Suspect X / Perfect Number

I had a tremendous urge to watch Suspect X/Perfect Number when I walked out of Papanasam movie.  So here I am writing again, but this time not about #Papanasam. As I sat down after grabbing the original DVD Perfect Number from a local store, little did I realize that I am in for beautiful love story.

I chose this picture for a particular reason.

Perfect Number has a thicker plot making it fundamentally different from Papanasam. We absolutely would love to see Kamal Hassan doing this movie than Drishyam and it would have been yet another great title under his name. Now, we no longer measure Kamal Hassan by the greatness of his movies. We just want him on screen. That aside, I will continue with what I wanted to write.

The movie begins with police discovering the body which the first officer describes "squashed like a melon", there by confirming the murder. The first most important thing required to prove a murder is the dead body. If there is no body, then there is no murder. In history of homicide cases very few have seen conviction based on circumstantial or forensic evidences without the dead body. If there is no body, there is no proof of murder simply because of the hypothesis that the person can be missing and/or probably alive somewhere. 

Secondly in Perfect Number, there is enough prima facie evidence to prove that the body found, is the body of the victim.  The forensic data, DNA test, other evidences like victims last few transactions, the bicycle he rented, the apartment he booked for a night stay on the night of his death: all point to the fact that the he was present at these places and he was killed that night. The police also discover that the victim was murdered by strangulation using a electrical wire commonly used in iron box. This makes the suspect a person close to the victim.

Third, the suspects never speak lies in any of the police interrogation. A number of people are questioned about the murder: his girl friend, the pub he frequents, his ex-wife, the little girl. Yet all of them speak the truth. Naturally, positive results from polygraph machine adds to the complexity of the investigation. 

Finally, why was there a murder? Though there is forensic and circumstantial evidence linking the murder with the suspect, the police is unable to to directly prove the murder. Since the case is handled by investigation officer (not some random constable with a personal vendetta) some very superior police work is at display in terms of criminal investigation. 

Papanasam: the hounding of a poor family with absolutely no evidence, based on a mere hunch, with no dead body, no knowledge of the victims whereabouts, and suspects trained to lie under every circumstances. In Perfect Number, even when the investigating officer finds the right killer, they have to arrest & convict the wrong person because of the alibi. (I also think that makers of Perfect Number didn't focus on showing how bad பெருமாள் is. No that wasn't the intention). 

Unlike the father, the man has not even spoken a sentence to the girl next door and still protects her. To what extent a man, the mathematical genius trying to solve Goldbach Conjecture, go to protect the girl he is in love with. How does he do it? How does he create an alibi that is so solid to deceive police? And what does he loose to make this lover happy for the rest of her life? In that way, Perfect Number is a fantastic love story. And it is purely mathematical. 

If you get a copy of this movie, don't miss.

Story Telling and the Story

When Kamal Hassan made the most famous tamil movie Vetri Vizha in 1989, it was compared to bond movies. The movie was a huge success at box office. The 1988 released Bourne Identity movie had differences from the book. But Vetri Vizha was a clever adaptation of Robert Ludlum's novel and it has shades of both Bourne Identity and Supremacy which was made in 2000's.

Adaptation is not new to Tamil Cinema, not even blatant copying. Its not new to Kamal Hassan either. His movies like Nammavar, Magalir Mattum, Mahanadhi, Sathi Leelavathi, Avvai Shanmugi, Anbe Sivam, Panchathanthiram, Thenali & to Papanasam have all been adapted from some foreign movie, mostly English movies.

The current trend in movies is similar to the Look East policy of Govt. of India. Many movies today are stories that are popular in countries like Japan, Korea etc. When Drishyam was released last year, it was buzz all over - an instant hit. The last Malayalam movie I saw was "Iyer The Great". The first one being Oru CBI Dairy Kurippu, of course.

Something stuck me about the movie Drishyam. My curiosity just shot, and read a little about Drishyam. A kind of story telling that is fantastic and original.  A month after the release of the movie, I understood that the story is not so original after all. It was adapted from Japanese Novel called "The Devotion of Suspect X". The story is about a mathematician  and his adorable neighbor who accidentally kills her abusive boy friend. The mathematician uses his skills and the rest you can witness either in Drishyam or its remake Papanasam. 

