some (semi-coherent) ramblings on ponniyin selvan: part ii

"the lies that kings tell are called politics"

Disclaimer: I have not finished reading the books, so I recognize that as a limitation in this piece.

lately, i’ve found stars as a mechanism for rating films to be kind of myopic and limiting. it assigns the illusion of “objectivity” to an art (filmmaking) that, in the hands of a master, refuses to be reduced to numbers. what distinguishes a 3.5 from a 4? A 2.5 from a 2? it doesn’t really matter. this feeling that i’ve had carries over into my feelings about ponniyin selvan: part 2. in any kind of objective sense, it isn’t a “perfect film” (whatever that means). however, as a work of pure craftsmanship and emotionality, ratnam achieves something here that he has not quite achieved since raavanan (2010) and then some. if a craftsman like ratnam, even after his 40 year long career, is able to not just build and expand on images from his filmography but also make you feel like something within you has fundamentally shifted, that is a “5 star” film if i’ve ever seen it.

to get it out of the way, i disagree with this idea that’s been going around that ratnam does not know how to stage action - what you’re actually saying is that ratnam is not staging action like rajamouli or another one of your favorite Soyface Directors. he specifically stages/composes his set-pieces in ps2 such that the audience is a spectator within the action rather than an omniscient observer - the audience position/trend that action filmmaking around the world seems to be taking. now, whether or not that is your cup of tea, is up to you, but you can’t deny the intentionality. take the incredible interval block as proof, ratnam intercutting between three different lines of action (two chases and arunmozhi varman making his way to the elephant) - all of which converge as ratnam ratchets up the tension w/ rahman’s best score in years. aside from the set-pieces, ratnam further sharpens his severe visual economy, a staple of his late career. however, what sets ps2 apart in many ways, is not just the beating heart that the film finds in the karikalan-nandini relationship, but how, through this, ratnam revisits themes and preoccupations he’s had since the beginning of his career. ratnam’s cinema has always been about emotional battlefields, rather than physical ones.

though ratnam sets up the karikalan-nandini relationship in ps1, he further expands on it with the opening stretch of the film, a vision of young love undone by the cruelty of the state (in this case, the chola kingdom) - we start to realize that much of the pre-interval stretch of ps1 is a filtration of this memory through the subjectivity of karikalan - the opening stretch of ps2, instead, is largely seen through the eyes of nandini, as ratnam always foregrounds closeups of young nandini in the visual language, we never go with karikalan to war, we stay in the temple with nandini. it becomes abundantly clear that ratnam offers the same level of empathy to nandini that he offers to the heroines in his filmography (take the scene when vandiyathevan reveals to nandini that mandakini might be her mother), but she is also the antagonist (sound familiar?). aishwarya rai is naturally up to the task, holding the Ratnam Closeup like no other, holding it so well that it puts all the “aishwarya is just a pretty face” fools to shame.

look at the great scene where kundavai confronts sundara chola about mandakini, ratnam here employing the same rotating birds eye shot that he utilized in iruvar, while it is the same type of shot, the function is much different. while the shot in iruvar is meant to communicate the madness of new love (tamilselvan’s recited poetry a clear indicator with maybe some regret coming from senthamarai), the same shot in ps2 communicates the pain of regret, guilt, and lost love. the sins of the father inevitably pass down to the son.

and of course, i have to mention the astounding and earth-shattering pre-climax confrontation between nandini and karikalan, of which i will be doing a proper and polished formal analysis on when the film drops on ott, the trademark ratnam scene of tensions bubbling up to the surface and exploding suddenly; when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object - to call this a good scene is an understatement, it is, in fact, the scene that ratnam has been building to his entire career. it’s ratnam’s reworking of the dil se (1998) climax and also in many ways, feels like a crystallization of that scene too. we see two characters fundamentally broken by the state, one who is complicit in its cruelty and oppression and the other seeing this person as emblematic of everything that she has been denied and has lost throughout her life, driven by anger; irreconcilable love doomed to never exist together. it is a scene not just of one death, but two, like the explosion in dil se, it killed the both of them (see: nandini in the scene after on the boat looks like a corpse and her subsequently drowning herself a haunting parallel with the opening shot of the film) - the only two people that truly loved nandini died in her arms, it’s impossible to quantify the magnitude of that psychic/emotional pain

the pre-climax scene is so strong that it nearly renders what happens after a little…inconsequential, especially since it feels like the conclusion to ratnam’s thematic and therefore cinematic interests. as opposed to ss rajamouli and other indian popular cinema filmmakers who want you to look up to their characters, ratnam instead wants you to look into them, including the antagonist here. to me, it’s pretty obvious that ratnam isn’t going for “perfect cinema” like he was in his early career (to be frank, he is probably bored by that now). of course, can’t go without mentioning ravi varman’s work here, which feels painterly but also nimble and intentionally imperfect. always much more to talk about but at a certain level, i am definitely burnt out by the discourse surrounding ps2. however, when a movie so profoundly drives/inspires me to work and sharpen my own art, i can’t help but attempt to give my two cents.