Apart from being a beautifully crafted film made with a worth praising artistic vision, this award winning venture has been included in the list for a different much important motive, related to the highly ignored and lesser known, regional cinema of our country being made in various languages. In fact this is a film which will surprisingly introduce you to the other sides of two immensely talented personalities of South Film Industry who unfortunately are presently famous in Hindi Cinema for quite different (under-rated) reasons.
In short, the name of director Priyadarshan may remind you of few successful and many mindless (inspired) Hindi comedies made in the last few years performing miserably at the box office. Plus the name Prakash Raj might make you recall all those cunning but monotonous portrayals of villains in many big money grossers such as WANTED, SINGHAM & more. But here is a film which would change your complete perception about these two and will make you witness a path breaking and highly artistic take on an important issue of India in the post independence era directed brilliantly by Priydarshan and enacted superbly by Prakash Raj. The film rightly follows the saying, that film-making is the art of storytelling in a splendid way and introduces the viewers to the problems faced by the silk-weavers in the year 1948 which also led to the start of communist movement.
Widely believed to be the career best film of Priyadarshan, it surely is a personal triumph by the director despite being involved in so many crappy comedies being made in almost the same time period (ie. 2008), quite surprisingly. In fact this proves that the creator is certainly being roped into making movies which are much below his own capabilities and vision following the usual trend. Interestingly the same can be said about Prakash Raj, who came with such an exceptional show, moving much ahead than his negative portrayals in all the big budget films and quite deservingly won a national award too for his outstanding performance.
Coming to the film, KANCHIVARAM basically follows the ages old Indian tradition wherein Silk is considered to be the symbol of highest degree of purity in Hinduism. And it plays an important part of Hindu’s life both at the time of marriage and at the time of death to purify the gifted soul. The film particularly talks about the era when the silk weaver in a small town of Tamil Nadu were exploited by the wealthy factory owners and were not even paid one tenth of the amount of a single silk saree (made out of many) sold to the foreign exporters. At that time poor weavers could not afford to have silk sarees for their daughter’s wedding and that exactly serves as the basic theme of this period film both written & directed thoughtfully.
Keeping a keen eye on every finer detail of the film, actually Priyadarshan spins a great cinematic yarn with a delightful balance between artistic and commercial cinema for the interested viewers. Along with a fast moving, well written screenplay, the film keeps travelling between the past & the present with a superlative editing, maintaining the much desired pace. Cinematography and Art Design give a perfect colour tone to the entire film using the soulfully composed background music in all its tragic moments right till the end. The realistic feel of the era is well presented by the entire talented cast and playing the innocent wife, Shreya Reddy delivers a polished award winning performance adding to the overall impact of the film very convincingly.
On the flip side, the scenes dealing with the communism factor don’t leave any solid impact and many net-age viewers might not feel watching anything intensely moving due to its slow documentary kind of narrative to be honest. But having said that, KANCHIVARAM surely deserves to be seen as a must to meet a new Priyadarshan and Prakash Raj, many young viewers of Hindi cinema might not be familiar with at all. It’s a poetic representation of an emotional story with some splendid performances and a colourful representation on the screen. And that is exactly the reason why it deservingly was awarded, National Film Award for Best Film & Best Actor (Prakash Raj) along with Filmfare Awards in South (Tamil) for Best Director, Best Actor (Prakash Raj), Best Supporting Actress (Shammu) & Best Cinematographer (S. Thiru).
To end with an indicative thought, just take a look at its insightfully designed poster and try to guess what it might mean before watching the film. And then see it again after witnessing the classic and you will surely praise the thought behind this skillfully made KANCHIVARAM without any doubt. Also it may make you wonder that how many more directors & actors are presently operative in our Indian Cinema like some underemployed professionals giving away to the marketing demands.
Screenplay & Direction By Priyadarshan
Starring : Prakash Raj, Shreya Reddy, Shammu and more.
Tags :
Kanchivaram (2008) Tamil Award Winning Film, Movies To See Before You Die Drama, Must See Indian Movies List by Bobby Sing, Best of Regional Cinema in India, Must Watch Films List by Bobby Sing, Not To Be Missed Films List By Bobby Sing.
