Old Memories ...

Today morning, when I was flipping channels while watching the match, I stopped at a vaguely familiar scene. A guy was standing in a river, face not clear - with Yesudass singing in the background. It took me a couple of seconds before I could recognize the aalaapanai - It was the song "kamalam paadha kamalam" from the movie moga mull. I love this song - brilliant rendition by Yesudass, pleasing but not too great lyrics, and amazing composition by IR. In fact, I like every song from this album (Sollayo vaai thirandhu, nenjey gurunatharin). The movie as such is a bore - but at least would have done justice to the novel by T.Janakiraman. This was one of those IR's carnatic-based classics,  and has prompted me to download songs from this movie and also from the movie Shankarabaranam.

This incident rekindled a lot of old memories and thoughts. When I was a kid I used to be surprised that most of the English movies that I saw, didn't have any songs as such. In the middle of the movie, no one used to jump out and sing a song. (I hadn't seen many musicals when I was a kid, I still haven't seen many!) After a point, I used to wonder, why people don't sing a song, say, when they are sad, in real life! Pondering about it now, I know very few movies in Tamil film industry that are devoid of songs. 

In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of tamil movies and other Indian movies, as well, is that, songs in a movie make it unrealistic - so why then do people use it? To me, the answer is very simple. Why should movies be realistic in the first place? All that matters is logical consistency, and not realism. Making a film is an art and it is upto the director to convey his thoughts on a film reel. Just like an artist who is allowed to use any colour to express his feelings, the director can choose any form of expression. Songs are exceptionally good at conveying emotions and are very powerful forms of expression in the sense they can stick to your mind better than, say, a dialogue. Of course, what I am against is the current trend where songs are placed in the movie just for the heck of it and nobody cares a rat's ass as to what it conveys. 

This prompted me to think of movies which would have been otherwise unknown if not for the music. I guess the same could be said of most of the movies of the mid-eighties and early nineties. So many movies would have been a huge flop had it not been for IR or Rahman. Actors like (mike)Mohan, (G)Ramarajan, would have gone into oblivion, but for IR! Will people even remember movies like Mr. Romeo, Kaadhalan, Kaadhal Desam if not for Rahman?!

I guess this one random post where I have started writing thinking of one thing and ended on a completely different note. A good, fruitful waste of a morning! ;-)