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Sunday, April 28, 2024
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TAMIL MARYAN
EDITOR'S PICK
Movie Review by PS Arjun (Rating : 4/5)
Maryan is a fisherman in coastal Tamil Nadu. He falls in love with Panimalar, a girl who is in love with him since her childhood. Maryan goes to Africa in-order to help Panimalar. The rest of the film is all about Maryan’s struggle to reach back home from there. A tale of love and survival.
Dhanush is an amazing actor, and he shows it again. It will be awkward to praise his performance again and again for each and every movie he is a part of. His terrific performance simply deserves a lot of awards. Parvathi resembles Bhanupriya in many scenes especially her eyes. Can’t look more at her eyes, she makes me fall for her. Splendid. She is such a natural beauty and is perfect as Maryan’s lady love. She expresses her emotions through eyes. She simply matched Dhanush’s brilliant performance. Among supporting roles Appukutty gives a memorable performance. Jagan is good. Vinayakan is used well but the National Award winner, Salim Kumar was wasted. Uma Riyaz Khan is ok, but could have been better.
Music by AR Rahman, as expected gives breath to the character. His background
score is mesmerizing especially in the second half. ‘Enga Pona Raasaa’
and ‘Nenjae Ezhu’ are classy. The film makes us wait for ‘Nenjae
Ezhu’ and it comes at the right time. It just lifts the movie to completely
another status. Underwater scenes were never shown as beautiful as in Maryan
in any of the Asian films. Cinematography by Marc Koninckx is top-class so
is the editing and visual effects. Not possible to find any technical errors
around it. In almost every frame we can see how hard they worked for the film.
As a film, it looks really classy. The direction of Bharatbala is what drove
this film.
There are so many heart-touching scenes in the movie.
It is hard to feel the emotional attachment between the characters especially in the first half, in addition, somewhere in the first half it slows down but the slow pace slowly takes the audience closer to the character. Anyway an editing of five to eight minutes in the first half would have made it look fast and reached mass audience. Ending could have been handled better. Trailer was misleading. Trailer asked the audience to expect for something fast and thrilling. This film is completely another genre. It is a heart-touching love story. With a bit more care, it could have been a masterpiece. Second half is classic.
Somewhere it reminded me of ‘Aadu Jeevitham’ (Goat Days) an award winning Malayalam novel by Benyamin.
A heart-touching movie with top-class cinematography, music score and performances. A serious contender for all major awards this year.
'Maryan'- brilliant love story with stellar performances
(IANS Movie Review)
Rating: 3/5
It is believed that love has the power to move mountains. But, would you believe
if I tell you love has the power to make someone escape from his captors in
Sudan, and run for his life in the scorching heat of African desert, because
he wants to reunite with his lover waiting for him in a small town called Neerkodi?
Answer is yes. "Maryan", a simple story of love, makes us realise its power
in the most visually extravagant way.
In realisation of love, there is always struggle, and to overcome it one needs
strong will power. That's "Maryan" for you.
The literal translation of "Maryan" is immortal. That's an apt title for the
film, which features Dhanush as Maryan, a fisherman, living in a small fishing
hamlet. His life revolves around fishing underwater, smoking beedi and spending
evenings leisurely with his friends.
Maryan is loved and longed by Panimalar (Parvathy), but sadly her feelings are
not reciprocated. The more Maryan tries to keep Pani away from him, the closer
she tries to get. This eventually leads to Maryan falling for Pani.
Panimalar is caught in unfortunate circumstances and to support her financially,
Maryan is forced to take up employment on contract basis for two years in Sudan.
He successfully completes his tenure and packs bags in jubilation to return
to his ladylove, but tragedy strikes in the form of Sudanese terrorists, who
end up kidnapping Maryan and two of his co-workers and demand money for their
freedom.
After 21 days in captivity, Maryan escapes and runs for his life. Will he able
to meet Panimalar again or not form the rest of the story.
Playing a character suffering is not new for Dhanush, who has played such characters
several times on the screen. However, what differentiates "Maryan" from his
other films is that Dhanush has an equally strong co-star Parvathy, who at times
looks too intelligent in her role, in the film.
Typically, films starring Dhanush turn out to be a one-man show, but director
Bharatbala deserves credit for giving us a stronger female character. It's not
for the underdog you root here, it's for Parvathy, who believes in Maryan forever.
The first half of the film is a tribute to love. I haven't seen a better build
up of a love story in the Tamil cinema, so poignantly touching, in a long time.
The romance between Dhanush and Parvathy comes alive on screen with a hint of
charisma and passion.
A fisherman's strength is in the ocean reference works brilliantly in favour
of the film. You appreciate it only when you reach the climax. In that instant,
you want to cheer for the director for developing his lead characters flawlessly.
"Maryan" is technically brilliant. Be it the scenes in the fishing hamlet or
in Sudan, where even the driest desert looks stunning, these scenes never fail
to dazzle you every instant.
The film's pace could one of the reasons masses may not embrace "Maryan", as
much as they have cheered for Dhanush's films in the past. Irrespective of its
box-office response, I believe this one will go down as one of the brilliant
love stories.
Well-known playback singer Shakthisree Gopalan on Saturday called the people who reportedly walked out of A.R Rahmans Wembley concert "narrow- minded and insensitive".Read More