As a movie buff, I have realized that adaptations are the norm and every movie maker adapts an original movie at some point, alters the story line to suit the local audience. I wish Kamal Hassan actually remade the original Japanese movie and played the role of a mathematician. Such a role would have at least saved "Perumal" (I mean Bhagavan Vishnu).  Its no secret that Kamal Hassan makes direct attacks at Hindu Gods. I also believe that the constable name Perumal was no coincidence. Kamal reveals it in his dialogue "எனக்கும் பெருமாளுக்கும் இருக்கும் பகை ஊருக்கு தெரியும்".

Well, coming back to the intention of the blog, even the super hero Vision who is created in Age of Ultron by Tony Stark with the help of Tesseract is closely similar to Aswathama. Most boys of 80's would have heard about a king whose life is kept safe in a parrot which is 7 hills and 7 oceans far, very similar to the Hocruxes of Voldemort. Only there is no way to confirm if these are adaptations.

If we isolate 'story telling' from Tamil cinemas today, there is little original story. The actual story itself which is a result of creation is dying a slow death.  This also makes me wonder, why none of the history based movies of MGR or Shivaji or Gemini Ganesan never tried again. For example a sic-fi movie like MGR's "Kalai Arasi" or a patriotic king "Kattabomman" or a fantasy movie like "Kanavane Kankanda Dheivam"...

துணிவே துணை (Courage is your companion)

I was sitting in the movie theater months back waiting for காக்கி சட்டை to start. The usual trailers were running. One trailer that caught my attention other than F7 was "Detective Byomkesh Bakshi". I got curious and rattled around the internet about Detective Byomkesh Bakshi.

The literary character from the Poschim Bongo, created by a Bong story writer in the 1930's has appeared in print comics, television series and in movies. The last television series was in 2014 and the latest movie featuring the character in 2015 is the Hindi Movie trailer I saw. With over 30 comics, 10 movies and many television series Byomkesh Bakshi is one of the longest running character in the world of cinema, and longer than James Bond.

Tamil and Bengali in terms of literature have many similarities. In modern times the Bengal and Tamil literature have traveled paths equally. As country we have unity in diversity, but Indian Film Industry never really did cross cultural lingual experiment in terms of film making. Because Byomkesh Bakshi never solved a mystery in Tamil Nadu. Often Bollywood hijacks everything they could from regional movies. For instance Detective Byomkesh Bakshi. Actually its Satyawanshi Byomkesh Bakshi (ব্যোমকেশ বক্সী).

As I sat through to think why in Tamil cinema no one ever tried bring Kattabomman or Karnan or Malaikallan back on the large screen? Sherlock Holmes came back, all the Marvel Heroes came back, Batman never seems to stop... But not one character was built in Tamil Cinema that could stand with time and grow with the Tamil audience. Only Rajnikanth did that too as an individual. CID Shankar (Jai Shankar) is one character that could return to large screen. One of Jai Shankar's classic movie is this 1976 released துணிவே துணை by PRT a production house making a movie for the first time. The title credit starts after the movie runs for about 20 minutes (like 007). A modern day movie set in that period would be a real fun to watch. Somebody remade Jai Shankar's Pattanathil Boodham with Sendhil,  no one has that courage to make one such today.

Living in Dubai I get to see only one Tamil movie a week at the cinemas. And I haven't missed any movie in the last few years. The pattern of Tamil cinema making is beginning to be mundane and all movies want to be mass movies. And even today's time women don't seem to have any central role in Tamil movies. Selvaraghavan did make ஆயிரத்தில் ஒருவன் bringing Chola's into the large screen, but it never went anywhere. Even Mani Ratnam and Gautam Vasudev Menon had to think inside the box to deliver hits. They cannot make பொன்னியின் செல்வன் in full, but they can sure make one chapter bringing வந்திய தேவன் on screen.

I hope that before I hit 50 years of age, some Tamil movie maker will make a classic like துணிவே துணை or மலை கள்ளன். (Both these movies dont have a Wiki Page. Planning to make one and link).