fifteen years of repeat watches, Aditya, Anantha and Balajee get together to talk about the film and the memories associated with it. Cinema Express Editor in Chief and podcast friend and guest Sudhir Srinivasan interviewed Venkat Prabhu for the same occasion and it came up during our discussion. The interview is linked below Participants: Aditya Anantha (also editor of this episode) Balajee Venkat Prabhu interview with Sudhir Srinivasan - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGhNELP6fsc
In the latest episode of the podcast, we discuss the recent Bollywood movie 83 – which retells the story of India’s miraculous victory in the 1983 World Cup. Talking Points: A missed opportunity to recreate the cricketing miracle that was 1983 The conspicuous absence of India’s victory over West Indies at Berbice The complete erasure of Mohinder Amarnath’s golden season Ranveer Singh and Jiiva – and their game attempt to approximate Kapil Dev and Krishnamachari Srikkanth The film not setting the context for the 1983 World Cup The lack of a genuine bad guy – which makes the movie search for antagonists The factual inaccuracies in the movie – including a big faux pas in the final scene The movie explaining scenes way more than showing them through storytelling The cinematographic techniques – long-shots combined with close-ups and highlight reels The nationalistic tone that runs through the movie The Malayalam movie 1983, which takes a completely different approach to recreati...
The recent big announcement in Tamil cinema is the collaboration of director Nelson (Kolamaavu Kokila, Doctor, yet to release Beast with Vijay) with Rajinikanth. Since the time Rajinikanth collaborated twice with Pa. Ranjith and once with Karthik Subbaraj, there have always been calls for the biggest stars - meaning male actors who guarantee huge weekend openings at box office - to work with young, promising filmmakers making a different kind of cinema, themselves a coterie that came into being around 2008 in Tamil cinema. The list of filmmakers has only grown since then and it's been a great decade. From calls for Kamal Haasan at his height of stardom and experimentation to work with some of them to Rajini working with them and Vijay collaborating with Lokesh Kanagaraj, and Ajith with H. Vinoth (and we've had more than a decade of Dhanush-Vetrimaaran), fans believe this is a treat. Currently we have upcoming films like Lokesh Kanagaraj's Vikram with Kamal Haasan, Vijay's Beast with...
After a long break, we return to our Director Series on Mysskin. In this episode we talk about Mysskin's 2014 film Pisaasu starring Naga, Prayaga Martin, Radha Ravi et al. The film broadly falls under the horror genre but with its filmmaking and inherent philosophy subverts the genre in many different ways. Add to this, Mysskin's next film is a sequel to Pisaasu starring Andrea. To talk about the film Aditya is joined by two distinguished guests. Sudhir Srinivasan returns to our podcast to talk about his favorite Mysskin film. Sudhir is a film critic and editor of Cinema Express. He had earlier joined us to talk about Aayirathil Oruvan Amrutha is a Visiting Assistant Professor in Film and Digital Media Studies at the Department of English Language and Literature at Wofford College. She obtained her doctoral degree from Department of English at MSU last year, with her dissertation on 'Situating Tamil Cinema'. Her PhD advisor was Dr. Swarnavel Eswaran who is a friend of the podcast an...
As the title suggests, Raj B. Shetty's latest Kannada film Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahana contains its share of mythological undertones. But the film is more than just that almost reinventing the gangster drama at an epic scale with very curious passage of character developments. Set in Mangaluru, it tells the story of Hari (Rishab Shetty) and Shiva (Raj B. Shetty), the backstory of how they climb up the ladder of crime in the city and the eventual souring of the relationship. The film's conspicous homo-eroticism was noticed by many and how well it does what it does with it and the film's complete disregard for women in its universe has been topics of debate. For this episode, we have full house of The Other Banana team - Aditya, Deepauk, Anantha and Ashoka discuss the setting, the relationship between Shiva and Hari, what the film does well and what it does not, the character of Brahmmaya played by Gopal Krishna Deshpande, the writing and filmmaking in Garuda Gamana Vrishabha Vahan...
Its a full house for the last pod of the year; all 4 of us talk about movies/series of 2021: what we watched, what we liked, what we didn't and what we hope to see more of in the coming year. It is a freewheeling chat covering regional content from South India and a lit bit from around the world. ...oh and a Happy 2022 from the crew! Participants: Deepauk Ashoka Aditya Anantha Episode edited by Ashoka.
This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film, each one thoughtfully hand-picked. From new directors to award-winners. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies—there is always something new to discover. In this episode, we talk about Vijay Kumar's 2016 film Uriyadi. A debut film as actor, writer and director for Vijay Kumar the film had several debutantes in its cast along with Mime Gopi, Citizen Sivakumar among others. The film, set in and around an engineering college outside Trichy, touched upon many issues like caste outfits, caste violence, clashing ideologies and transformation of such outfits into political politics. The film is visceral in its depiction of violence and though it does not name names, Tamil Nadu has a storied history for us to join the dots and talk about the various topics associated with the theme of the film. Joining Aditya and Anantha for this epis...
This episode is brought to you by MUBI, a curated streaming service showing exceptional films from around the globe. Every day, MUBI premieres a new film, each one thoughtfully hand-picked. From new directors to award-winners. Beautiful, interesting, incredible movies—there is always something new to discover. After 102 episodes on South Indian cinema, The Other Banana Podcast has finally chanced upon a film by Mani Ratnam. In this episode we discuss Mani Ratnam's polarizing Iruvar - his take on the friendship between the real life figures of MG Ramachandran and M Karunanidhi, two stalwarts of that heady concoction - cinema and politics. We discuss both the aspects of the film - the form and aesthetics, and Mani's depiction of the Dravidian politics and the various characters in its inception and implementation. You can watch the film with subtitles on MUBI. You can try MUBI for a hugely discounted price by signing up on https://mubi.com/theotherbanana or click here. The film stars...