This post is dedicated to all those who prompted me to retaliate – contrary to popular criticisms, this was actually a good movie.
Every minute of the movie was aesthetically pleasing but more than that, it was a movie that you couldn’t leave in the theatre and go back home without a thought on your mind. The parallels to the Raamaayanam were absolutely clear and to me, there was no sacrilege. Come on people, she did NOT fall in love with him; there’re emotions like empathy and pity at play here!
The movie only attempted to paint the characters differently… not even different colours, just different lighting perhaps. The questions raised were only an extension of the debates that have been going on for centuries – the world is grey, not black and white.
About the arguments that religious sentiments were hurt and that if it had been some other religion, the Govt. would’ve intervened – Hinduism has weathered much more real threats than a movie that hardly a few lakh people watched. Personally, I am staunchly religious and yet, I find that I’d rather be tolerant like my faith than raise a hue and cry about someone’s interpretation of the characters in an epic. I agree that it is sacred to millions of people but just like our country, our culture too belongs to each one of us – everyone is entitled to their own opinions, let them be !
In every scene, it was made amply clear that the female protagonist was in love with and loyal to her husband. And as with any modern adaptation, the writer and director have only modified the story to fit the age. So I suggest that you watch it as a movie by its own right – if it makes you feel any better, think of it as a very looooose adaptation rather than a re-telling of the story. But if you only want the Raamaayanam, watch Ramanand Sagar, not Mani Ratnam.
