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Conversations with Maniratnam - Baradwaj Rangan


Baradwaj Rangan (BR) is one of the finest critics in India. He is academic, sincere, brilliant and not politically correct. He is one of the few critics in India who knows the syntax of how to review commercial films. I read and watch his reviews and interviews every week. When I came to know that, BR has written a book about Maniratnam and his movies, I couldn’t resist myself from reading it.
"Conversations With Maniratnam" is a book that tries to bring out the thought process and nuances behind various movies of Maniratnam. The book discusses all the movies of Mani in chronological order.

It took quite a few chapters to get into the groove with this book due to various reasons. First, the book is completely written in a conversational format. It took some time for me to adjust to this as I am used to reading a book in a story format or from a first-person narrative. After seeing so many interviews of BR in Film Companion (Say, his deciphering of Ennai Arindhaal and VTV with Gautam Vasudev Menon ), I didn’t find the freshness in the narrative. It was like, I know Baddy would ask questions like this. One thing to note is that the book was written and published in 2013. The format of his question and answers would have been fresh then. (Still, no one deciphers the movie like him). Secondly, There was a trust lagging between BR and Mani in the initial chapters. The lack of chemistry does come across in the initial chapters, thereby making the few pages very boring. As a result, One of the best works of Maniratnam, Mounaragam, does not get the attention it should have received.
The book did take off after the conversations moved to movie Nayagan. Both Mani and Baddy are quite at home after this. The implicit trust between them improves and as a result, the readers get to see the brilliance of BR(as a critic) and Mani (as a director). There were so many technical aspects discussed in the book especially related to cinematography. For example, the significance of the sun and how the sun was metaphorically used to convey the mood and thoughts were explained brilliantly.
Maniratnam also takes us through how a small idea that is triggered within him has transformed into a full-length movie. For Instance, The way he explained How Alaipayuthe (Saathiya in Hindi) was conceived was wonderful. I also liked when Mani downplays Baddy multiple times when he tried to over-intellectualize the various scenes of the movie. At the end of the book, one could feel that the trust factor between mani and Baddy has improved leaps and bounds. One can’t stop wondering on why the book had a sudden ending. Having said that, the book is a delight for all the Maniratnam fans.

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