Ponniyin Selvan shows us the way forward for Indian cinema

Sorry, but comedies about a family death or a poverty-stricken daily wage-earner struggling to buy a new bicycle, won’t work in the movie theatres.

Re-telling of spectacular tales from Hindu mythology will.

Bigtime.

It suddenly flashed in front of me when I watched the long-awaited trailer Mani Ratnam ’s Ponniyin Selvan . The images are disembodied but captivating. The intention and execution are unambiguous. This is a film designed to wean the audiences into theatres. You can’t enjoy the full ferocity of Vikram on a horseback at home. And Aishwarya Rai Bachchan looking as untarnished by the ravages of age as she was when she did Mani Ratnam’s Guru, playing the beauteous the power behind the throne would look absurdly incongruous on your home.

Ponniyin Selvan is cinema designed as an epic. You may argue that an epic is not designed. But you would be wasting your energy. That was true in the days of Pakeezah and Mughal-E-Azam. Nowadays the visual spectacle is encrypted into the narrative.

Ponniyin Selvan looks sumptuous. I have to admit I didn’t feel anything beyond the exhilaration of a clean sweep across the senses .The downpour of spectacle is the need of the hour. These Chandamama type of stories patented by Rajamouli in Baahubali and RRR , was aggravated by KGF; for, what was KGF if not a celebration of sanguinary mythology with machine guns replacing swords

What’s in a maim? A severed heard by any weapon feels just the same.

Nonetheless, I now realize that these mythological /pseudo-historicals /Primordial Epics are what will work: Karthikeya 2 , and now Brahmastra followed by Ponniyin Selvan. I think the universe is trying to tell our moviemakers something.

My problem with these Nani Maa Ki Chandamama Kahaaniyan is their monotony. After a point, every battle scene from the Moghul Empire/ Hindu Dynasty feels just the same as what we saw in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bajirao Mastani and Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar.

What gives authenticity to Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan is not only the visual spectacle but also the authenticity of the actors. Akshay Kumar didn’t look convincing on a horse in Samrat Prithviraj. Vikram in Ponniyin Selvan does.

Oh, more thing: that voiceover is Kamal Haasan’s. I thought Mani Ratnam and Kamal Haasan were over and done with after Nayakan. Good to see them back together.

Subhash K Jha is a Patna-based film critic who has been writing about Bollywood for long enough to know the industry inside out. He tweets at @SubhashK_Jha.

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