This folk-classical dichotomy is very obvious in Shankar’s films. But, of course, when the love is felt, and is no longer unrequited, it is celebrated as a folk dance.
Somewhere between hunh ? and hanh ! Shankar resides.Īnniyan in that sense, is Shankar’s universe entirely, where a Brahmin in love imagines his jasmine-wearing lover among Danish tulips and decorating European cobblestones with kolam, while his mrudangam-wielding manjira-miming friends background him. It’s simultaneously exciting and exasperating. I mean, this is a director who took his cast and crew to the Machu Picchu, in Peru, to sing a song about Kilimanjaro, a mountain in Tanzania. Here was the worldly wise man I was in search of. This man has eight wardrobe changes in a six-minute song where he references everything from Mohenjodaro to Nagasaki, from King Cobra to babycorn. Of course, back then Remo seemed the coolest of the lot. Cue ‘Kannum Kannum Nokia’.) Kannum Kannum Nokia, when hunh? meets hanh! (After a moment of confrontation, when he asks if Nandini is finally ready to have sex, he asks, “Yoyo?” and she says “Yaya”. Using roses, parakeets, and an accent and lingo that are neither American nor Indian nor tolerable, Remo goes on his ramp-age. Using leeches, boiling oil, snakes, the aforementioned buffaloes, and a fear-inducing baritone, Anniyan goes on a rampage. The murder sequences are as innovative as they are disturbing. Remo makes Nandini fall in love with him, and Anniyan punishes all those who use illegal or immoral (there is a distinction here, one I wouldn’t understand back then) means to navigate their world. His frustrations lead him to develop two personalities - Rampwalk-Remo and Anniyan - the former to tackle his love, and the latter to tackle an increasingly callous and indifferent society. His lover, Nandini (Sadha), jilts him, and society scorns his rule-adhering gait.
Vikram plays Ambi aka Rules Ramanujan, the tight-ass lawyer who is dejected both personally and professionally. It only got worse.Īlso Read: Every Shankar Film, Ranked By Baradwaj Rangan Like I said, I had no idea what the film was about, and was quite shocked when within the first half hour there was a buffalo orgy culminating in the death of a selfish man. I did so reluctantly, and off we marched to Sathyam Cinema with enough extra cash for rose milk for a post-film indulgence. Mum was not interested and didn’t want him to go alone, so she sent me, the then Vivek-Oberoi fanboy (a lot has changed over 15 years), to accompany him.
He insisted that he wanted to watch the film in the theater. My Sidney Sheldon-gulping elder brother, a huge fan of violence, horror and gore, had found out that a magnum opus violent-horror-gory film Anniyan was releasing soon the songs and the budget were the talk of the town apparently - I couldn’t care less. (During an open air theater screening of Munnabhai MBBS I formed a ‘cult’ with the other kids and played hide and seek as adults kept shushing us out of their view.) It was 2005, and we had just moved to Chennai, so my Tamil wasn’t hip-and-happening (still isn’t), and I was not much of a film person.
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