Ye Maaya Chesave (Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya): About the 'unpredictable woman'!

So, K Balachander has written to Gautam Vasudev Menon raving about his latest movie Ye Maaya Chesave (Original 'Vinnai Thaandi Varuvaya' in Tamil meaning “Will You Come Down the Sky?”) and told him he is the next icon. It's unfair to compare both the versions as the climax seems to vary. The producers of Telugu version, in line with widely-held belief that Telugu audience would NEVER accept a sad/less-than-shubham card kind of ending, changed the the original 'unhappy' climax. So the very intent of the movie is lost in Telugu version. That is because the movie was implying an unhappy ending all through. There was hardly a scene where the two lovers were uninhibited about their love. In fact, the movie was peppered with dialogues like "she is my one-way ticket to heartbreak city!" from the guy and "let me feel this pain, I like this pain" from the girl. It is the stylised picturization, background score and Music that makes this movie look like a mushy love story and not the content.

And compounding the intent-loss is the fact that as in his previous movie, Menon focuses self-indulgently on his story-telling and not the story. As he himself says "More than falling in love, therefore, the film’s story focuses on “what happens in the next moment.” It is kind of running commentary, day in and day out of a guy who just fell in love. The guy is spontaneous and the Girl so confused. And Love being such a complex emotion, the story shows its two protagonists in behaviours outside the realm of reason or logic. The lady is in a iterative loop of indecision and the guy in a similar loop of hope and frustration, depending on his lady's mood. All love stories dished out in Indian movies more or less revolve around external hurdles like families, villains or external circumstances. Maniratnam's 'Sakhi' (Alaipayuthey in Tamil, Saathiya in Hindi) was the only reasonable exception to dig into the lovers' psyche to create a conflict. But that was a case of love after marriage. But Menon takes the big challenge by creating conflict from the lovers' own complexities. After all, in a world this complex when guys and girls do lot of thinking to decide what they want, accepting someone as love and then life-partner is no simple thing. Menon exposes these predicaments, vulnerabilities and fragility in the romance by relying on the universally celebrated 'women are unpredictable' stereotype. Even in Telugu we have this famous line 'Adavaarimaatalaku ardhaleverule' (Women speak something but mean something else). So here, Jessi, the lady's characteristics manifest in all complexities this love cycle goes through. This is a very unconventional characterization by Menon as this is the first time, I saw, a complete movie is dedicated to the 'unpredicatble woman'.

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AR Rahman's BG score and Music captures the mood just right. The movie is stylishly made as is Menon's wont. The Alleppey shots are breath-taking and Rajeev Menon got a credit for the location. Samantha, the lady in Telugu version is perfectly cast. Her costumes are perfect and her acting elegant. I did not quite get Nagachaitanya's line of acting. He was just being himself all through the movie and could not present his character well. Even the earnestness seen in his debut movie is missing. Gautam Vasudev Menon continues his Surya S/O Krishnan (Vaaranam Aayiram) kind of musings in Ye Maaya Chesave.

Well, the 80 year old living legend of Tamil cinema Balachander wrote the viewers are wise and they got it, the viewers who liked the movie point to us Balachander is a legend and those who didn't say, rather uncharitably, that KB is now 80 and lost sense of judgement!

The reactions are so drastically different. Some rave about it and others completely trash it. One of my friends' mom supposedly said she always wondered why viewers would throw stones at a screen until she saw this one! Others with their brush with cupid can't stop raving about how the complexities of a crush are beautifully portrayed on screen. Ye Maaya Chesave is like poetry. Those who can relate to it appreciate it. Those who can't get bored like hell. It is an intensely personal experience, like Menon's earlier Surya starrer. It is a genuinely honest movie, well-made. The only mistake, I thought, was changing the climax for Telugu. The original climax would have avoided the confusion that now set in about the 'story' of the movie. Changing the climax killed the spirit of the movie and made the viewers wonder about the whole point of the movie.