A lovely treat until the end of first half. A sense of Deja-vu prevailed in my mind as when I had equal feeling of thumbs-up and oh-f***k factors blipping until the end forming a perfect sine curve repeatedly for every 10 minutes for the entire second half. Rather getting admired for all good things about the movie, I was desperate to clear my confusions on the history and facts. How big were chozha dynasty? How big were the pandiyas? Why the hell is the tamil so ancient ? How old is Tamil itself ? etc etc etc…..
Firstly, let me share my research outcomes before analyzing the movie. The Chozhas were one of the huge empire that spanned across south east asia from South india, Srilanka, Andaman, Malay Archipelago, Vietnam etc.. Their periods were way back like 1000 years ago. From what I have researched, they were shrewd kingdom interms of expanding the boundaries and showed no mercy to other kings when it comes to capture the lands. However, they were pioneers in fine tuning the life style of the chozha period and shapped up the art, crafts, tradition, culture, architecture of what is presently called as South India. Pandiyas were native South Indians who ruled with Madurai as the base. They are equally talented in terms of arts and literature where Chozhas had ther base in Tanjavoor.
Till date, the cities Tanjavur & Madurai are famous for Architectural wonders and Tamil Scholars. This intresting fact interested me to know my blood too. Just was so curious to know if I belong Karthi gang or Reema Sen gang in the movie ;) and ironically, with the information I got, I am mix of both.. My dad and his family totally belonged to trichy (Ruled by Naickars from Pandiya kingdom) and my mom’s are from Tanjore (Chozhas regime) and so I am a confused end node blogging some were in sout east asia belongs to the trail of chozhas (I might be sick with accuracy of my scribblings here but u can still vaguely trust me)
Next, on the language Tamil, First thing I wanted to clear off is that Sanskrit and Tamil have no relation to each other. Sanskrit is mother of European languages and many Indian languages, but Tamil is not in that 'Indian' languages list derived from Sanskrit. You can confirm this from the following link (a research report by auroville language labs)
http://www.aurovillelanguagelab.org/Research/A%20Comparison%20of%20Tamil%20and%20Sanskrit.htm
However, Chozhas considered both Sanskrit and Tamil equally giving equal respect. Infact the best scholars in their era were equally good in both languages. Needless to mention, both these languages are part of the worlds oldest classical languages sharing the status with Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin Etc. The modern tamil (when I say modern tamil, this is considered as tamil spoken in Barthiyars period which is like 50 years ago) borrowed lots of words from Sanskrit and thus confuses many to the statement ‘Tamil is derived from Sanskrit’
The spoken tamil used by chozha gang in the movie is absolutely pure with no Sanskrit words mixed and when I researched further was amazed to see both these languages existed way before 5000 BC. Ironically, Sanskrit is not spoken since few decades back during the British rule. However, you can see there are still some similar words shared between these 2 languages from way back and the explanation quoted was very much understandable. In the age old period, the languages are made from the sounds. For eg, amma (means mother in tamil) formed as many animals (including human the 6 sensed animal) cries the same word and you shouldn’t be wondering why some other language is using a similar word.
Getting back to the movie, Selva spent quiet some time in researching the history in South and scripting a lovely follow up from the uncertainty the history has put, ‘A part of Chozha gang detached from Tanjavore and hiding some were’. An innovative script from Selva but its not convincing to see too much blood and vulgarity jus coz the story plot requires some dark reality. For me, this is one big movie I will never recommend to Indian women or children for their tender heart… Karthi is making us think that this is his 100th movie or something with his flamboyant expressions and cool-dude dialogue deliveries. However, he could have avoided the paruthiveeran influence by changing his look up and tamil accent. 'Atho antha paravi pola' remix is pleasant to ears.
Reema sen is the center of attraction with her out of the box characterization…. Graphics are pathetic.. I know good graphics demands more money but for Selva’s talent along with super good actors, he should have kept graphics to minimum and spent the resource/time/money on screen play… Though gladiator scene suited for the story, the graphics doest impress… The highlight of the movie which I never seen in any other was the exact Tamil they used for Chozha gang… Remember, tamil like few Indian languages is entirely contrasting when it comes to written and spoken…. I guess the black and white tamil movies created an incorrect image that the spoken tamil is same as the written tamil in olden days and this movie created a shock when we saw the spoken tamil is completely different in olden days and it is still so pure…
In summary, AO may not be for masses but surely a brave attempt to take the Tamil cinema to next level. Had the blood spill, vulgarity and length of the movie reduced, would have attracted all sections of audience.
